Bradford University is host to a major internet based, Masonic research resource, which is free to all interested researchers.
This website was created by Dr Robert Lomas as his personal research tool to aid the writing of The Book of Hiram. He has since donated the material to the University as part of the Electronic Special Collections of the J B Priestly Library.
The website – called ‘The Web of Hiram’ first went live on the 1st of May 2003 and unlike some Masonic websites provided by some other universities, all of the material is entirely free for anyone to use. These old Masonic rituals belong to our shared cultural heritage and this website is intended to preserve them in a durable and accessible form.
The site contains a vast amount of old Masonic ritual assembled in the course of investigations into the origins of our order. It is bound to be of great interest to anyone who is conducting their own research into Freemasonry and to anybody who might wish to better understand the background to modern ritual.
Putting together such a large amount of ancient ritual revealed that there is a great story being told across the span of many degrees. We have placed this material into chronological order to create a document we called ‘The Masonic Testament’. It is reproduced as the Second Part of The Book of Hiram.
The Masonic Testament corresponds very closely to the Bible but it contains many more details that are not recorded in the Old or New Testaments. Much of this extra information about the distant past in the Holy Land can be checked against other ancient documents and recent archaeological discoveries. The story told in the old rituals can be read on the Web of Hiram which can be accessed by visiting:
http://www.bradford.ac.uk/webofhiram/
Once you have clicked through to the University site it can then be bookmarked.
We have spent the last seventeen years investigating the origins of Freemasonry and we hope that this website which Robert has created will be of assistance to others who share our passion.
If you want to read more about how the Web of Hiram came to be built visit www.robertlomas.com