Interview Questions Needed August 16, 2009

Interview Questions Needed

By Guest Contributor
August 16, 2009

Michael Baigent is the co-author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the book that provided the underlying idea behind The Da Vinci Code (that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child and the bloodline lives on). In fact, his last name is an anagram for a main character in Dan Brown‘s book. His work has been both revered and vilified and, in 2007, he was on the losing end of a lawsuit against Brown.

Baigent is about to release his new book, Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World, which is about… well… you can figure that out yourself.

The publisher has granted me an email interview with the author, so if you have any questions for Baigent, please leave them in the comments by Monday night!

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  • What group does Baigent believe is currently doing the greatest manipulation of the public? The church? The freemasons? The governments? The aliens?

    I think it’s the honey bees personally.

    -Cos.

  • HP

    Oh, man. I’d have no idea what to ask. How does the author define “Jesus” and “Mary Magdelene,” given that these characters as given in the bible represent a composite of known archetypes in both Near Eastern mythology and the Eastern Roman Empire in Classical times? How does he feel about Dan Brown’s atrocious prose and ham-fisted storytelling? How does the evidence for a historical Jesus compare to the evidence for a historical Gaotama Siddhartha or a historical Lao Tzu? What about Prince Rama or Moses?

    Okay, and then there’s that whole other line of thought about the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians and the Holy Grail and Joseph of Arimethea and whatnot. I mean, seriously, where do you begin? “Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously?”

  • Ryan

    My computer can’t use amazon.com for some reason. Can someone enlighten on what the book is about?

    I could probably do that myself from the title, but by the way the title is written I could interpet it two different eays.

  • EdWest

    I guess “do you actually believe this crap?” would be a bit heavy handed…

    perhaps:

    A) Why do you think these alleged conspiracies are so secret? What do they have to gain in utter secrecy?

    B) If these massive conspiracies are true, what should the average person do about it? How can anyone fight against shadows that only a handful even know exist?

  • Scott Turner

    It has been reported that former President George W. Bush attempted to recruit former president Chirac of France into the Iraq war using references to biblical prophecy and divine intent. See, e.g.,

    Question 1: What are your thoughts about the Chirac-George W. conversation about Iraq and supernaturalism?
    Question 2: How do you think the Obama Administration and/or the Democratic Congress will rely upon biblical prophecy in US foreign policy?

  • Revyloution

    I enjoyed reading the ‘Jesus Papers’ by Baigent. One question kept coming to me.

    What does he believe? Is he a pure skeptic, or does he have any beliefs in the supernatural?

  • gribblethemunchkin

    I’ve read Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and a more abominable piece of scholarship you will not find.

    My biggest problem is that he’ll identify some kind of link or co-incidence, ascribe meaning to it, almost as a hypothetical then move on. But in the next chapter he’ll write something like “As we have proved….” and you think
    “You didn’t prove anything, you stated a co-incidence or link, made and assertion and moved on, at no point did you provide any kind of proof.”

    To be sure there was a lot of interesting information in the book, but his theories are completely unsupported.

    So my question would be, “To whom do you aim your books. The christians, the atheists, the conspiracy nuts, the skeptics, or Joe Public off on holiday?

  • D.B. Rose

    does Baigent consider himself to be a christian? a man who has spent such an overwhelming amount of time researching the life of Jesus must have come to some personal conclusions by now, in one direction or another…

    while reading The Jesus Papers, i was constantly given the impression that many of his theories are put together based on the assumption that all his prior speculations are true, or at least more than likely to be true. is this the result of having found some actual evidence to support his theories? or perhaps, was it all learned… intuitively?

  • What does the author think of the “Preacher” comics?

  • What distinguishes good scholarship and investigative journalism from conspiracy theory and idle speculation is the production of a coherent theory of fact.

    I have a difficult time accepting the proposition that world leaders buy in to their religions to such a degree that they would actually conspire to hasten their own destruction and that of their nations. Historically, such leaders always seek to benefit themselves no matter what their religions teach them. So the burden is on you as the investigative journalist, Mr. Baigent, to explain how leaders of modern nations could want to see the “end times” arrive.