Holy Blood, Holy Grail - A Review
I just finished reading the book “Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG)” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. I had never heard of this book before, nor knew that it was one of the controversial books of its time.
I first heard of the Holy Grail in the now famous book “ The Da Vinci Code”. I prefer non-fictional books and would never have read this one except that it piqued my interest when I heard that it talked about Jesus’ bloodline. Being a staunch catholic and believing in the divinity and resurrection of Jesus, I had to see what this had to say. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and tried looking up the net for more information on the Holy Grail, the Prieure de Sion, but unfortunately didn’t turn up much. It was then I caught sight of the book HBHG at my friend’s place who is a similar book freak like me and gleefully set out to discover what it had to say.
The book is divided into 3 parts:
1) The Mystery
2) The Secret Society
3) The Bloodline
I started out with the first part though I was tempted to jump directly into the bloodline bit. I learnt about the Albigensian Crusade, The Cathars and the mysterious Knights Templar. It made for interesting reading and the author/s sounded more like a storyteller taking you down through history and folklore. I nearly took up theology as a result! Then came the elusive Prieure de Sion and the fabled grand masters and subsequently the Merovingians. But after a point the narrative began to get a lil repetitive and only the thought that I may lose the link to the 3rd part if I skipped the 2nd made me go on.
The 3rd part was the one where the author/s came to the point. They did build up a lot of their hypothesis on documents that I was aware of like the Dead Sea scrolls, the Nag Hammadi scrolls. (2 Books which I already have as a part of my collection). This was the part that managed to hold my interest. They mentioned other Gospels, which they claimed, were more authentic than the ones in the Bible. I learnt about Manichaeanism (Mani, who was proclaimed by his followers as the ‘new Jesus’), Arianism, Mithraism, biblical texts and so on. All in all it made a very interesting read. But at the end it all came back to one point: Was their hypothesis right? Based on their research and findings, it surely was tenable but the doubt still remained whether it was probable.
The conclusion? Did Jesus really die on the Cross-? Was He married and so does His bloodline exist? Are the Gospels, the scrolls and the many other documents that were found - authentic? Is the Holy Grail a cup from which Jesus drank or is it symbolic of his bloodline? The authors say that only the Prieure de Sion can give the answers to this. Till then? I guess leave it to your imagination.
As for my faith, the book hasn’t even put a scratch on it. In fact it has made me all the more eager to learn more about my religion, to fulfill my long cherished dream of visiting Jerusalem and tracing the life of Jesus and the path that He trod. Perhaps one day I may realize that dream. Till then I devour such books voraciously :)
posted by Boo @ 6:54 PM
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