The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant: The Discovery of the Treasure of Solomon

Rating:
Summary: Mining King Solomon
Review: "Thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work" - Exodus 28.

Another fantastic book from Mr Phillips! The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant comes to us after the Holy Grail and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, the Plagues of Egypt and the Two Moses, the real Shakespeare, Robin Hood, King Arthur and Atlantis (I don't think he's done UFOs yet). Amazing to think that one person can produce epoch-making discoveries in so many different areas. I wonder if his fans have the slightest conception of how hard it is to produce genuine advances of knowledge in just one area, let alone half a dozen? Mr Phillips is either the greatest genius since Leonardo or an engaging fantasy-spinner with an eye to the market. Whatever, he's good at it.

He's British, which is why the treasures always turn up here but, strangely, never make the British papers. This is great fun and - a promising development - there are Americans in it this time. Rush to the library.

I have been taken to task within hours of posting the above, so let me clarify. I am not disputing that Mr Phillips's books are REVIEWED in sections of the British press. Of course they are. I am saying that if he had really discovered significant evidence, e.g. of the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, this would have made front-page HEADLINES. It hasn't. Draw your own conclusions. Oh, forget it. Nobody likes a party-pooper.

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Summary: History, mystery and the unexplained
Review: Being an historian myself, I found this book interesting to say the least. The author does a great deal of original research tracing the various Ark of the Covenant legends. The trail he finally decides to follow takes him to Great Britain where the Knights Templars are rumored to have brought the Ark after discovering it at Mount Sinai (at least one mountain that may have been Mount Sinai) in the twelfth century. Once again, there is a great deal of new material here that the author has done much legwork uncovering. The book ends with an extraordinary quest to unravel a series of secret codes left by the Templars and their successors, and a series of what can only be termed supernatural events. I recently visited England and went to the sites involved and have to admit that everything is just as Graham Phillips describes. I'm not too sure what to make of the author and his companion's claims to have seen strange, floating balls of light in the area where the Templars are supposed to have hidden the Ark, but there do seem to be a lot of witnesses the phenomena. I actually spoke to some of them myself while there. This book takes a certain suspension of disbelief, but it is well worth the read. I found it a most enjoyable and well written historical mystery. It all sounds far more exciting than the kind of research I do.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic stuff
Review: I have just finished reading this book and I'm still breathless. It is a great read with some amazing twists in the adventure. It reads like a good novel but it claims to be a true story. I am knowledgeable on Old Testament and early Jewish history and, as far as I can tell, the author keeps to the facts. To be honest, I don't care if it is true or not - I loved every page.

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Summary: A lovely book
Review: I travel a lot between the US and the UK and have visited the area where the author's research in this book led him. It is really lovely countryside near to the birthplace of William Shakespeare. I was a bit skeptical when I began reading this book, but when it turned to areas and places I knew then I became more convinced. I had seen the enigmatic murals in the small church where the Knights Templars left their clues and had always wondered what they meant. It was really wonderful to find an explanation for them in his book. It really is a lovely piece of writing and detective work.

One last thing! I notice that one reviewer says that Graham Phillips does not have his findings covered by the British newspapers. I have seen many features about his work in the UK. This book, for instance, had a whole page feature in the British newspaper, The Sunday Express, and the book before that was featured in both the national newspapers The Sunday Times and The Independent. Whether one likes Graham's books or not, the fact is that he is something of a household name in the British Isles. I hope that soon one of his investigations will bring him to the USA.


Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: If the Ark of the Covenant existed it has to be the most extraordinary artifact in history, says the author of this book. Well, if this book is for real then it has to be one of the most extraordinary true stories in history. I really hope it is, because it not only means that the Ark existed but that it also had the power the Bible says it did. It also means that this world is truly a mysterious place. One way or the other, in this racy, apparently true-life historical thriller, the reader is taken on a journey of discovery that leaves you breathless.

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Summary: Searching for the True Ark
Review: The Ark of the Covenant was, according to legend, an ornate golden chest that was both a means of communicating with God and a terrible weapon used against the enemies of the ancient Israelites. In order to use it the high priest had to wear a breastplace containing twelve sacred gemstones called the Stones of fire. These objects were kept in the Great Temple of Jerusalem until they vanished following the Babylonian invasion in 597 BC.

The author of this book is Graham Phillips. Graham Phillips has been one of Britain's best-selling non-fiction authors for over twenty years. In 1981, after working as a radio journalist and broadcaster for the BBC and editing a popular monthly magazine, Graham first turned his talents to investigating unsolved historical mysteries. He has since written thirteen books which are in print around the world and have been published in ten different languages.

In this book he reports on evidence he uncovered that 13th century Templars found the Arc and the Stones of Fire and that they brought these treasures back to central England when they fled persecution of French king Philip the Fair a century later. Following leads from the Middle East he turned to some churches in the English midlands and ... well that would be telling.

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Summary: Starts off well, but...
Review: The first part of this book, as a theoretical possibility, is fantastic. Phillips does a great job of tracking the possible locations and pursuing the clues and hints that may unlock some historical mysteries involving Moses, the plagues and Exodus, David, Solomon's Temple, early Jewish history, and the existence of the Ark itself. My only complaint falls on his writing style which is simplistic much of the time and his irritating habit of rehashing what had just been concluded at the start of each chapter.
The second part of the book, however, upon his return to England, is borderline ludicrous. The events are hard to swallow at best. It goes from an interesting historical analysis to a goofy treasure hunt through the fairylands. It may have actually happened as he said, but it's just hard to believe.
And he lost me really when he reveals that the American couple who helps him search is one of the guys from Air Supply and his wife. Pointless name-dropping.
Because of the second half of the book, it causes me to doubt the first half as well.

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Summary: I wish history had been like this at school
Review: There has never been a book like this before. Archaeology and history are usually stuffy subjects which don't make exciting reading. Well, now that has all changed. This is a genuinely thrilling, first-hand account of the author's quest to discover the Ark of the Covenant and the other treasures that were once kept in the Temple of Solomon. Staring in Jerusalem, Phillips questions archaeologists and biblical scholars to piece together a trail of clues that lead to an ancient book kept in an underground shrine at the birthplace of Christ in Bethlehem. A passage in this sacred text then leads him to a mountain at Petra in Jordan where he discovers Arab accounts of a treasure found centuries ago by the Knights Templars. These crusader knights, he discovers, took these precious artifacts back to Britain where they built a chapel to house them - relics that were said to have included the Lost Ark and gemstones from the biblical breastplate of Aaron. Together with two American researchers, Phillips discovers a mysterious code left in a church stained-glass window, thought to reveal where the Templars eventually hid what they had brought back from the Middle East.

I won't give too much away, as the story is so exciting that it would be a shame to ruin the plot, but in the end a treasure is finally found - and under the most amazing circumstances. Although it reads like a Da Vinci code, this book is a true story, involving real protagonists and the places and clues involved in the quest are all there to be seen. Considering that there is supposed to be more of the treasure still to be found, I imagine that many others will soon be following the trail. This seems to be the buzz book in Europe at the moment. Don't let that put off American readers. There are Americans involved with the search - and it is an American girl who finally discovers the treasure.


Rating:
Summary: Well written and cleverly researched
Review: This is a neatly paced and inspiring book that handles an involved historical subject beautifully. You feel that you are actually there with the author as he follows a trail of ancient clues in search of the Ark of the Covenant.

The investigation begins at an archaeological dig in Jerusalem where an archaeologist believes that there may be truth in the Bible story of the golden chest that was said to contain the Ten Commandments. We then move on to the Judean Wilderness and meet a reclusive Israeli linguist who helped decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls and who believes that the lost Ark may been hidden centuries ago and is still somewhere, waiting to be found. After finding an early version of the Bible in Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem which reveals the hiding place of the Ark as a mountain cave in southern Jordan, we follow the author to an astonishing ruined city that lies in the heart of the blistering Negev Desert. Here we discover that the artifact has already been found, 800 years ago by the Templars: a secretive order of crusader knights who suddenly and mysteriously became wealthy and powerful. Here begins the quest to decipher a series of intricate coded messages left by the Templars to reveal where they themselves eventually hid the Ark when their order was persecuted in the early fourteenth century.

Graham Phillips has a splendid way of bringing the people and places he visits alive in a descriptive and eloquent manner. He interweaves the historical information neatly and concisely without detracting from the excitement of discovery or digressing from the adventurous narrative. The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant is a well written and cleverly researched piece of historical detective work.


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Summary: A refreshingly different relic
Review: With so many books being written about the Holy Grail at the moment, with the Da Vinci Code making the subject popular, it is refreshing to find one about another sacred artifact. Interestingly, although the Ark of the Covenant is clearly the most important relic mentioned in the Bible, it has been the Grail, or the cup of the Last Supper, which has attracted the most interest by historians and other researchers. In this book, Phillips examines the Ark - the gold chest that was supposed to perform miracles - and proposes some interesting ideas about how it might have worked. He also follows the trail of a group of twelfth-century Crusader knights who claim to have found it and re-hid it when they were persecuted by the Church. Personally, I am not sure that this was the right trail for the author to follow as there are a number of other possible scenarios for what may have happened to the Ark after it disappeared from the Temple of Solomon in Old Testament times. Nevertheless, Phillips does examine most of the other theories in his book, although not in as much detail as I would have liked. In particular: the theory that the Ark was taken to Ethiopia where it is still thought to reside. All the same, this is a well-written, easy to follow investigation, told in the first person with some remarkable adventures along the way.