BLOODLINE OF THE HOLY GRAIL?
Bloodline of the Holy Grail, Laurence Gardner, Element, Dorset, 1996
Who Was Jesus? NT Wright, SPCK, London, 1993
Laurence Gardner published his Bloodline of the Holy
Grail in 1996 (Element, Dorset). Subtitled The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed,
the book purports to show that the legendary Holy Grail was Royal Blood and none
other than the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ bloodline though Mary Magdalene
became the Merovingian dynasty and the Royal House of Stewart.
It takes a lot of imagination to think that the Arthurian
legends and tales of the Grail really refer to a Royal Bloodline. It is most
likely that the Grail means what the oldest legend says it means: the cup that
Jesus used at the last supper with which some of his blood was collected after
he was crucified. If a bloodline had been meant then why didn’t they say that
certain people have blood that has been turned into the blood of Christ instead?
That would hint that they have descended from Jesus but successfully hide this
secret.
The first warning bell about this book rings when the
author states his approbation and dependence on the outrageous book, Jesus the
Man, by Barbara Thiering which imagines bizarre codes in the gospel which she
deploys to create a boring and disappointing story about Jesus that contradicts
the gospel story.
He accepts the genealogy of Jesus provided in the Gospel
of Luke (page 405). That should tell him that there is no code in the gospels
for how could stories be encoded in a genealogy? If the gospels were codes then
the stories would need to be completely mad in order to keep up the codes.
On page 103, he records that “One very clear property of
the language used in the New Testament is that words, names and titles which
have a cryptic meaning are used with that ‘same meaning’ throughout – not only
do they have the same meaning every time they are used, but they are used every
time that same meaning is required. Undoubtedly, the most thorough studies to
date in this field of research have been conducted by Dr Barbara Theiring…in
some cases, individual derivations of coded names or titles may be complex or
obscure, but more often they are straightforward, though rarely obvious.”
Now suppose the Leper denotes Simon Magus. If there is a code you could only
figure out that Magus was meant if some things were said of the Leper were true
of him. But if some things are obscure then there is no way to be sure. Nobody
uses a clear code with an obscure one.
There are horrific errors in this book. On page 217 we
read, “Rome’s final split with the Eastern Orthodox Church occurred in 867, when
the latter announced that it upheld the true Apostolic succession. The First
Vatican Council disagreed, and so Photious, Patriarch of Constantinople,
excommunicated Pope Nicholas 1”.
The final split did not happen until 1054 AD with the
pope and the patriarch of Constantinople mutually excommunicating each other
though the the Latin and the Eastern Church hadn't been getting along for
centuries. The First Vatican Council did not happen until 1869-70. Also, the
schism was over the papacy and its efforts for domination of the whole Church
and not over apostolic succession.
We read that Peter was never a bishop anywhere (page
217). The most ancient tradition says that he was bishop of Antioch. Later
legend says that he was bishop of Rome. The ancient tradition about Antioch has
more authority than Gardner’s twentieth century speculations. He shows that he
is biased.
It is simply untrue that St Patrick’s’ teaching hinted about having a belief
that Jesus was not God contrary to page 214.
Gardner asks if Joseph of Arimathea was really Jesus’
mother’s uncle and rejects this on the basis that Joseph would have been about
20 years older than Mary which would not fit the legends about him (page 138).
Because of this he says that Joseph was really the apostle James the Just! But
lots of people have and have had uncles younger than themselves.
Page 139. “It is also apparent that Jesus’ mother Mary’s
background and family are not accounted for in the Bible. This is not surprising
since the Church interpretation of Mary’s heritage is that she was a product of
Immaculate Conception”. The Catholic Church never taught that Mary had no father
at all. Yet this blames the Church for the biblical silence on Mary’s family.
And the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception teaches that Mary was without sin
at her conception not that she was born of a woman without a man. And would the
Church doctor the Bible to promote a doctrine that it didn’t even put in it?
Sadly, Gardner takes the rubbish about Jesus inserted into Jewish Antiquities by
the first century historian Josephus as authentic (page 149). He even says that
there was no reference to any scriptural motive in it. He must mean that
Josephus did not write this to fit the Old Testament prophecies to prove they
were fulfilled. But the text says that Jesus fulfilled prophecies in the
thousands. And the Christ which he called his was the title of the man the
scriptures allegedly spoke of. Did Gardner bother reading what Josephus wrote at
all? And the text could be inauthentic even if it did not appeal to scripture.
Linus, a British prince and son of King Caractacus, was
supposed to be the Linus that was the first Bishop of Rome or what Catholicism
says he was: the first successor of the first bishop of Rome, Peter (page 152).
Of Linus, St Irenaeus wrote, “The apostles having founded and built up the
Church at Rome, committed the ministry of its supervision to Linus. The
tradition that Linus was a slave and not a prince is casually brushed off. No
reason is given for rejecting it or for saying that Linus was a prince. The
Apostolic Constitutions say that Linus was appointed by St Paul in Peter’s
lifetime and this took place in 58 AD. Linus was a common name in those times.
There is no good evidence for anything Gardner says. The early records consisted of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers wrote a small number of things in the early second century and nothing in these records which have the primacy over any late legend supports him. We don’t have a clue what became of Joseph of Arimathea after he was dropped from the end of the gospels.
The book is a mishmash of fact and eccentricity and fiction. It poses no threat
to one who denies that there was any evidence that Jesus existed.
Bloodline of the Holy Grail, Laurence Gardner, Element, Dorset, 1996