The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, and Richard Leigh, authors of The Messianic Legacy, spent over 10 years on their own kind of quest for the Holy Grail, into the secretive history of early France. What they found, researched with the tenacity and attention to detail which befits any great quest, is a tangled and intricate story of politics and faith that reads like a mystery novel. It is the story of the Knights Templar, and a behind-the-scenes society called the Prieure de Sion, and its involvement in reinstating descendants of the Merovingian bloodline into political power. Why? The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail assert that their explorations into early history ultimately reveal that Jesus may not have died on the cross, but lived to marry and father children whose bloodline continues today. According to the authors, their point here is not to compromise or to demean Jesus, but to offer another, more complete perspective of Jesus as God's incarnation in man. They claim that the power of this secret, which has, they say, been carefully guarded for hundreds of years, has sparked much controversy. For all the sensationalism and hoopla surrounding The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and the alternative history which it outlines, the authors are careful to keep their perspective and sense of scepticism alive in its pages, explaining carefully and clearly how they came to draw such combustible conclusions. --Jodie Buller

View other editions of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
View books by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln.

Alas, it all turned out to be a hoax - Rated
I read this book in the early 90's when I was a student and it's adventurous musings completely blew me away.

UNFORTUNATELY...

BBC2's Chronicle, if memory serves the programme the author's worked on when they unearthed the books 'mysteries' and hit the big time, did a follow up programme years later and discovered that Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln (and Chronical for that matter) had been had big time. The creepy little French bloke claiming to lead the Prieure De Sion (or however it's spelt) - and therefore by extension was a blood relative of Jesus Christ himself - was actually a professional con man who saw Baigent and Leigh coming a mile off and fed them just enough information to string them along for years!!!

Baigent and Leigh refused to accept the evidence (and well they might because it made them look like complete pratts, not to mention threatening their cash cow) but the evidence was pretty damning. As for all their subsequent speculations concerning the Dead Sea scrolls and their radical reinterpretations of the bible, that mostly turned out to be the result of inept research combined with three extremely vivid imaginations.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted! And at least they made a lot more money out of it than the conman!!!

entertaining tosh - Rated
I found this book at first quite enthralling but ultimately disappointing. It promises a lot initially, mainly by pointing out how much criticism it has received from the Church, and by inference suggesting that this must therefore mean that the authors have touched a nerve. Unfortunately, the extravagant claims made by the authors are not backed up by strong evidence. I kept reading for something that had some substance but was disappointed. In summary, interesting but ultimately empty...

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - Rated

Anybody who does not believe everything written in the bible will find this book interesting., and even those who believe in the gospel truth of the bible and have an open mind about it will still enjoy the probing nature of the book. The author said it himself that he does not believe or disbelieve what he wrote because they are more of the opinions of others. He used the particular phrase of "it is said that " in presenting his case.

It should be noted that the book is written to present the cases of those who held the belief that Jesus didn't die in the cross and began a bloodline hat survived him and still survives until today, and those who do not hold that belief. And since the Christian world does not hold that belief, the book had to focus on presenting the case of those who support that belief even if it is far-fetched. I am a Christian and I do not believe the skeptics, still I find this book interesting. It lets one get an idea of how things were during the early days of the church, an unsettling situation which could not be devoid of the emergence of myths. What is myth or reality about the life of Jesus is a question of faith. Still this book is a recommended read. UNION MOUJIK , THE DA VINCI CODE, THE MESSAINIC LEGACY ,DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE,are very easy bookS to read with very captivating stories.

Good read ! - Rated
Fact or Fiction ?
No matter, book read fast, and kept my interest to the end.
However it was hard to keep up with the references at times...

Misleading and Innaccurate - Rated
I read this, along with its follow up, 'the Messianic Legacy' when it first came out in the late 1980s. I thought then that it made for a great story, but over the years, and having studied history more formally, I can see now that the book is deeply flawed in many of its conclusions. For one thing, there is a far more obvious and well documented reason for the apparent wealth of the priest, Berenger Sauniere (suffice to say the authors over estimate his wealth). Sauniere was actually selling masses for the dead, through various religious publications, and basically taking money for masses that he simply not would have had time to perform. It was for this reason that Sauniere was eventually removed from his post. Any reasonable researcher, bearing in mind that written evidence about this was in front of them, would have at least mentioned this before elaborating their far more far fetched explanation, yet these very basic facts are completely overlooked in this book. It is also now well accepted that there was no Priory of Sion before 1956, its so called medieval heritage was completely fabricated. This is a work of pseudo history, which, while it makes for a great story, has little grounding in fact.