The “Experts”
The scholars mentioned most prominently in the HBHG are Elaine Pagels, Hugh Schonfield, and Morton Smith. None of these scholars take the Biblical documents seriously, and all of them go way beyond the pale of rationality to embrace anything other than what the written record conveys.

Choosing only those experts, which support our view and then selling that view as the accepted expert opinion is disingenuous at best and amounts to cherry picking. For this reason alone, the book fails the test of true scholarly enquiry.

Here’s another example of the authors’ bias in determining the outcome of their investigation:

“Even before we began our research, we ourselves were agnostic,
neither pro-Christian nor anti-Christian…Thus, when our research
led us to Jesus, we could approach him with what we hoped was a
sense of balance and perspective. We had no prejudices or
preconceptions one way or the other, no vested interests of any kind,
nothing to be gained by either proving or disproving anything. Insofar
as ‘objectivity’ is possible, we were able to approach Jesus objectively.”
Emphasis mine. (Holy Blood, Holy Grail; p 408, para 1)

First, the authors mistakenly believe that their agnosticism makes them neutral concerning matters of faith. But how can they “say” they have no preconceptions or prejudices when prior to this they admit a preconception of agnosticism? Second, they equate their alleged neutrality with being objective in their investigation. However, if you are starting with the presupposition that your interpretive construct is true before the fact, how can you claim to be objective?

Quoting again from HBHG:

“We are well aware, of course, that our research has led us to Conclusions
that, in many respects, are inimical to certain basic tenets of modern
Christianity—conclusions that are heretical, perhaps even blasphemous.
From the standpoint of certain established dogma we are no doubt guilty
of such transgressions. But we do not believe that we have desecrated, or
even diminished, Jesus in the eyes of those who revere him. And while
we ourselves cannot subscribe to Jesus’ divinity, our conclusions do not
preclude others from doing so.” Emphasis mine
(Holy Blood, Holy Grail; p 408, para 4)

The point here is if you begin your investigation with the presupposition or bias of agnosticism, and read all the data through that lens, then of course you’ll come out with an agnostic view of Jesus.

In Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln’s own words, they “cannot subscribe to Jesus’ divinity.” This view is perfectly consistent with their prejudices. Their conclusions then, regarding the nature and subsequent mission of Jesus were decided a priori. This is in contradistinction to simply being willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

In the next and final installment we will examine the "poor method" employed by the authors in their fact finding mission.

Yes I know, many of you have been complaining about the wait for the final installment on Da Vinci. I apologize for the inconvenience. A close friend of mine and I are currently working on a new website and it is consuming all my free time. Add to that the fact that my networking is down so I have to resort to raiding the public library's resources if I want to post. Please be patient a little longer. I promise to get the Da Vinci thingy out soon.

Epistemological Ettoufee`
There’s an old Chinese proverb which says, “Before drinking the water, consider the source.” Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, I think that’s pretty good advice.

In this day and age however, (at least in the US) you don’t have to worry about what’s coming out of the tap. You do have to worry about epistemology, though. How is it that we know what we know? How do we decide what is worthy of belief and what isn’t? These are questions of epistemology.

I’m not really that surprised when people accept as fact the “pearls of wisdom” dripping from the mouth of some scholar…or even someone pretending to be a scholar (like myself). What concerns me is when people accept as fact the literary musings of a novelist who for all intents and purposes is just trying to sell books.

Dan Brown is no scholar, and even if he was we would still have to test his hypothesis. In order to do that we need to go to the well Brown has drawn his inspiration from. That well is a book entitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln; Delacorte Press, 1982).

To the writers’ credit the book itself is a readable and compelling tour de force of the conspiracy of history. However, while this work of liberal intellectual rhetoric satisfies conspiracy buffs, it does little in the way of honest scholastic enquirery. The problem is many people have been fleeced into believing it is a work of scholarly import. My superficial treatment here intends to show some reasons why it is not.

Criteria for scholastic enquiry
True scholastic examinations require the writer to invite testing of the very thing he/she is positing. As a literary form, scholarly work demands that the writer give a balanced view—exploring competing theories and marshaling all his/her resources to find what explanation best fits the data. In doing so, both reader and writer benefit from a well reasoned conclusion. This is not the case with Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG).

Instead we have a conspiracy theory based on wild extrapolations from the data. But don’t take my word for it. Concerning this radical “new” interpretation of theGrail Legend, Henry Lincoln, coauthor of HBHG had this to say:

“We don’t know anything about Berenger Saunier the priest. We don’t
Know anything about Pierre Plantard. We don’t know anything about
The Priori of Sion. We know (and that’s the word), we know almost
nothing. The demonstrable and provable facts are very, very few.
All the rest is hearsay evidence, guesswork, and interpretation. None
the books that have been written (including my own) have any validity
whatsoever.”

This is an amazing admission considering it was Lincoln who helped pioneer this movement. But that hasn’t stopped the average layperson from believing that this book is authoritative. Since that is the case, I will focus my attention on exposing why HBHG doesn’t pass the scholastic litmus test.

There are many flaws with the book, but the two we’re going to focus on here are that of bias and poor method.

We all have biases which we bring to any examination. Difficulties arise however, when we allow our biases to do two things: (1) control our source material and (2) determine our conclusions. In the former, our orientation ensures we only use sources which support our thesis. In the latter, we make sure our conclusions are consistent with our presuppositions.

This is why in the field of physics we have theoreticians and experimental physicists. Theoreticians write the explanation. Experimental physicists then audit the explanation by devising a battery of experiments to disprove it. There is a series of “checks and balances” which keep everybody honest by eliminating bias. This method is what separates the science of scholarly enquiry from mere rhetoric.

Scholars have their own set of “checks and balances,” and when they violate those principles they do themselves and their readership a disservice. They end up only telling half the story and so give their subject an unbalanced treatment. This might be fine for the editorial pages of a newspaper but hardly qualifies as scholarly exposition.

For example in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the authors claim a pristine objectivity in their investigation. As we shall see, their choice of scholars, as well as their own metaphysical orientation betrays this claim.