Holy blood, holy grail

I have (very nearly, only a couple of pages left) finished The Holy
Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael, Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry
Lincoln.

I did consider reading the Da Vinci Code after all of the fuss that
there has been about it but the opinions of several people that I
trust (my Mother, Front Row, The Guardian) tended to describe it as
interesting idea, low grade literature. So I decided to avoid the
alleged dodgy writing and read the book that Da Vinci Code was based
upon, namely Hold Blood.

My general conclusion: interesting idea, low grade writing and
history.

The premise of the book is well thought through and generally
internally consistent. So was the X-Files. I have little problem
accepting the concept of a shadowy organisation working through
several hundreds of years to achieve certain aims, I would be
surprised if there weren't many such. Unfortunately, evidence and
rigour are decidedly lacking through out. Referencing is variable,
sometimes very good and sometimes appalling. Some grand claims are
made on the basis of evidence and documents which are conveniently
unreferenced. Many suppositions are made, which is fine, this is
history after all, but then treated as fact upon which further
suppositions can be built, many times over. Again in itself this is
fine, but there is so little evidence and so many alternative
interpretations that it is very difficult to accept this as anything
other than vague theory, which may have a basis in truth or even be
mostly true but then again may just be a long fairy story.

There was one other thing that bugged me slightly. There was a bit
of a rant about synthesis of techniques in academic disciplines,
which I largely agree with, and it seemed that the booked showed a
genuine attempt to develop such aims. Except for the slight
omission, explicitly stated, of even the slightest use of theology,
which is something I feel has some bearing on the subject. And then
of course, the authors make several isolated and very strong claims
of a very theological nature with no attempt to support them and no
possibility of accepting that they may be wrong.

On a journalistic integrity scale of 'The Star' to 'The Guardian' I
give this a 'Sun'; worth a giggle, not worth taking too seriously.