holy grail quest

[ken-d-wood]

what is the holy grail?
A cup? (i don't think so)
Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene?
Did they have a child together?
Is the child the holy grail?
Holy grail = royal blood?
Is the church keeping it a secret?

[squarebear]

The Holy Grail is supposedly the cup that was used at the Last Supper.

[Whickerman]

if you're really interested, get hold of the following books:

the Hiram Key
Holy Blood and Holy Grail
Bloodline of the holy Grail.

[juliacornwal]

You've been caught up in the Da Vinci Code unless I'm much mistaken. And no, the child Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have had wouldn't have been the Grail, the blood line would be the Grail.
Frankly I loved the idea of the Da Vinci Code and to me it made better sense than the eternal search for a wooden cup (well it would have had to be wood, really, since the participants at that meal were the common man, so to speak) but sadly I don't think there's any truth in the code at all.
I think the Grail story has come down to us because it used to be so important in the dim and distant past, and the most idealistic thing for a knight with nothing better to do to go searching for.
On the bottom line, unless there is some explosive secret to be found in the Grail legend, it's not really any more important in the great scheme of things than the date and age of the Turin Shroud.

[andy-hughes]

I know that 'The DaVinci Code' is one of the most mind-dumbingly tedious clunky uncompletable novels I have ever had the misfortune to struggle with - gives writers like me hope, anyway!

[dundurn]

It's all a load of rubbish! And it's all the fault of the Welsh! Oh and the early Church!
There was a Welsh legend of a king who had a cauldron which never stopped giving out food. Similar to cornucopia, but emblematic of the fertile successful king who can look after his people. Arthurian legends are also full of 'wounded' kings (i.e. infertile or impotent) who bring blight on their lands. When the church sought to assimilate the legends (if you can't beat them, join them) the closest thing in the Christian faith to the cauldron was the Communion vessel, so instead of Arthur's knights pursuing the never-failing cauldron they sought the Grail instead. Then came the crusades and of course everyone who went to the Holy Land had in the back of his or her mind that the True Cross or the Grail was there for the finding (and presumably the taking). And since paper never refused ink and an author never refused an advance this brings us up to the present day and a plethora of books all chasing (and catching) the same readership. I (eventually) read the book. I had previously read Angels and Demons and while it was OK it didn't make me desperate to read the sequel. I'm afraid the reading didn't change my mind and I steadfastly refuse to watch the film. However long it lasts I have better things to do with my time!

[adrenochrome]

Firstly, Dan Browns writings are completely false, they are fiction and no more.
Secondly, the idea that the church is hiding things is slightly outmoded. Certainly between 200-1700AD, the church attempted to eradicate the world of anything that did not support its views, but the Industrial Revolution did for that. Prior to then, the establishment across Europe was happy to maintain the status quo, and wealthy old money families knew that their places were secured if they did not challenge the church (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours), but the Indus Rev created a whole new breed of wealthy business people who liked to use their money to gain any knowledge (whether Biological challenges to the idea of 'humours' causing ills - hence, books like Frankenstein, and Burke and Hare robbing graves and killing people, the old Alchemy of Hermes Trimagistratus, and Euclidean mathematics - all banned by the RC church).
This brought about the Renaissance (the Medici's being famous for getting Florence in Italy excommunicated on 14 different occassions and supplying 2 popes). The Medicis compiled a vast library of books, many outlawed by the church, including copies of the Gnostic and Coptic Gospels, also the works of the great Greek philosophers and writers - Aeschylus, Sappho, Aristotle, Pythagoras and Euclid. Many people are unaware that Archimedes was a great inventor - not just a streaker - who developed weapons used by the citizens of Syracuse to defaet the Roman navy several times, and that the Greeks had steam power and railway tracks.
In fact, everything in Leonardo Da Vincis notebook is the work of previous minds. Da Vinci invented nothing, what he did do (which is a great achievement in itself) was to create modern technical drawings for Greek works which had largely been lossed. He gathered details and mentions of items in literature, pieced them together, and gave us modern working schematics for them.

[adrenochrome]

Thirdly, most theology graduates will tell you that it is generally well known that Jesus and Mary were married (the Bible lists all the things that were peculiar about Jesus, and neglects to mention his bachelor status, which would have been odd in those days), and had 3 daughters. They are not the Grail, nor their lineage. The church established two possible Grails, the cup at the Last Supper supplied by Joseph of Arimathea, or the chalice used to gather Jesus' blood at the crucifiction. However, there is no reference to any Grail in early Christian works. It is purely a symbol of Christianity, an embodiment of the search for the divine within us all, and is a relative modern invention - last 1000 years...
If you really want to look into something regarding Jesus, I can give you 3 things to examine that are far more interesting than the Grail;
1/ Mithras, the Roman God who came to Earth in the form of man, whose feast day was 25th December, and who was on Earth as the path by which man could elevate himself to the Heavens. This predates Jesus by hundreds of years, yet has a strange familiar sound to it. The Basilica at the vatican is built upon the ancient Temple of Mithras.
2/ John the Baptist paved the way for Jesus, and St Peter and Paul are the rock and ground upon which his church was to be built. Why then did John the Baptist name Simon Magus as his successor, and why are neither St Peters Gospel nor St Pauls Gospel contained in the Bible?

[adrenochrome]

3/ Jesus was an Egyptian, not born in Bethlehem. Albert Einstein published a book explaining that Jesus was born in Egypt. The Romans, who were great keepers of records, hence the census, have no record of Herod ordering the slaughter of children, which would have been carried out by Roman troops. If Magi (the plural of Magus, or magician) had foreseen the birth and visited Jesus, why did the church ban science? The reason the church says Jesus was born in Bethlehem (a very common town name in the Middle East) is only because Jewish texts said the Messiah would be born in a town of that name, so unless Jesus was born there, he could not be the Messiah.
Have fun researching