Rating: 
Summary: Awful Prose and Arbitrary "Methodology" Distort Mystery
Review: Although this is a terrific topic, full of mind-stretching twists and turns, this team is incapable of an intelligent summary of the question they are trying to "answer." The notion of a geometric key to the Rennes mystery makes a great deal of sense, and some compelling points are put forth ... but with no sense of context whatsoever! Neither author has any concept of the historical and intellectual pedigrees of various gemoetric symbologies involved. This is a merely a pity; it is a crime that the publisher did not involve a competant editor to help these people craft intelligible thoughts before trying to craft sentences. The geometrical exercises are so strained, so arbitrary, so tangential that one is astonished by their abundance! I would have been exhausted by a dozen or so such tinkerings. The real hoot was the thought of these two fellows trudging around the rocky Languedoc landscape mentally triangulating, if you will, between readings from eighteenth-century maps and global positioning satellite data! Overall, it is a pathetic and embarassing exercise. Bad enough to spoil an otherwise delicious archeological thriller!
Rating:
Summary: Pseudo-History at Best
Review: Andrews and Schellenberger have written a fascinating detective novel, but, unfortunately, they are attempting to pass it off as history and religion. Weaving historical facts with conjecture and intrigue, they argue a theory which suggests that the shadowy Knights Templar discovered the body of Jesus under the ruins of the Herodian temple in Jerusalem. They then spirited it away to a mountain in France where it is now buried. How convenient that the authors were unable to dig on the conjectured site! I am very sorry to see books like this because they blur the line between history and fantasy so powerfully as to confuse and deaden the mind. I am all for enlightenment and the liberation of knowledge from those academics who feel that intellectual prowess is their private kingdom. But silliness like this is not the answer.
Rating:
Summary: Pseudo-History at Best
Review: Andrews and Schellenberger have written a fascinating detective novel, but, unfortunately, they are attempting to pass it off as history and religion. Weaving historical facts with conjecture and intrigue, they argue a theory which suggests that the shadowy Knights Templar discovered the body of Jesus under the ruins of the Herodian temple in Jerusalem. They then spirited it away to a mountain in France where it is now buried. How convenient that the authors were unable to dig on the conjectured site! I am very sorry to see books like this because they blur the line between history and fantasy so powerfully as to confuse and deaden the mind. I am all for enlightenment and the liberation of knowledge from those academics who feel that intellectual prowess is their private kingdom. But silliness like this is not the answer.
Rating:
Summary: Do not give away your money for nothing!
Review: Beware this i a HYPER SPECULATIVE book, I bet they wrote it just for the money! The geometry in the parchmnets from Rennes is even not funny. This book will cause the creator of the chypher in the parchments - Antonios Bigou to turn his side in the grave! I have been into the "mystery of Rennes le Chateau" for several years. I even traveled all the way from Sweden to visit the place, which I also can recomend you to do. I have read many many books about the subject, but very very few god ones. Belive me, if you really want to get into the problem I suggest that you order some serious books; check of course "The holy blood and the holy grail" it's a OK. standard introduction. If you want god pictures and hot info. check out Bibliotheque National. "The one that search will find." "The Tomb of God" are among the kind of books that puts the Rennes problem into a very bad and unserious shape. Remeber you were at least warned to buy this book. Sober and serious people will be smart enough to after a very short inspection avoid this book. - Summa Scientia Nihil Scire - P.S I have got the book myself and are not against it because some religious causes.
Rating: 
Summary: It's all about having an open mind
Review: First of all, I think the Reader From Boston MA (13th October 99) should calm down and start drinking decaf coffee! It's about respecting other peoples opinions and views about this particular mystery and religion alike. These people wrote this book from research they had done. It doesn't mean that everything in this book is true. I'm not a very religious person but I still respect other people views about their religion and this person should remember that they are not the only person in the world with an opinion. This is a mystery that WILL interest you but you HAVE to have an open mind about the whole thing before you start reading about it - and relax ... it's just a book!
Rating:
Summary: Quasi-enjoyable Pseudo-History
Review: Firstly, THE TOMB OF GOD is not woth near $20. I got it for $5 through a newspaper-style catalog of surplus books. It was worth that much. THE TOMB OF GOD is pseudohistory. It distorts how things happened, pulls connections out of almost nothing, and is at times anti-Catholic (at least not as rabid as Lincoln's wider anti-Christian bigotry). Also unlike Lincoln's work (Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy) it is not as enjoyable. The Tomb of God (or, as the authors claim it was once pronounced, CARDOU) is stuck in geometry. You have to skip pages at a time to avoid being bogged down reading passage after passage about the importance of 1 + 1/2 degress. Playing the game "Gabriel Knight 3" was what got me interested into this genre, and I don't regret it. If you read it as pretend, like the World Weekly News or In Search Of, it's a pretty fun book. If you're looking for the truth stear clear.
Rating: 
Summary: For Those Who'll Believe Anything
Review: For Those Who'll Believe Anything This work combines the lure of a "Search for Lost Treasure" story with the sinister attraction of a murder mystery, the "Lost Wisdom of the Ancients", the dark world of the occult, the deepest secrets of the Knights Templar, the secret knowledge of the Rosicrucians, the hidden meaning of certain paintings, and a fantastic religious conspiracy that has supposedly remained hidden for almost 2000 years. The authors are clearly members in good standing of the current school of English "religious conspiracy" theorists. "The Tomb of God" is an eerie but fascinating read, as you join the authors in their "quest" for the secret of Rennes-le-Chateau, bouncing back and forth between high-school geometry, Latin, French, history, art, religion, and cartography. The book is handsomely printed, with many pictures, drawings, color plates, and even a fold-out map. The authors provide a highly interesting smattering of all the above in pse! udo-scholarly fashion -- but the main glue that ultimately holds the book together is the unbridled speculation and imagination of the authors themselves. Those with a scholarly bent may enjoy the ride for its own sake, but are likely to find many serious flaws in this work. To start with, the most critical foundation and source material used by the authors is neither primary nor trustworthy -- it is in fact largely unverifiable. Many other items start out as "legends" and wind up as facts. Other crucial material (such as the "Chess Code" in "Parchment #2") is missing altogether -- we must accept the authors' own conclusions on "blind faith". In other areas there is almost a paranoic tendency to read "hidden" meanings into common geometrical forms and linear angles. Many of the authors' geometric constructions (an essential part of their theory), and the interpretations given to them in context are purely arbitrary. There is also a distressing tendency to "fiddle" wit! h information to make it fit the theory -- nowhere is this ! more evident than the use of anagrammatic phrases when the original phrase will not do. In short (and meaning no disrespect), using the exact same methods em-ployed by these authors, I would have little difficulty locating the "site" (The Tomb of God) right in my own back yard. The authors claim that they were successful in their "quest" in locating the Tomb containing the Body of God (Jesus Christ) -- but this is also very conveniently unverifiable (the "site" is buried under hundreds of thousands of tons of solid rock and is not likely to be excavated soon, if ever). The "mystery" of Rennes-le-Chateau has several other far more plausible (and less sensational) explanations that are known to scholars and historians. The authors, unfortunately, do not discuss any of them at length, and although I enjoyed the book, I closed it with the uneasy feeling that I had been "had" by two guys who were writing off their vacations abroad for tax reasons and working all their spec! ulations into a sensational theory (and book) that would attract a lot of curious people and could never be disproven. Having read their theory in its entirety, I myself have one question I would like to ask the authors: If someone went to all that trouble to hide the "body of God" somewhere in the middle of a mountain, and then remove all obvious clues to its existence and/or whereabouts (leaving only hidden, occult clues), then why NAME the mountain "Body of God" ("Cardieu") (i.e., "Corps Dieu", pronounced "Cardieu" in Languedoc) ???
Rating:
Summary: For Those Who'll Believe Anything
Review: For Those Who'll Believe Anything This work combines the lure of a "Search for Lost Treasure" story with the sinister attraction of a murder mystery, the "Lost Wisdom of the Ancients", the dark world of the occult, the deepest secrets of the Knights Templar, the secret knowledge of the Rosicrucians, the hidden meaning of certain paintings, and a fantastic religious conspiracy that has supposedly remained hidden for almost 2000 years. The authors are clearly members in good standing of the current school of English "religious conspiracy" theorists. "The Tomb of God" is an eerie but fascinating read, as you join the authors in their "quest" for the secret of Rennes-le-Chateau, bouncing back and forth between high-school geometry, Latin, French, history, art, religion, and cartography. The book is handsomely printed, with many pictures, drawings, color plates, and even a fold-out map. The authors provide a highly interesting smattering of all the above in pse! udo-scholarly fashion -- but the main glue that ultimately holds the book together is the unbridled speculation and imagination of the authors themselves. Those with a scholarly bent may enjoy the ride for its own sake, but are likely to find many serious flaws in this work. To start with, the most critical foundation and source material used by the authors is neither primary nor trustworthy -- it is in fact largely unverifiable. Many other items start out as "legends" and wind up as facts. Other crucial material (such as the "Chess Code" in "Parchment #2") is missing altogether -- we must accept the authors' own conclusions on "blind faith". In other areas there is almost a paranoic tendency to read "hidden" meanings into common geometrical forms and linear angles. Many of the authors' geometric constructions (an essential part of their theory), and the interpretations given to them in context are purely arbitrary. There is also a distressing tendency to "fiddle" wit! h information to make it fit the theory -- nowhere is this ! more evident than the use of anagrammatic phrases when the original phrase will not do. In short (and meaning no disrespect), using the exact same methods em-ployed by these authors, I would have little difficulty locating the "site" (The Tomb of God) right in my own back yard. The authors claim that they were successful in their "quest" in locating the Tomb containing the Body of God (Jesus Christ) -- but this is also very conveniently unverifiable (the "site" is buried under hundreds of thousands of tons of solid rock and is not likely to be excavated soon, if ever). The "mystery" of Rennes-le-Chateau has several other far more plausible (and less sensational) explanations that are known to scholars and historians. The authors, unfortunately, do not discuss any of them at length, and although I enjoyed the book, I closed it with the uneasy feeling that I had been "had" by two guys who were writing off their vacations abroad for tax reasons and working all their spec! ulations into a sensational theory (and book) that would attract a lot of curious people and could never be disproven. Having read their theory in its entirety, I myself have one question I would like to ask the authors: If someone went to all that trouble to hide the "body of God" somewhere in the middle of a mountain, and then remove all obvious clues to its existence and/or whereabouts (leaving only hidden, occult clues), then why NAME the mountain "Body of God" ("Cardieu") (i.e., "Corps Dieu", pronounced "Cardieu" in Languedoc) ???
Rating:
Summary: Not a Good Example
Review: Hey, I love the Rennes mystery books as much as the next mildly eccentric reader -- as a historian by profession, most of these books count as a guilty pleasure and a welcome relief from jargon-filled critical analysis. However, this book is the worst of the bunch, in my opinion -- the conclusions are completely unsupportable, the geometry is relied upon without recognition of the tenuous nature of many of their assumptions, and it's almost completely unreadable. No matter how shaky the arguments are in many of the other books, at least the books themselves are a good read. Not this one.
Rating: 
Summary: 13th C. Geometric Map of Jerusalem preserved in paintings.
Review: I am writing a third favorable review of "The Tomb of God" (others -- 05/24/00 and 09/01/98), because after studying the geometric method used by the authors to solve the puzzle of the parchments and the paintings of the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery, I have applied their "Teniers Method" to the paintings of J. Vermeer (1632-1675), a famous Dutch master painter. The fact that this method uncovered for me the concealment of a secret geometric map of Jerusalem and southern France in at least 8 of Vermeer's masterpieces is testimony to the reliability and credibility of the authors..."Tomb of God" is a difficult book for anyone who expects light reading. Appreciating it hinges on the reader's ability and determination to follow geometric analyses of ancient parchments and paintings. Those who were unable or unwilling to do so dismiss the book in the harshest terms; many who verified the geometry for themselves -- or who trusted the authors' expertise -- were rewarded with a stunning discovery, and they rated this book the 5 stars it deserves. This is a controversial book because the authors refute the claims of other investigators. I am in agreement with these refutations, for I am familiar with the refuted work. This is an ultracontroversial book because the authors have jumped to a conclusion about Jesus Christ that few are able to share -- myself included. This book is important enough that the BBC of London devoted a documentary to the discrediting of the authors -- a sure sign that the book touched a sensitive nerve. This book is worth the attention of serious students of many disciplines: history of maps, paintings, Christianity, Judaism, the Crusades, Knights Templars, Rennes-le-Chateau, Freemasonry, and the Holy Grail legends and romances. Highest recommendation.
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