Holy Blood, Holy Grail

From RationalWiki

Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a 1982 book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, which claims to expose the true secret of the Holy Grail.

Essentially, the theory proposed in the book is:

• Jesus Christ's death was faked.
• Jesus and Mary Magdalene married, had children, and moved to France.
• Jesus' descendants became the Merovingian dynasty and, through them, the basis for all of Europe's royal families
• This secret is that the "Holy Grail" is not, as traditionally accepted, a cup that once held the blood of Christ, but literally, the blood of Christ itself. The idea comes from the similarity between the phrases, san greal (holy grail) and sang real (royal blood).
• The Priory of Sion are a secret organization devoted to keeping this secret and helping Jesus' heirs.
• The Roman Catholic Church is aware of all this and has been involved in covering it up.
• The end goal is a pan-European government headed by one of these descendants; in particular, the current head of the house of Habsburg.

Dan Brown's massive best-seller novel The Da Vinci Code borrowed many aspects of these theories. The theories are not generally accepted by historians, or even most readers of wild-eyed fiction.