The Rebbe has received a number of queries concerning the authenticity and reliability of the above books, which volumes we readily admit certainly do make for some interesting reading. The popular NEXUS magazine also recently ran a series of thought-provoking articles, by Laurence Gardner, purporting to establish that Yeshua actually had children and that the “servant-rulers” of the present Royal Houses of Europe stem from His holy bloodline. NEXUS editorials, and Gardner himself, talk as if his thesis is an obvious established fact.

The Rebbe freely recognises that Our Lord Yeshua could very well have had offspring, if he wanted to do so, but in our opinion Gardner has decidedly not proved this to be the case. We take this opportunity to answer letters from concerned supporters of the BRI who wish to know where we stand on Brown and Gardner.

Firstly, allow me to make only a few pertinent comments about Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. I agree the book is certainly controversial, but while it appeals to the popular imagination I personally found myself agitated with some of its unproven
and unproveable assertions, quite frankly. I do not wish to appear unkind to Dan Brown, or entirely negative about the novel (it was a good light read) but there are some silly statements in it.

For instance, he says: “Some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran…”

Well, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947 — not the 1950s — and no Christian Scriptures were among them. While there were texts from the Tanack (so-called “OT”), a complete scroll of Isaiah, and fragmentary pieces of scribal commentary etc, his statement relating to Christian “Gospels” is altogether ludicrous. Much of Brown’s research (shoddy, unfortunately) is grounded in Gnostic literature, which I do not see as inspired (well, not directly by God, any way).

Brown also asserts that until Nicaea (325 CE) Yeshua was considered a normal man by the multitudes (p.233) and he also fails to grasp — like a number of other self-enamoured “authorities” — that the Council did NOT introduce the concept of the “God-Man.” My friends, this was held to be the case ever since the original writings of the “NT” corpus were created by Yeshua’s original talmidim. There was NO doctrinal shift on this matter at Nicaea. Many websites promulgate this view but they’re not correct.

Moreover, Brown teaches that the historic church actually went out of its way to hide Yeshua’s humanity; this however is a fallacious view because in the Bible the humanity of Yeshua is CLEARLY on display. In the Gospel’s he’s portrayed as the son of a carpenter. Yeshua is pictured on occasions as tired and hungry, and very much open to temptation. Frequently ill himself, Yeshua is not immune to inner urges of panic as illustrated in Gethsemane. Full of commiseration toward those who are physically ill, diseased and mentally depressed, he is ultimately subjected to all kinds of horrendous tortures and disgraceful humiliation by aggressive Roman soldiers who ultimately sacrifice him in a grotesque manner until he comp-letely drains of blood and fluid.

In all ways Yeshua appears to be anything but the picture Brown would like people to believe is contrary to biblical revelation. What really irks me about the book is that Brown requires his readers to believe what he says without question: Through the mouth of one of his characters he says: “Every faith is based on fabrication.” Interesting that he says this yet expects his readers to accept his view of Yeshua with extremely little or NO documentation.

Basically, Brown wants his readers to acknowledge that almost everything they have been taught from the Bible is false. I found that attitude rather fanciful and sophistic. Between Brown and Laurence Gardner (who writes on the same theme) there exists a great amount of conjecture, and all of it without documentation.

Concerning “Bloodline of the Holy Grail” — at first appearance the hard cover edition is presented in a most impressive way although it took me only two weeks to thoroughly consume and study its contents. Unlike Brown, I was impressed with the credentials of the author: Prior of the Celtic Church’s Sacred Kindred of St Columba, internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist, Chevalier Labhran de St Germain, Presidential Attache to the European Council of Princes, formerly “attached to the noble household guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St Germain-en-Laye in 1692, and [he] is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal.” I know these to be undisputed facts because I have also read the inside back flap of his 490 page tome, which also contains a distinctive foreword by Prince Michael of Albany.

Even a member of the “Pembroke-Gosling Royal House” attended a recent conference where Gardner was the main speaker, and she came away dazzled with his vast storehouse of facts, figures, dates, personalities and places. Again, I was also deeply impacted with his “right royal” grasp of “right royal” history (for I have also spent years studying the question of Yeshua’s family bloodline) and, to be entirely honest, his book “Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed” is more than a good read — its a great read.

Having said this, let me now say that Gardner has not convinced me by any means that Yeshua fathered children, although I am personally sympathetic to the thesis. Some might interpret my comments in this article about Laurence Gardner to be disparaging. But I require mere PROOF of his claims. But his volume lacks even the necessary meagre evidence that magazine NEXUS is so enthusiastic to run with. Gardner fails to produce even a skerric of demonstrable substantiation from the records of the first four centuries which is absolutely essential for the logical out-working and outcome of his thesis!

From the contents of mail received by BRI he is still giving some BRI readers, doubts. Let me say this about the magazine NEXUS. While it invariably includes most interesting articles, many of them high-profile, NEXUS is not my  final authority on anything. Chock-a-block-full of vivid alarmist sensationalism, interspersed often with personal accounts involving conspiratorial experiences (which cannot be authenticated), it frankly lacks scholarship.

As for Laurence Gardner, my personal belief is that anyone who majors on Barbara Thiering’s “research” and her wild, unproven assumptions (e.g., Jesus the Man, 1992, Corgi Books) as Gardner does, doesn’t take my spiritual ground from me. He may take it from others, but again — not from me! I have read his tome, Bloodline, all 490 pp of it, which sits now gathering dust on my bookcase — next to The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, The Happy Prince and Peter Pan all of which are just as credible. According to NEXUS Gardner has absolutely established beyond any shadow of doubt that “Jesus” had children by the Magdalene and that these children form the present Royal Houses of Europe (and NEXUS endorses his claims that he has thoroughly documented it).

Really? Where is the proof? Where are his documents? Where is there any hard and fast, even welcome, evidence from the vitally important first four centuries of our present era? As we scour through the contents of NEXUS, and his book, only silence greets us. Assumptions, presumptions, and speculations abound. One thing for sure, his book fails miserably to document ANY early documents! Yet thousands believe him and take him at nothing more than his word. He may have impressive credentials — but so does Satan.

Now, I may personally believe that Yeshua had children. I may have believed this since about 1966-67. I may believe his wife was Miriam Magdala — and IF I do I base my beliefs (and they are, after all is said and done, only “beliefs”) on Messianic prophecy and NT innuendo. Pretty shaky ground even if I do say so myself. That’s the difference.

If people want to spend hundreds, or even thousands of dollars (as they are doing) to travel (in some cases) long distances to hear this con-artist weave verbal magic to ensnare them spiritually then in my opinion (and its only an opinion) they should at the very least have the courage to ask him the right questions instead of just sitting somatised in an auditorium drinking in his lethal garbage like so many mental mutants. We all must understand that HE WILL ONE DAY SOON FACE HIS REAL LORD AND MASTER.

• We all will.

What people are failing to realise is that this man is working feverishly toward a resurrection of the Stewart Dynasty. (They should ask him why he is being assisted and encouraged in his work by known European World Federalists who have the intention of creating a final political, economic and military United States of Europe, as one of ten future world divisions, which would include Britain with a Stewart at its helm.) He’s a “One-Worlder” through and through. He is successfully creating, with no proof, a new theological basis to justify a revival of Stewart interests. I may happen to believe a direct lineal descendant of the Royal Family of Yeshua will be the eschatological Antichrist, but I base it on a more stable ground and surer footing (the Bible, including specifically The War Scroll of the Yeshua Party — “Revelation”) than Laurence Gardner could ever hope of creating through the sheer weight of words (based on the precarious premises of Ms Theiring’s highly questionable research, a gutsy theologian who comes out of the woodwork every Easter to promulgate her views about Yeshua “swooning” on the cross.)

A conspiracy is well underfoot to usher in a WORLD FEDERAL STATE in ten territorial divisions, and the work of Mr Laurence Gardner may yet make a valuable contribution (in the form of a new theology) to that complex network of noble but sinister, intrigue.

It is only a matter of time before we find out for certain once and for all.