The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasonry, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus

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Am interesting read. Knight and Lomas weave a convincing "history" of freemasonry starting with Ancient Egypt, through King Solomon's Temple, to Jesus Christ, through the Knights Templar and on to modern Freemasonry, with plenty of more stops along the way. The authors believe that Jesus did not claim to be divine, but was instead a messiah in the Jewish sense of the term, a good man and a freedom fighter, trying to liberate the Jews from Roman occupation. The authors, both Masons, set out to find the origins of freemasonry they had no idea they would find themselves unravelling the true story of Jesus Christ and the original Jerusalem Church. Or at least that is part of the case they make in this book. They do make a reasonable case for many of the Masonic rituals and the parallels with the early – New Testament Bible. Are Jesus Christ and his disciples somehow directly connected with the freemasons? I am not convinced.

When Scotland became unsafe for the Templars, they incorporated their beliefs and history into the rituals of Freemasonry as it is known today. Knight and Lomas are not professional historians nor have they any qualifications in history or research, and their case is open to the criticism that they accept references that fit their theory and reject those that conflict with it. .The authors believe that Jesus' sect, the Jerusalem Church, operated some kind of "quasi-Masonic" initiation ceremonies and develop that line of thought to claim that Jesus was thus, in a sense, a Freemason. A lot of this should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I referred to this book as “speculative non-fiction”, as speculation takes a big hand in piecing this puzzle together. Just because two things look alike doesn’t mean that one influenced the other, so much of symbology comes from the subconscious. Much of their theories fly in the face of conventional interpretation. In other cases, much of their work is playing connect-the-dots with historical oddities. But there is food for thought here; the origin of the Shroud of Turin, for example, remains a mystery, as it appears to be an authentic relic, but far too late to be the burial shroud of Jesus.

I would like to see a more detailed version of this work with more references and multiple threads of possibilities for their many conclusions. Although not apparently named in some translations of the bible, others, such as the Coverdale translation and the original Martin Luther translation do indeed refer to him as "Hiram Abiff" or as "Huram Abi". The word "abi" is translated as "father" or "my father" in other translations whilst the Luther and Coverdale translations treated it as a personal name. The Jewish Study Bible suggests that the word "father" is an honorific title applied to a skilled craftsman. The use of "abu" meaning "father" as an honorific is still used in the Middle East today, hence "Abukir" named after "Father" or Saint Cyril. Of interest to pagans, they mention in passing the “five points of fellowship” that apparently correspond to the Gardnerian Great Rite refer to, in Masonry, a five-fingered grip used to “resurrect” the candidate during the Third Degree initiation. However, these theories seem rather mere speculations, as the authors have very few sources and bibliography, and although the book presents these hypotheses as a consistent and solid all, would have been better if it had more opinions from the experts, which the authors are not. Other books dealing with similar themes have more than one hundred bibliographic sources, this barely reaches twenty. In Chapter 5 of the Hiram Key, Jesus Christ: Man, God, Myth, or Freemason?, the authors state: "We realise that this is a statement that will offend many Christians, and particularly many Roman Catholics," but the conclusion they came to, based upon historical context derived outside the accepted religious context, was that Jesus was a Freemason.Four stars for the extensive research these two authors have completed to write this book. It’s certainly a game changers for everyone who has read the bible but is it here-say and what do we really believe. I’ve no doubt despite being brought up in a Christian home and going to church each Sunday, there are errors and ‘romanticism’ for want of a better word, in the Bible. The New Testament for me, was read more as the Old Testament was very hard to comprehend. There are many versions of the Bible nowadays but I’ve had mine since I was 4 months old. It was a sign of protection in a Scottish Protestant house. Though, most of the book is based on the imaginary connection between 2,000 years of symbolism. The biggest mistake that they make in my view is that over time, symbolism, even if held in strict hidden social societies, has been consistent to them. This is by far the truth. Sure symbolism can hold a similar meaning, though the interpretation and its 'popular' views of the time it represents may become deluded to the now scholar. By the end one realizes that the scrolls are wishful thinking, though that they have had indeed pointed out some small threads as leads for their assumptions. Most of their evidence is a single thread of almost opinion, which allows their research to unfold. The Knights Templar are the direct ancestors of the first Masonic lodges emerged in Scotland and England in the seventeenth century. They did a vigorous analysis and comparison of ancient Egyptian records and compared them to the Old and New Testament as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. I cannot comment on how versed they are in ancient languages, so it is hard for me to really conclude how accurate these comparisons are. The do seem to make a decent case for early Christian rituals and some of the Masonic rituals, however. The biggest problem I ran into was their claim that the Christian Church was a political creation and had really had no connection with Jesus Christ. I reject that having been a practicing Christian for well over 20 years now, with far too many personal encounters with the Holy Spirit (including Christ).