Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the work that Dan Brown shamelessly plundered

Considering the amount of controversy that has been caused by Dan Brown and his so called "startling and radical ideas" its probably only fitting that people interested in heretical Christian mysteries and the like get back to the source material that Brown plundered. One of the main sources for his book "The Da Vinci Code" was "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" which was published in 1982 and it was both universally denounced by the Church but lauded by more open-minded readers. The book was the result of a decade of investigation by its three authors and even today it is still regarded as an important book, a book that opened the doors for many similar works. But what was so controversial about its subject matter?


The book opens with a scenario that the writer's claim took place between the wars in rural southern France near a village, which has since become an icon for conspiracy theory enthusiasts, Rennes Le Chateau. It is claimed that a young priest managed to get rich possibly by blackmailing the Vatican with information that he had uncovered in a derelict chapel in his jurisdiction. Could anyone have information so startling that the Vatican itself could be threatened? What if they had proof that not only did Jesus Christ not die on the cross, but he married, had a family and fled the dangerous political turmoil of Judea and re-located to the western fringes of the all powerful Roman Empire. The spin off of this is that if Jesus had a family, by Mary Magdalene, and that bloodline thrived down the years then somewhere on the planet are his descendants and those people would be seen as a threat to the Vatican as their very existence is at odds with everything Christianity is built on. They claim that a secret society, closely linked to the mysterious Knights Templars, has throughout history guarded the identities of the Jesus family and holds that secret close to this day. Into this controversial web of events historical realities are linked, the termination of the Merovingian royal line of France, the crusades against the Gnostic Cathars and the destruction of the Knights Templars themselves are all part of the political machinations that were embarked upon by the Vatican in its quest to suppress the truth.

So are there any incontrovertible facts to reinforce these theories? Well the straight answer is no. Although there is an amazing amount of information here it remains just a theory. It remains just an idea; all the information here is either a new interpretation of historical fact or a leap of faith between previously unconnected ideas. That is not to say that the ideas put forward are not well presented, I for one find much here that I like, much that I want to believe, but unfortunately for all the detailed research it remains just another theory that is easy to undermine simply by saying "where is the real proof?"

That said the book is still well worth reading, its ideas were though not totally original, even then, but were new to the popular end of the readership and have spawned an interest in trying to find the historical realities in the previously mystical New Testament. This obviously will not find much appreciation amongst the flock of believers but then I hope that it never was the authors intention to try to undermine anyone's faith, here we are dealing with a separate historical view of events and in this more enlightened age the two do not have to be mutually exclusive. For those amongst us that like books that leave you asking more questions than it provided answers for, then this will not disappoint as it throws up new ideas on every page. It may not give you solid answers but it will give you a lot to think about.