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is revolutionary. The problem is, as a novelist that needs to make the plot lines exciting he has taken certain liberties with the facts. There is nothing unforgivable about that, but the popularity of the book has lead to an army of readers taking the words of his lead character, who is a Harvard professor at face value and this in turn has lead to a whole mythology and misunderstanding of the theories surrounding the book.

As Gardner makes very clear in The Magdalene Legacy is that all of the ideas that Brown uses to create his historical background are neither, new or particularly mysterious. All of it is checkable if you have access to the right libraries and archives. Whilst the vast majority of us have neither the time nor the access to such records, Gardner does and his book is therefore a summation of all those records. From his re-evaluation of Browns version of history we can uncover some home truths about his work. One of the over ridding factors that have helped create a sense of mystery regarding Jesus and a possible bloodline is a concerted suppression of information by the Vatican. Whilst this may seem to be odd, the church suppressing facts about its very corner stone, as the book explains it is not so odd when you have all of the facts. Early gospel writings that were never included in the New Testament, and there are many, quite clearly state that Jesus and Mary had a family and even a careful interpretation of the canonical works seem to hint as much. The problem is that the early Christian church was very much born out of the teachings of Peter and Paul and soon became at odds with the original ideas of the followers of Jesus. With the rise of the Popes as leaders of the church becoming more influential than the followers of Jesus as head of the faith, a battle for control took place. The church won and with the acceptance of Christianity as the official faith of the Roman Empire history could be re-written to make disappear any traces of any rival group, even if that rival group were the descendants of Jesus himself.

That is just the starting point of the book but it sets the pace for the revelations to come. Gardner's re-interpretation of the New Testament gospels and examination of the gospels that were deliberately lost, many written by women, sheds a lot of new light on the real power struggles, events and personalities of the times. His understanding of the laws and styles of renaissance art also allows us to see the more mundane truths

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