The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince

If you are a devout follower of the Bible and any challenge to its historical accuracy is blasphemous than this is not the book for you. However, if you are open minded and adaptable to reason then give the book a chance - even if you challenge aspects of it afterwards.

Picknett and Prince have trawled through volumes of text and approached real places like the wonderful Rennes le Chateau with incisive methodology. In doing so, this volumes in definitely enlightening and a recent second read of it proved neccesary and worthwhile. The detail and theory about religious history and the life of Jesus Christ are thought provoking and revealing. You can't present this research without making some kind of conclusions, and the theories they end up on are criticised as leaps of faith. They aren't; they are unproven, but as with all theories, someone has to present their belief before they are proven. This criticism is therefore a bit harsh. Absolutely fascinating and well written, the book is educational, entertaining and thought provoking.