cover image Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed

Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed

Laurence Gardner. Element Books, $29.95 (512pp) ISBN 978-1-85230-870-4

One of the most important developments of the last 50 years in religious studies has been the emergence of suppressed and forgotten texts and lore. A flood of new archeological knowledge and newly discovered ancient texts sheds unexpected light on the traditions of Christian worship. Into this flood, Gardner, who holds the office of the Jacobite Historiographer Royal of the Royal House of Stewart, would like to inject yet another revelation: the bloodline of Jesus Christ. According to Gardner, Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and she was pregnant with his child when he was crucified at Qumran, not Golgotha as it is usually thought. Mary delivered a male child before she and her son were spirited out of Palestine to France, where she died. This child became the scion of an amazing genealogy that terminates--surprise--in the House of Stuart. Furthermore, that house did not expire but flourishes to this day. This book is an amazing patchwork of scholarly trappings and dizzy tomfoolery stitched together with myth and fable until it fabricates the amazing argument that indeed the Crown of England properly belongs to the Line of David through Jesus Christ himself. This is exhilarating fantasy worthy of a great romantic novel. (Oct.)