Rating: 
Summary: A Life Changer
Review: This book is meticulously detailed, yet a fascinating read. This is not some softheaded coffee table drivel. The people who wrote this spent years researching it. It shows. It's a conspiracy theory, and conspiracy thories have a bad name nowadays (largely because there's a conspiracy against conspiracy theories<g>), but what is politics but conspiracy? Watergate and Irangate were definite cockups but they were definitely conspiracies as well. One shouldn't have to be lumped along with X-Files style Alien Abduction freaks if you believe that conspiracies abound in the realms of politics and religion.Whether or not the genuinely shocking central conclusion has any merit, the fact remains that this book opens up and disects the accepted wisdom about the history of Europe through the ages, and does so in entertaining style. Great read. It changed my views on religion forever. I'm now *proud* to be an atheist!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but inconclusive and very,very time consuming.
Review: This book has two main merits; it's investigation into the origins of Christianity and the grail/bloodline mystery. Having already heard enough on the former from another book I have to say that (in regards to the grail/bloodline mystery) I didn't feel this book was worth all the effort; slogging through all the historical facts (some relevant & many irrelevant) and lengthy hypothesises. I guess I'm fustrated because after reading the book there are commentators (book reviewers & websites) which undermine all which is said here. This book is only the beginning to a VERY complex, draining, speculative mystery. It's unfortunate how so many things are left unanswered after 450 odd pages.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant - I've been an Atheist ever since!
Review: This Book explains an awful lot that otherwise gets left out. I read this book some years ago and lent it to friends....I've not seen it since!!! There is also a follow-on book to this but I don't remember what it's called - perhaps someone out there can help me with this? Anyone with an OPEN mind will find this rivetting reading. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Catholic Church, Inc.
Review: Coming from the only pre-dominantly Catholic country in Asia (Philippines). Owning or reading this book is taboo and banned from public consumption by the local Church. The book is a brilliant eye-opener especially for our culture where the Church has the absolute authority over its people. Where the wheels of progress is stagnating due to the church's imposition of its doctrines to create ignorance upon the population and continuouly preach the religion of hipocrisy! Little by little, there is a growing awareness but quite limited to the educated-class. The impoverished (which is the majority of the population) are still far from being freed from the bondage of the largest and richest corporation in the world (the Church). Kudos to the author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail! Fortunately, my brothers and I were able to read this book (sometime between 1990 & 1991) until our mother discovered and found it, eventually burning it. To those who will eventually come across this review. This book is worth reading not only for us but for the future generations. It's about time that people of the world should know the truth. Did you ever wonder why there's an ever-increasing convertion from the Catholic religion?
Rating: 
Summary: Stupid, boring drivel
Review: Lengthy endnotes do not make a book "well researched." If you read the notes to this book carefully, you will see that the sources cited deal only with background and irrelevancies. None of this book's central claims are supported by evidence that can be independently verified by other scholars. If you're interested in "the historical Jesus," there are many excellent books available that are written from a rigorously empirical and agnostic perspective. Serious, professional history is much more interesting than goofball conspiracy theory.
Rating: 
Summary: an excellent starting point
Review: Baigent et. al. have, through this remarkable book, taken the first steps in an incredible journey through the past. They are not the first to propose many of the theories presented within its pages, but they do it in such a way as to make them available and understandable to those outside the scholarly and theological circles. This book challenges established christian theology with historical fact and sound logic and should be approached with an open mind. Be prepared to reconsider old beliefs when you have arrived at the final page. However, they have but cracked open the facade of a mystery that spans millenia and would touch all that call themselves christian. The Priory of Sion, the Templars, the Freemasons, Rosslyn Chapel and the Holy Grail; they are but some of the players in a mystery that only begins with Holy Blood/Holy. Grail. Once you are finished here, continue the journey with the Temple and the Lodge, The Tomb of God, The Hiram Key, The Second Messiah, Rosslyn, and The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar. All contribute important pieces to the grander mystery that has weaved its way through history.
Rating:
Summary: modern deception
Review: a brilliant read, see how history was changed and manipulated by the church. see how a poor french monk thumbed his nose at the pope , and because he discovered the "real truth" the catholic church were terrified of him. the more you read of this book the more you become disgusted at organised religion. i am a christian , but follow jesus and his true words and ideas. not modern twisting of what he meant. to HIM money meant nothing...the spirit was all...if we know this we would all stop making the church the richest organisation in history. no wonder all the church leaders hated this book. read and open your mind.
Rating:
Summary: A very thought-provoking book!
Review: Having been raised Catholic and also having been an altar boy serving Mass with the priests I always knew something wasn't quite right. This book explains much about how the Church changed the facts about the life of Jesus Christ in order to sell Christianity to the world. Reading about how the Church also condoned the murders of those who had other spiritual beliefs than Catholicism had me feel so sorry for both myself and those who continue to blindly believe in the Church's teachings without question. This book is greatly detailed, and meticulously researched. I highly recommend it to those who are both open-minded and open to questioning the Bible and the Christian belief system.
Rating:
Summary: A book well worth its controversy...
Review: I began reading this book hoping to find a background and a better lead upon the Holy Grail. What I did find was truly startling -- not so much the actual hypotheses made, but the fact that so much of the past is broken up and scattered about is amazing. I cannot yet imagine what might be so shameful about the Christian religion that anyone would want to hide it. Since this book was written, there have been some obvious reconsiderations. However, this was only an early work into a study which will take much longer to fully uncover. And there is something to uncover; not something that is necessarily religious though. Nevertheless, I wouldn't start dismissing all of the information in the book. There are still quite a few events which can be taken either way. It just depends on how afraid a person is to question the nature of their existence.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worthwhile
Review: Rivetting. This was my first foray into religious consipiracy theory via investigative journalism and I found it fascinating. Its extreme 'readability' is clearly the result of a considered decision to narrate the book in such a way that the reader feels that s/he is accompanying the authors step-by-step in their research, finding out informantion in the same sequence, asking herself/himself the same questions, and (sometimes) allowing himself/herself to arrive at the same conclusions. This makes for rather gripping reading, for we the reader want to know - in the manner of the reader of the quintessential detective genre - "what happens next". This was no doubt intentional since the authors have openly stated that they wanted their book to appeal to a large audience and not be seen as a dusty academic treatise. However, it also serves as a rather manipulative strategy (possibly unintentionally so) insofaras it becomes difficult for the reader to extricate herself/himself from the detective style of the story and objectively consider the validity of the arguments being made. Sneaky, but effective no doubt. I have no difficulty at all accepting most if not all the challenges that the authors make to the Bible and to religious dogma that have emerged from it. Indeed, I find their arguments in this regard highly persuasive. However, I found that quite often the hypothoses which they put forward to replace ideas that have been traditionally accepted - though intriguing - were often the result of rather tenuous arguments based on very little substantial evidence. I accept that this is all speculative, as the authors themselves are at pains to point out, and have greatly enjoyed reading their speculations. The reason why I have been so captivated by the book is that it questions and challenges beliefs and ideas that we are discouraged from questioning. This kind of revisionist enterprise is precisely what is needed - not so that we can come to another equally conclusive and thereby close-minded interpretation of an old story, but to remind ourselves that what we refer to as "knowledge" will always be flawed and incomplete and will change according to the context and position of the interpreter. Of course, those who adhere strongly to religious beliefs will no doubt maintain that knowledge and faith are two separate issues - which is true, to a certain extent. However, when dealing with "man-made" organised religion then it is necessary to consider whose interests it serves and how it came to be so organised!
| 
