Toto

Decoding the DSS

Toto

The NG press release says: Michael Baigent??

Solo

Yup, Michael Baigent . Too bad he is the only one who has anything interesting to say about John Allegro.

Jiri

spin

For the book they should have said, Baigent and Leigh, whose names and the content of whose book, Dan Brown happily used in the Da Vinci Code -- the villain being called Leigh Teabing!

The book is a crock of rubbish by people who don't know the subject.

There has been a recent favourable biography about Allegro, the maverick (or via: amazon.co.uk).


spin

spin

You should quiver at Robert Feather, "metallurgist and religion scholar", as well:

The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran: The Essene Record of the Treasure of Akhenaten (or via: amazon.co.uk)

The Secret Initiation of Jesus at Qumran: The Essene Mysteries of John the Baptist (or via: amazon.co.uk)

The brain goes numb.


spin

Solo

AFAIK the book whose copyright Baigent & Leigh claimed was violated by Brown was "Holy Blood Holy Grail" not the "DSS Deception".

No argument, even if the "DSS Deception" doesn't approach the phantasm of HBHG which found a way to claim that the marriage at Cana was Jesus' own 'royal' wedding to MM.

Baigent's views on the DSS would be a laughing stock, were it not for such scholars as Eisenman and Thiering.

Thanks for the link...will definitely be on my reading list.

Jiri

spin

Oops, that's correct. Same guys, different book. They are on a par regarding quality. Held together with butterfly logic. I must admit though, Deception may have contributed to the need to clean up the scrolls act, even just to show the baselessness of the book.

In defence of B&L, they don't claim to be scholars.


spin

Solo

I would say the Holy Blood comes as close to utter nonsense as anyone could get. That book is based 100% on a fraud (the Priory of Sion) which nearly everyone in France knew was forgery of the silliest kind. The "inventor" of the Priory, Pierre Plantard , used his documents initially to establish his claim to the French throne. He fashioned himself during the war as "Pierre de France". He was imprisoned by the Gestapo but let go after a few months as it became clear he was a cuckoo and no danger to the Nazis (politically, he was a Petainist and anti-semite). One thing BL&L book of 1982 did in France, is that it renewed faded interest Plantard's idiocies (which had been thoroughly debunked in the 1960's) and put pressure on him to recant his hoaxes, which he did in a confession in early 1990's. He is said to have been shocked profoundly by Baigent-Leigh-Lincoln "sacrilege" of claiming for him (as a would-be Merovingian) a direct descent from Jesus Christ.

In contrast, the Deception, while a nasty piece of anti-Catholic propaganda, has some redeeming value. It appears to chronicle rather well the struggles of Allegro (and his mentors), Eisenman, Edmund Wilson, and to a degree even of Geza Vermes, for access to the documents and for this the book has been acknowledged as "interesting and informative reading" by James Vanderkam & Peter Flint in their award-winning overview The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls . The reviewers however reject categorically the conspiracy theory of B&L, arguing that the Vatican (and Rolland de Vaux) had nothing to fear either from the two writers themselves or Eisenman whose Qumran theory of Christianity the two believe the Church tried to suppress.

Jiri