[rating:3/5]

Better written than Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the author provides some interesting material to ponder. Just the same, the book suffers from Baigent’s obvious bias and wanders from the main topic as part of his attempt to justify the opinions expressed. While the book does offer much to contemplate and provides what appears to be a great deal of good information, there are also so many flaws evident that it is impossible to accept all that is presented.

With regard to Christianity: yes, the past two thousand years have been filled with atrocities committed in the name of God and the author does a good job of highlighting many of those. Even so, his commitment to breaking down existing beliefs is also his downfall as too many arguments are based upon shoddy assumptions. Baigent even has the audacity to claim he saw a document, which he could not translate, and yet has the gall to suggest that it might be critical to the premise of his book. Overall, the book leaves one with many unanswered questions – for that reason, I’ve given it 3 stars.