The Messianic Legacy
by Michael Baigent
List Price:
Our Price: $1.19
You Save: $6.80 (85%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Michael BaigentEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1989-05-01
ISBN: 0440203198
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of The Messianic Legacy
Book Review: 3 in 1 - More is Less
Summary: 3 Stars
The follow-up to best-selling Holy Blood, Holy Grail continues the search for the historical Jesus, at least in Part 1 of the book. Part 2 begins to disassemble and discuss Messianic trends in general, and Part 3 deteriorates completely into a rant about a unified Europe and all sorts of conspiracy theories, as well as the now familiar Priory of Scion. Let's look only at the first 130 pages (Part 1).
Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln cover much of the same ground they did in their previous book, dispatching the obvious myths and lies about the life of Jesus. If you enjoyed the previous book, you will also enjoy this one. They rightfully point out that his name wasn't Jesus, he didn't live in Nazareth, he wasn't the peacenik he was portrayed to be, the family weren't peasants, etc. If you like this line of thinking, you should also look at http://www.jesuspolice.com which provides a more evidentiary approach to the same issues.
Readers of Baigent's 2006 book The Jesus Papers will see that The Messianic Legacy is a transitional piece, somewhere between HBHG and The Jesus Papers in its portrayal of Jesus as a Zealot. What the authors suggest in this book, Baigent runs with in his recent book. While you might disagree, they do provide more than a sufficient amount of evidence to suggest that Jesus was certainly aligned with the Zealots in many of their aspirations, even if he wasn't a card carrying assassin.
There are some obvious errors in the book. For example...
- The authors claim that "Herod felt threatened by a recently born child" (p. 30) of the Davidic line, but this seems strange since, by logiocal extension, he should have been afraid of Joseph, who shared a similar heritage, or Joseph's father, Jacob, who also came from this line.
- They claim that "the three wise men" (p. 29) came seeking Jesus, when in fact a careful reading of the gospels shows that there were not three nor were they wise: they were an unspecific number of magi that tradition has transformed into three wise men.
But the few errors contrained therein are far outnumbered by the myths/errors that they correct.
The book is well written and generally accurate, at least for the first 130 pages. Readers who enjoyed their other books will enjoy this one too. If I was only rating Part 1, I would probably give it a 4, but the inclusion of Parts 2 and 3 cause the rating to go down.
Church History Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Church History Books
Dying to Live: The Power of Forgivenessby Harold L. Senkbeil
Concordia Publishing House; Published: 1994-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
The Templars: The Dramatic History Of The Knights Templar, The Most Powerful Military Order Of The Crusadesby Piers Paul Read
Da Capo Press; Published: 2001-10-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
Is There a God?by Richard Swinburne
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2010-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.19
Price in other shops:
William Tyndale: A Biographyby David Daniell
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.92
Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish Americaby Kathleen Ann Myers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Centuryby Mark Sedgwick
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-07-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.04
Price in other shops:
Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (Compass)by Ruth Harris
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2000-12-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.89
Price in other shops:
The Other Bibleby Willis Barnstone
HarperOne; Published: 2005-09-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.00
Price in other shops:
The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus: The Definitive Collection of Mystical Gospels and Secret Books about Jesus of Nazarethby Marvin W. Meyer
HarperOne; Published: 2005-02-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.69
Price in other shops:
The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force ....by Rodney Stark
HarperOne; Published: 1997-05-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.85
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Dead Sea Scrolls Deceptionby Michael Baigent
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1993-04-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.29
Price in other shops:
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volumeby Marvin W. Meyer, James M. Robinson
HarperOne; Published: 2009-05-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.95
Price in other shops:
The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History (Plus)by Michael Baigent
HarperOne; Published: 2007-02-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.79
Price in other shops:
The Temple and the Lodgeby Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh
Arcade Publishing; Published: 1991-04-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Holy Blood, Holy Grailby Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln
Dell; Published: 2004-01-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.73
Price in other shops: