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 enlarge | Authors: Richard Leigh, Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln
Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 24445
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 614
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7 x 4.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0099503093
EAN: 9780099503095
ASIN: 0099503093
Publication Date: September 7, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-8 of 8
 Gripping, but unfortunately complete rubbish August 20, 2007
William Burn (Nottingham, UK)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Having read this book three times, I feel it might be interesting to offer three short reviews of it, charting my changing opinions as my acquaintance with it grew better.
Reading 1: Truly a thrilling read; inspirational, even. In the single sitting it took to complete the book, I found almost every received idea which I had hitherto accepted as single fact overturned and revealed either as entirely false, or as having a meaning far beyond anything I had ever imagined. History was laid bare, opened up to reveal a great network not only of people but of ideas that had shaped and guided European history for one-and-a-half millennia. The authors had uncovered a remarkable society which had survived in secret since the Dark Ages, and which sought to restore the blood line of Christ to the throne of Europe. My life would never be the same again.
Reading 2: I was baffled. This was no longer the same book which I had devoured so eagerly two years before. Those passages which had so dazzled me were flat, or I could no longer identify them, and the pace had gone. It took me a period of reflection to work out why, but I realised that the book relies on its breakneck pace to keep its narrative going, and that a reader who already knows what is coming around the corner is at a major disadvantage. The nature of this disadvantage is serious: at a second reading one is automatically more critical and scrutinises the evidence more closely, and it was in doing this that, on the one hand the narrative fell apart, but on the other, the glaring flaws in logic, scholarship and writing became apparent. Ideas which were presented as hypotheses in one chapter suddenly became fact in the next, and became the basis for yet more hypotheses which in turn were morphed into incontrovertible truths. The sheer sloppiness of the historical approach shocked me: lack of evidence was taken to be evidence in itself, and absence of proof served to prove anything which lacked evidence. The approach of the book revealed itself to be nothing more than that of a spy novel: a series of clues lead to the revelation of a great global conspiracy. Sadly, that is not the way that good scholarship works. While the effect may be thrilling, what is all too easy to see is that not one of the pieces of evidence which was used to present the case stands up to even the slightest scrutiny, and it is at that point that the book ceases to be worthwhile.
Reading 3: perhaps more motivated by nostalgia than anything else, I returned again to the book to see if I had judged it unduly harshly on my previous reading. If anything, I realised that I had been too lenient. The whole premise of this book (that Christ's bloodline survived in a dynasty of early medieval French kings, later to be taken up by the Cathars, the Knights Templar and a quasi-Masonic organisation) defies rational inquiry, and ignores not only any sane assessment of how history operates, but also the significance of the claim were it to have any merit whatsoever. On the one hand it is nonsensical to believe that there is a shadowy organisation which has lurked in the background of history for one-and-a-half thousand years, and, especially when its leading lights were as disparate as Isaac Newton and Claude Debussy (of course Newton is famous for his interest in masonic matters, but Debussy was hardly in a position to usher in revolution on a political scale, regardless of his brilliance as a composer.) Moreover, it matters not one jot whether Christ's bloodline survived through Mary Madgalene - his children would simply belong to the House of David just as he had done. They would not be Gods, or even able to do especially clever card tricks: the point, if one subscribes to Christian theology, of Christ, is that he was uniquely human and divine. His significance as a human on earth came to an end when he ascended into heaven.
This is one of those galling books which captures the popular imagination and spreads its memes around in the most insidious way, although it would be deeply unfair to accuse the authors of anything so sinister. What they are guilty of is a credulously sloppy approach to writing history, in which unproven and insubstantial evidence is adduced and shoehorned into an absurd thesis which, as they themselves admit, can never itself be proved. Don't waste your time here.
 A gripping read December 18, 2006
Michael (Raleigh, NC)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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.Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE DA VINCI CODE, THE MESSAINIC LEGACY , UNION MOUJIK. That not withstanding, this controversial book is one worth having a place on the bookshelf
 Controversial to say the Least September 12, 2006
J. Chippindale (England)
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book has recently gained a huge amount of publicity with the court case between the authors and the author of the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown. I purchased the book on the back of that wave of publicity and having now read both books cannot really see what the court case was all about. The books could not be more different, not withstanding that the Da Vinci Code has no basis in fact and is a figment of the authors imagination. Most of the books written today contain regurgitated information from other books, either factual or fiction.
This book has a basis in fact, although much of it may be the vivid imagination of the authors. To be honest I don't know the answer. The book is both controversial, shocking and deeply moving. It is interesting and thought provoking. Whether you believe the conclusions that the authors come to, is a different matter and one for the individual. Perhaps the authors findings are as plausible an account of the life and times of Jesus as the one generally recognised by the church as true. It is a matter of the individuals faith. It is very difficult, if not impossible to prove anything either way.
I enjoyed reading the book, that is not to say that I agreed with its findings.
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