Holy Blood, Holy Grail

A lot of speculation and leaps in logic. ( )

Post-it note: "1st American Edition"

EL ENIGMA SAGRADO

El enigma sagrado
"Jesús no murió en la Cruz, se casó con María Magdalena
y su descendencia perdura hasta nuestros días."

Estas sorprendentes revelaciones y muchas otras relacionadas
con temas como el Evangelio, los templarios y el Grial son algunas
de las revolucionarias conclusiones de esta polémica obra.
En sus páginas, los investigadores Baigent, Leigh y Lincoln plasman
los resultados de años de ardua labor de investigación. Pergaminos
cifrados, sociedades secretas, caballeros templarios e historias
sobre herejes cátaros y un antiguo linaje real francés, dibujan
una nueva versión del origen del cristianismo y esbozan la
identidad tanto del propio Jesucristo como de sus descendientes.

El enigma sagrado es un destacado best seller internacional y.
como bien dice el investigador Juan G. Atienza en el prólogo a
esta edición, abre "la puerta para que pisemos sin miedo las losas
de un secreto de siglos, el secreto por excelencia de esa que
llamamos la civilización occidental

Yeah, I admit to wanting to shelve this under humor. I admit to reading this book, knowing full well what I was getting into. I admit to being intrigued by the very honest mystery of Sauniere and Rennes Les Chateaux in general. I admit all of that, and readily.

From a speculative history/alternative history standpoint the book is pretty much fine. From the standpoint of actually trying to be history? It's not so great. The bulk of the book is based on pure speculation, on trying to tie all the strings together just-so that it all makes sense. It's walking on a highwire while balancing spinning plates - it's dangerous work, and something is bound to get smashed sooner or later.

Being interested in Biblical history, I found a lot of faults with that portion of the book. This isn't from the viewpoint of "dear lord, offended Christian" or anything of that sort. This is from the view point of "Um. Textual critics don't actually believe that the Gospel of John is the most historically viable.. why are you saying this?" The problems mounted faster and faster the deeper they ran with this, until I was finally tempted to set the book aside.

Being brave, I picked it back up.

I've owned this book for ages, and I originally purchased it because I wanted to see where [b:The Da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] got the bulk of its research from. Well, I finished it. I'm proud of myself. Now to move on to something better. ( )

This is a good book overall, and seems to be very well researched.

What I like is the rather dry manner in which the authors have written the book. Anyone expecting shocking revelations at the turn of every page will be disappointed.

While the dry style is good, it also means that there are times when your attention wavers, and can make grasping the complex links a bit challenging.

The main conclusion is, however, tenuous in my opinion. Establishing a bloodline with genetic data is difficult enough, and to establish a 2,000 year old bloodline on the basis of documents even more so. I would think that there is some speculation here.

That Jesus Christ was a mortal man, married, and was deified later is entirely possible. I have my own country, and the myths of Rama and Krishna to attest to this possibility. ( )