very interesting!

To be removed from permanent collection temporarily to be sent as a bookring to the following participants:

Iris/Elestr
rillaith
dogsapples
Stefanie/mellowdaisy
marianfrench

others to be added from Liz / LyzzyBee:
titihood (Canada) (Canada/US/Europe)
alanfoxboro (US) (Anywhere)
Elina (Finland) (EU)
aset01 France (anywhere)

sunflowergirl - UK
spacecadetlv426 - UK

Received this morning. It is next on Mount TBR. Will journal properly when I've read it. Thanks for this.

UPDATE
Read this on holiday. It containes a lot of what I've read before but it is well presented. Begs further investigation sometimes. Ready to go on to rillaith now. Will send on as soon as I get their address.

Iris/Elestr:)

Arrived this morning, thank you Elestr. I'd seen the hardback version so although I've been wanting to read this for a while I've been a bit scared about it actually arriving - so I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's a regular paperback, no thicker than some of the heftier books I've read lately. I do find that I read non-fiction slower, though, so this serves as a heads up that it will be with me for a few weeks I suspect. I'll try and get through it as swift as puddin'.

I've finally got to the end of this book - I'm always much slower with non-fiction, for some reason.

I'm very glad to have read it. It was interesting and thought-provoking, and shed light on eras of history that I knew relatively little about. Their logic was sometimes utterly abymsally fluffy ("We can't prove X, but we can't disprove X either, therefore we are going to base our entire assumptions on X being true..."), but there were also very many persuasive and plausible explanations that they suggest. (The main reason I've knocked this down to a 7 was due to the dodgy logic!)

When I was only maybe 100 pages in, just as they start to discuss the Prieuré Documents, I read a fair amount of the content on http://priory-of-sion.com/, which discusses how the documents were a very clever hoax. Unforuntately for the conspiracy theorists, the fact that letters between the two main perpetrators were seized when the house of Pierre Plantard was raided for some other reason, and that the letters discussed how to combat doubts raised and how to further improve the hoax, means that it's difficult to reasonably argue the conspiracy side of "well of course they want you to think it was a hoax" ... Nonetheless, a good amount of the book (and the Hoax!) is based on earlier documents and research that is not impugned by the highly questionable veracity of the Prieuré Documents, leaving a good portion of their hypotheses still entirely viable!

The final section, discussing the likely story of Jesus based on both the history of the time he lived and the time and environment in which the gospels and other documents were written, finally responded to questions I've had since I was at school. When we studied the bible in RE, we were taught that the historical context was important, but we only considered the context of the time of the stories, not the authors. I had to agree that many of their conclusions were highly probably and logical, while at the same time being well aware how many people with a strong faith would shut down at some of the suggestions and thus miss many of the other points .... After all, when one is discussing the possibilities of Jesus's bloodline continuing, does it matter whether or not the crucification was a hoax if it's highly likely that he sired children to a wife before then anyway?


(Major downside to the book: I've started using expansive, flowery words and being overly effusive in my summation of the book!)


Many many thanks, Freda, for sharing - I've PMed dogsapples for an address and will be posting it soon.

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted this morning, with THE most enormous queue Basingstoke Post Office has possibly ever seen... (So much so that I was late bck to my car and got there just as the bloke was about to stick a parking ticket to my window. Oooooof :( )

Received today - thank you Rillaith for braving the post office to send it to me. Looking forward to finding out what this book is all about.

CAUGHT IN BRISTOL BRISTOL UK

That was me doing previous entry - oops forgot to log in first!

A curious and interesting book but rather heavy going. I didn't really get all of it probably becasue I tried to read it at my normal speed. This is a book I would like to study further so have made a note to re-visit it one day, but preferably not when its in a ring so I can take more time over it. I did like the style of writing but its one of those books where i feel I need to make notes as I go along so that I get the most out of it.

Will be on its way to mellowdaisy as soon as i've got her address. Thank you for sharing this book fredam

Going to mellowdaisy today

This arrived this morning, thank you to dogsapples for sending it on and thank you to fredam for sharing the book! I am seriously inundated with bookrings at the moment and this is the fourth one to arrive in the past couple of days! I do have a regular reading slot now so I will try and get through them as quick as I can and pass this on soon!
UPDATE 10/06/06: I started reading this last weekend so I am working my way through it at the moment. I must say I read a bit slower too when it's non-fiction, but still enjoying it all the same. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can pass it on.

I'm afraid I'm having to pass on this book unfinished. I've not read a lot of non-fiction before and I'm finding it hard going, it's not that easy to read and as a result I'm not enjoying it.

I've PMed marianfrench for an address and will be passing this on as soon as I have one.

Thank you to fredam for giving me the opportunity to read this book in the first place.

Book arrived safe and sound - thank you

I thought that this was a very thought-provoking book. It is amazing how much you just accept simply because you have grown up with it. I think that the book is superbly written, given the complexity of the evidence and material being presented.
I just need to check where the book is to go to next and I will forward it on asap. Thank you for the opportunity to read.

On its way to titihood 21/11/06

Arrived in the post the other day... looks quite interesting although dense. Should keep my brain occupied!

JAN 27 - I am really not in a good frame of mind these days (lots of personal crap making me sad) and really don't think I will get round to this book - terrible as this may sound I seem to need things that are light and entertaining at the moment; easy things where my brain can just stop going round.

PMing next BCer for their address.

I received this book in the mail today. Thanks to fredam for the bookring and to titihood for sending it on to me. I will read it and post a review ASAP.

I have wanted to read this book ever since the lawsuit filed over the release of the Da Vinci Code movie. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is really the mother of all conspiracy theories, and makes for fascinating reading, although most of its major foundations have been definitively shown to be a hoax (see the already mentioned http://www.priory-of-sion.com). I have read several places that most serious historians don't regard The Holy Blood as legitimate scholarly research. Despite this, a major motion picture on this subject is being released this year called Bloodline (http://www.bloodline-themovie.com), so some people obviously still take the content of this book seriously.

Thanks to fredam for sharing this book. I am waiting on the address of the next reader to send it on.