When Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, both Masons, set out to find the origins of freemasonry they had no idea they would find themselves unravelling the true story of Jesus Christ and the original Jerusalem Church. As a radically new picture of Jesus and his ultra-Jewish sect started to emerge, the authors came to the controversial conclusion that the key rituals of modern Freemasonry were practiced by the sect as a means of initiation into their community.
Rigorously analysing and comparing ancient Egyptian records, the Old and New Testaments, early Christian and Rabbinical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rituals of Freemasonry, the authors have been able to reconstruct the lost story of Jesus and his brother James and describe their struggle to establish the 'Kingdom of heaven' upon earth using Masonic-style rituals. The establishment of the Christian Church is shown to be a political invention that has little connection with the man we call 'Christ'.
The early Christians buried their most precious scrolls beneath Herod's temple shortly before they and the city was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Lost to the world for over a millennium they were clandestinely unearthed and interpreted by the infamous Order of the Knights Templar who adopted these ancient teachings and the rituals as their own.
The book reaches its exciting climax with the authors deciphering precise clues concealed within Masonic ritual that turned out to be the key to unlocking the secret of the final resting place of the scrolls of Jesus: A magnificent shrine that is a detailed reconstruction of the ruined temple of Herod - built by the descendents of the Templars and the first modern Freemasons over 500 years ago.
The true teachings of Jesus have survived and are waiting excavation!
'A breakthrough book. The last four thousand years are never going to look the same again.'
- Graham Hancock, author Fingerprints Of The Gods
'This is an enthralling story, full of ingenious connections. Academic orthodoxies should always be challenged, and I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to believe that there are more threads to history than we yet know.'
- Prof. Philip R. Davies, Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield
"Searching for information on all recorded mummies we were immediately struck by the details of the very strange remains of a young man who in life had been over five feet eight inches tall. Photographs of the unwrapped mummy were conspicuous because of the appearance of extreme agony on the face as well as the details of the burial which were highly unusual. The body had not been embalmed in that there was no incision and all the internal organs were in place. Whilst the individual had therefore not been mummified in the usual sense of the word, he had been wrapped in the normal manner. Strangely no attempt had been made to set the angle of the head or compose the facial features and the initial effect is of a man issuing a long, terrible scream. The arms are not at the side of the body nor crossed on the chest in the usual manner but stretched downwards with the cupped hands covering, yet not quite touching, the pubic region. Beneath the hands lies a space where the genitals should be. This man had been castrated. As the possibility of coincidence evaporated, we knew with utter certainty that we had not only found Hiram Abif, the legendary architect of the Temple, but after three and a half thousand years we had solved the circumstances of the killing and identified one of the murderers.'
"The Hiram Key" ARROW ISBN 0-09-969941-9
Jacket Illustration/Design: Greg Clark
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