Is the traditional, accepted view of the life of Christ in some way incomplete?
- Is it possible Christ did not die on the cross?
- Is it possible Jesus was married, a father, and that his bloodline still exists?
- Is it possible that parchments found in the South of France a century ago reveal one of the best-kept secrets of Christendom?
- Is it possible that these parchments contain the very heart of the mystery of the Holy Grail?
According to the authors of this extraordinarily provocative, meticulously researched book, not only are these things possible -- they are probably true so revolutionary, so original, so convincing, that the most faithful Christians will be moved; here is the book that has sparked worldwide controversey.
"Enough to seriously challenge many traditional Christian beliefs, if not alter them."
-- "Los Angeles Times Book Review"
"Like "Chariots of the Gods?."..the plot has all the elements of an international thriller."
-- "Newsweek"

"From the Paperback edition."

What if everything we have been told about the origins of Christianity is a lie?

What if a small group had always known the truth and had kept it hidden . . . until now?

What if there is evidence that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion?

In Holy Blood, Holy Grail Michael Baigent and his co-authors Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh stunned the world with a controversial theory that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene married and founded a holy bloodline. The book became an international publishing phenomenon and was one of the sources for Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. Now, with two additional decades of research behind him, Baigent's The Jesus Papers presents explosive new evidence that challenges everything we know about the life and death of Jesus.

Torture in custody, faking evidence, enforced betrayal of family and neighbours, and mass execution - such things are the tools of murderous dictators and police states. But for hundreds of years they were also the tools of the Inquisitors of the Roman Catholic Church, used by them against heretics, Protestants and witches - indeed, any group that appeared to threaten the papacy. Here, from bestselling authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, is the truth about one of the most horrifying and sinister organizations ever. Covering the entire history of the Inquisition - from its beginnings in thirteenth-century France to its present-day incarnation as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - it details both the Roman and Spanish inquisitions, covering, among other subjects, the career of the notorious Tomás de Torquemada, the mania of witchfinding, the Inquisition as censor, and the shift in the Inquisition's role from 'purifying' the faith to protecting papal power.

In this enthralling historical detective story, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail trace the flight after 1309 of the Knights Templar from Europe to Scotland, where the Templar heritage was to take root, and would be perpetuated by a network of noble families. That heritage, and the Freemasonry that arose from it, became inseparable from the Stuart cause. The Temple and the Lodge charts the birth of Freemasonry through the survival of Templar traditions, through currents of European thought, through the mystery surrounding Rosslyn chapel, and through an elite cadre of aristocrats attached as personal bodyguards to the French king. Pursuing Freemasonry through the 17th and 18th Centuries, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh reveal its contribution to the fostering of tolerance, progressive values, and cohesion in English society, which helped to pre-empt a French-style revolution. Even more dramatically, the influence of Freemasonry emerges as key facto in the formation of the United States of America as an embodiment of the ideal 'Masonic Republic'.

A nineteenth century French priest discovers something in his mountain village at the foot of The Pyrenees, which enables him to amass and spend a fortune of millions of pounds. The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago. The author's conclusions are persuasive: at the core is not material riches, but a secret - a secret of explosive and controversial proportions, which radiates out from the little Pyrenees village all the way to contemporary politics and the entire edifice of the Christian faith. It involves nothing less than...the Holy Grail.

Bestselling Author Michael Baigent Exposes Religious Extremists' Efforts to Hasten the World's End in Jerusalem

Do you believe in prophecy? The Bible as literal truth? Armageddon? The Rapture? The return of the Da'jaal? Or the creation of a worldwide caliphate as a harbinger of the end of time? More important, if presented with compelling evidence, would you believe that there are today powerful forces actively conspiring to bring about these cataclysmic events within our lifetime?

In his provocative book Racing Toward Armageddon, Michael Baigent, bestselling author and one of the most controversial religious theorists of our time, turns his keen attention to modern-day Jerusalem and its increasingly important role in global affairs, exploring yet another of his explosive theories: that hard-liners within the three great Abrahamic religions, many of whom hold positions of enormous influence in government, industry, and the military worldwide, are working to hasten our end as prophesied in each of their texts and traditions of faith. Exposing these forces, the myths upon which many of their beliefs are based, the stealth action they have been taking for decades, and the insidious and potentially devastating effect they are having upon the educational, political, cultural, and spiritual fabric of our society, Baigent poses the pressing question: Can we really afford to remain oblivious much longer?

Will current generations live to see Armageddon?

Are there really sinister forces at work, encouraging its imminent arrival? If so, who exactly are they?

In his latest investigative book Michael Baigent takes us to the assembly hall of the UN, the boardrooms of major businesses and powerful lobbying groups, the cabinet meetings of world leaders, the ranches of cattle breeders, the churches of the faithful, and the narrow winding streets of modern Jerusalem, revealing to us the many diverse, public, and clandestine figures behind a perilous messianic agenda.

By unveiling truly bizarre alliances, revisiting centuries-old ghostly events still haunting the birthplaces of religion, unraveling complex threads of history to discern the difference between myth and prophecy, and providing a thorough explication of the religious texts underlying all of this madness in the context of the times in which they were written, Baigent presents a very different view of the past, present, and future than that perpetuated by many loose interpretations of scripture.

What are faith force multipliers? Which members of the U.S. military top brass have fought to employ them? Which world leader belongs to a secret messianic society called the Hojjatieh? What is the Chalcedon Foundation? And what is the correlation between its tenets, those of sharia law, and the fulfillment of end-time prophecies?

The answers to these questions and others will intrigue, mystify, and enrage you, whether you're a person of faith or a staunch secularist. But the author's goal is not simply to shock the reader--it is to help diffuse the time bomb that has been set by the hard-liners of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the end, Baigent asks these questions to deliver an urgent message: that spiritual yearning is actually a deep and personal issue of awareness, one that can bring hope and tolerance to the world, rather than the self-superiority and control that are born of fear and conflict.

The oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, only to be kept a tightly held secret for nearly fifty more years, until the Huntington Library unleashed a storm of controversy in 1991 by releasing copies of the Scrolls. In this gripping investigation authors Baigent and Leigh set out to discover how a small coterie of orthodox biblical scholars gained control over the Scrolls, allowing access to no outsiders and issuing a strict "consensus" interpretation. The authors' questions begin in Israel, then lead them to the corridors of the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition. With the help of independent scholars, historical research, and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity -- insights that challenge the Church's version of the "facts." More than just a dramatic exposé of the intrigues surrounding these priceless documents, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception presents nothing less than a new, highly significant perspective on Christianity.

This book asks the questions "Did Jesus actually found Christianity?" and "Was there more than one Christ?". In attempting to determine the discrepancies between early and modern Christian thought it delves into the secrets of the Prieure de Sion, "The Guardians of the Holy Grail".

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail" rocked the very foundations of Christianity. Now four more years of research have uncovered shocking material -- and its earthshaking consequences.
- What extraordinary meaning lies behind Jesus' title -- "King of the Jews"?
- Was there more than one Christ?
- Who really constituted Jesus' following -- and what were the real identities of Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot?
- Who now has the ancient treasure of the Temple of Jerusalem?
- What is the true source of today's Christian "Fundamentalism"?
- What links the Vatican, the CIA, the KGB, the Mafia, Freemasonry, and the Knights Templar?
- What is the stunning goal of the European secret society that traces its lineage back to Christ and the House of David?
"The Messianic Legacy." Here is the book that reveals the answers to these intriguing, potentially explosive questions. Utilizing the same meticulous research that catapulted their first book onto the best seller lists, the authors again bring an enlighteneing message of truth -- and urgent importance -- to Christians and non-Christians the world over.

"From the Paperback edition."