The Hiram Key

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The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasonry, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus is a book by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. The authors, both Masons, present a theory of the origins of Freemasonry along with "the true story" of Jesus Christ and the original Jerusalem Church.

1 Book Summary
2 Controversy
3 Publication
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Book Summary

The authors begin by quoting Henry Ford, who was a Mason, saying "all history is bunk", expressing a belief that, though Ford's statement may be abrupt, it is accurate, as history is often not a completely accurate and comprehensive account of facts but only what the victor in any given situation has recorded for posterity.

They argue in the book that the foundations of the Christian religion are a distortion by the Roman Catholic Church of the teachings of the real Jesus and His followers.

They are both Freemasons and claim to have found in Masonry a new key to unlock the secrets of civilization. This key is also the key to the origins of Christianity and, they assert, proves that many of the beliefs of modern Christianity are erroneous.

One of their main motivations in writing the book stemmed from a desire to ascertain the origins of Freemasonry. Was it just founded in London in 1717, as officially recorded and as most historians believed^{[citation needed]}, or was it older?

Another theory was that Freemasonry evolved out of guilds of stonemasons. Masonic ritual claims that the first Freemason was Hiram Abiff, a widow's son from the tribe of Naphtali, who built King Solomon's Temple^{[citation needed]}, his name has never been recorded historically, although there is a similar character in the Old Testament of the Bible, who is described as a widow's son but not named in the first book of Kings.

This figure helped build King Solomon's Temple and dedicated it to God Most High. He finished his work at noon, when the sun was at its meridian. Three people who worked for him and who are referred to as Juwes demanded the secret word from him that he had sworn never to divulge to anyone, the three Juwes' names were Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum. He refused to betray his promise so the three Juwes murdered him.

In the initiation ceremony for the third degree of Freemasonry this story is reenacted and the candidate plays the role of Hiram Abiff. This is partly to tell the story, partly to teach a moral lesson that it is better to die than to betray one's promises, and partly to go through a symbolic death and rebirth so that the initiate will emerge purified of his bad and immoral and as a more moral and spiritual person.

The stonemason origin theory was the easiest to prove wrong because it had so many obvious fallacies. Why would powerful and rich people have been attracted to join a group that came from simple poor stonemasons' guilds? The theory of Freemasonry originating in London in 1717 was also unlikely because there were earlier mentions of Freemasonry. The authors decided eventually that Freemasonry was actually as old as it claimed it was, dating back to the building of King Solomon's Temple.

They rigorously analysed the Bible, including the New Testament, ancient Jewish texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic Gospels, and Masonic rituals to support the conclusions they came to.

They decided that the story of Hiram Abiff was actually based on the initiation ceremonies of the ancient kings of Egypt. They also came to the conclusion after analysis of the New Testament, the Gnostic Gospels, and Masonic ritual that Jesus and the original Christians were thoroughly different from what the Roman Catholic Church has taught that they were.

They claim that Jesus did not claim to be Divine, but was merely a Messiah in the Jewish sense of the term, a freedom fighter aiming to help liberate the Jews from Roman occupation.

Jesus did not claim to be a miracle worker, according to the authors, but when He said that He raised Lazarus from the dead, is was an allegorical reference - followers were referred to as the "living" and those who did not were referred to as the "dead" in certain Jewish esoteric at the time^{[citation needed]}. Similarly, Jesus's turning water into wine merely meant elevating people to a higher status within the framework of the sect.

The authors believe that Jesus's ultra-Jewish sect, the Jerusalem Church, operated some kind of "quasi-Masonic" initiation ceremonies and claim Jesus was, in some sense of the term, a Mason.

They wrote "we realize that this is a statement that will offend many Christians, and particularly many Roman Catholics", but that the conclusion was inevitable that Jesus was in some sense of the term, a Mason in the chapter entitled Jesus Christ: Man, God, Myth, or Freemason.

[edit] Controversy

The book contains radical hypothesis regarding the origins of Freemasonry, seeking to demonstrate a heritage through the Knights Templar to the Jerusalem Church and Pharaoic Egypt, drawing on a wide range of material to support this hypothesis.

The work is subject to criticism^[1] from within the established body of masonic-research based on:

Creeping assertion - caveats on statements are reduced as the statements are used as foundation for further development.
Lack of critical assessment of sources.
Use of symbolic ritual as a statement of historic fact.

It has been suggested that some Masonic libraries categorise the volume as fiction.^{[citation needed]}

Reviews of the work are commonly critical; publishers of this criticism include:

Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
Masonic Info
Quatuor Coronati Lodge No 2067 the Premier Lodge of Masonic research under United Grand Lodge of England
Freemasonry Today
Masonic Quarterly, an official publication of the United Grand Lodge of England

It is claimed that much of the controversy is fuelled^{[citation needed]} by Lomas' continuing criticism of the Masonic hierarchy and his consistent calls for it to reform. ^[2]

[edit] Publication

Published in the UK by Century Books in 1996.
Published in the USA as a 384-page hardcover by Element Books in 1997 (ISBN 1-86204-004-4)
Published in the USA as a paperback in 1998 (ISBN 1-86204-221-7)
Re-published in 2001 (paperback, ISBN 1-931412-75-8; hardcover ISBN 1-59233-159-9), Fair Winds Press
Translated into over different thirty languages.^{[citation needed]}