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#TheHolyBloodAndTheHolyGrail

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (retitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the United States) is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln.The book was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape in London, as an unofficial follow-up to Read More..

by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln

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Description	The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (retitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the United States) is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln.The book was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape in London, as an unofficial follow-up to three BBC Two TV documentaries that were part of the Chronicle series. The paperback version was first published in 1983 by Corgi books.ISBN 0-552-12138-X. A sequel to the book, called The Messianic Legacy, was originally published in 1986. The original work was reissued in an illustrated hardcover version with exclusive new material in 2005.Published by Century, part of The Random House Group Limited. ISBN 1-84413-840-2 One of the books that the authors claim influenced the project was L'Or de Rennes (later re-published as Le Trésor Maudit), a 1967 book by Gérard de Sède, with the collaboration of Pierre Plantard.Plantard de Saint-Clair, Pierre, L'Or de Rennes, mise au point (La Garenne-Colombes, 35 bis, Bd de la République, 92250; Bibliothèque Nationale, Depot Legal 02-03-1979, 4° Z Piece 1182).In The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the authors put forward a hypothesis, that the historical Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had one or more children, and that those children or their descendants emigrated to what is now southern France. Once there, they intermarried with the noble families that would eventually become the Merovingian dynasty, whose special claim to the throne of France is championed today by a secret society called the Priory of Sion. They concluded that the legendary Holy Grail is simultaneously the womb of saint Mary Magdalene and the sacred royal bloodline she gave birth to.An international bestseller upon its release, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail spurred interest in a number of ideas related to its central thesis. Response from professional historians and scholars from related fields was universally negative. They argued that the bulk of the claims, ancient mysteries, and conspiracy theories presented as facts are pseudohistorical.Martin Kemp, Professor of Art History at Oxford University, on the documentary The History of a Mystery, BBC Two, transmitted on 17 September 1996, commenting on books like The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail: "There are certain historical problems, of which the Turin Shroud is one, in which there is 'fantastic fascination' with the topic, but a historical vacuum - a lack of solid evidence - and where there's a vacuum - nature abhors a vacuum - and historical speculation abhors a vacuum - and it all floods in...But what you end up with is almost nothing tangible or solid. You start from a hypothesis, and then that is deemed to be demonstrated more-or-less by stating the speculation, you then put another speculation on top of that, and you end up with this great tower of hypotheses and speculations - and if you say 'where are the rocks underneath this?' they are not there. It's like the House on Sand, it washes away as soon as you ask really hard questions of it." Nevertheless, these ideas were considered blasphemous enough for the book to be banned in some Roman Catholic-dominated countries such as the Philippines.In a 1982 review of the book for The Observer, literary critic Anthony Burgess wrote: "It is typical of my unregenerable soul that I can only see this as a marvellous theme for a novel." Indeed, the theme was later used by Margaret Starbird in her 1993 novel The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, and by Dan Brown in his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.Quoting Dan Brown from NBC Today, 3 June 2003: "Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact" (found in )
Description	The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (retitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the United States) is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln.The book was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape in London, as an unofficial follow-up to three BBC Two TV documentaries that were part of the Chronicle series. The paperback version was first published in 1983 by Corgi books.ISBN 0-552-12138-X. A sequel to the book, called The Messianic Legacy, was originally published in 1986. The original work was reissued in an illustrated hardcover version with exclusive new material in 2005.Published by Century, part of The Random House Group Limited. ISBN 1-84413-840-2 One of the books that the authors claim influenced the project was L'Or de Rennes (later re-published as Le Trésor Maudit), a 1967 book by Gérard de Sède, with the collaboration of Pierre Plantard.Plantard de Saint-Clair, Pierre, L'Or de Rennes, mise au point (La Garenne-Colombes, 35 bis, Bd de la République, 92250; Bibliothèque Nationale, Depot Legal 02-03-1979, 4° Z Piece 1182).In The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the authors put forward a hypothesis, that the historical Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had one or more children, and that those children or their descendants emigrated to what is now southern France. Once there, they intermarried with the noble families that would eventually become the Merovingian dynasty, whose special claim to the throne of France is championed today by a secret society called the Priory of Sion. They concluded that the legendary Holy Grail is simultaneously the womb of saint Mary Magdalene and the sacred royal bloodline she gave birth to.An international bestseller upon its release, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail spurred interest in a number of ideas related to its central thesis. Response from professional historians and scholars from related fields was universally negative. They argued that the bulk of the claims, ancient mysteries, and conspiracy theories presented as facts are pseudohistorical.Martin Kemp, Professor of Art History at Oxford University, on the documentary The History of a Mystery, BBC Two, transmitted on 17 September 1996, commenting on books like The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail: "There are certain historical problems, of which the Turin Shroud is one, in which there is 'fantastic fascination' with the topic, but a historical vacuum - a lack of solid evidence - and where there's a vacuum - nature abhors a vacuum - and historical speculation abhors a vacuum - and it all floods in...But what you end up with is almost nothing tangible or solid. You start from a hypothesis, and then that is deemed to be demonstrated more-or-less by stating the speculation, you then put another speculation on top of that, and you end up with this great tower of hypotheses and speculations - and if you say 'where are the rocks underneath this?' they are not there. It's like the House on Sand, it washes away as soon as you ask really hard questions of it." Nevertheless, these ideas were considered blasphemous enough for the book to be banned in some Roman Catholic-dominated countries such as the Philippines.In a 1982 review of the book for The Observer, literary critic Anthony Burgess wrote: "It is typical of my unregenerable soul that I can only see this as a marvellous theme for a novel." Indeed, the theme was later used by Margaret Starbird in her 1993 novel The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, and by Dan Brown in his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.Quoting Dan Brown from NBC Today, 3 June 2003: "Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact" (found in )

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Name	The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
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Authors	Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln
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Language	English
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Country	United Kingdom
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