However, these theories seem rather mere speculations, as the authors have very few sources and bibliography, and although the book presents these hypotheses as a consistent and solid all, would have been better if it had more opinions from the experts, which the authors are not. Other books dealing with similar themes have more than one hundred bibliographic sources, this barely reaches twenty.

Knight and Lomax claim to have analysed their sources rigorously, including the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible, ancient Jewish texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic Gospels, and Masonic rituals to support their conclusions. They note the global significance of religion and that any major refutation of commonly held beliefs would meet resistance from the established and orthodox authorities in any particular religion. In support of that point Knight and Lomax cite the treatment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They note that, 40 years after their discovery, only about half of the available material had ever been published or made available for independent review. It was not until 1991 that public access restrictions were lifted. The scrolls contained various versions of Biblical texts, all of which were more than 1000 years older than the oldest surviving Hebrew texts that were produced by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher in AD 1008. The texts of these scrolls are believed by the authors to have been written by ancestors of the same Qumran community of the Judaean hills that found them. The authors also believe that the Qumran Community were Essenes, and that they and the Nasoreans and the original Jerusalem Church were all one and the same. That is, the ancient Qumranians were the first Christians. The Knights Templar, discovering the Qumran communities' records in the vaults under the Temple in Jerusalem, transported them to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.Though, most of the book is based on the imaginary connection between 2,000 years of symbolism. The biggest mistake that they make in my view is that over time, symbolism, even if held in strict hidden social societies, has been consistent to them. This is by far the truth. Sure symbolism can hold a similar meaning, though the interpretation and its 'popular' views of the time it represents may become deluded to the now scholar. By the end one realizes that the scrolls are wishful thinking, though that they have had indeed pointed out some small threads as leads for their assumptions. Most of their evidence is a single thread of almost opinion, which allows their research to unfold.

Am interesting read. Knight and Lomas weave a convincing "history" of freemasonry starting with Ancient Egypt, through King Solomon's Temple, to Jesus Christ, through the Knights Templar and on to modern Freemasonry, with plenty of more stops along the way. The Knights Templar are the direct ancestors of the first Masonic lodges emerged in Scotland and England in the seventeenth century. The authors believe that Jesus did not claim to be divine, but was instead a messiah in the Jewish sense of the term, a good man and a freedom fighter, trying to liberate the Jews from Roman occupation. The original “Hiram Abif” (in ritual, the architect of Solomon’s Temple), was actually Seqenenre Tao (c. 1614-1550 BCE), last Pharaoh of Thebes during the Seventeenth Dynasty of the Second Intermediate Period, whose death wounds (evidenced by his mummy) appear to correspond with those of Hiram Abif. Knight and Lomas are not professional historians nor have they any qualifications in history or research, and their case is open to the criticism that they accept references that fit their theory and reject those that conflict with it. .

Retailers:

They did a vigorous analysis and comparison of ancient Egyptian records and compared them to the Old and New Testament as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. I cannot comment on how versed they are in ancient languages, so it is hard for me to really conclude how accurate these comparisons are. The do seem to make a decent case for early Christian rituals and some of the Masonic rituals, however. The biggest problem I ran into was their claim that the Christian Church was a political creation and had really had no connection with Jesus Christ. I reject that having been a practicing Christian for well over 20 years now, with far too many personal encounters with the Holy Spirit (including Christ). Freemasonry can trace its roots to the death of the Egyptian king Sequenenre in 1570 B.C. at the hands of the Hyksos. The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasonry, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus, [1] is a 1996 book by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. The authors, both Freemasons, present a theory of the origins of Freemasonry as part of their "true story" of the historical Jesus and the original Jerusalem Church. A lot of this should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I referred to this book as “speculative non-fiction”, as speculation takes a big hand in piecing this puzzle together. Just because two things look alike doesn’t mean that one influenced the other, so much of symbology comes from the subconscious. Much of their theories fly in the face of conventional interpretation. In other cases, much of their work is playing connect-the-dots with historical oddities. But there is food for thought here; the origin of the Shroud of Turin, for example, remains a mystery, as it appears to be an authentic relic, but far too late to be the burial shroud of Jesus. Jesus did not claim to work miracles, according to the authors. When Jesus claimed to have raised Lazarus from the dead, it was intended as an allegorical reference; followers were referred to as the "living" and others were referred to as the "dead" in certain Jewish esotericism of the time. Similarly, Jesus' turning water into wine merely meant elevating people to a higher status within the framework of the sect.