The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History

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The Jesus Papers, by Michael Baigent

The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History is an book released in 2006 by author Michael Baigent. He explores the detailed history of Jesus' life and crucifixion; using papers that, according to Baigent, were covered-up. The work documents the political context of Jesus' birth, and then goes on to examine the history of the migration of the family of Jesus, the chronicles of his teachings, and his death.

1 Criticism
2 Editions
3 References
4 Read Also
5 External links

[edit] Criticism

There are criticisms that the release of the book was timed with the release of the The Da Vinci Code film version in an attempt to cash in on the marketing hype. Around the same time of the book's release, Baigent was also involved in a plagiarism lawsuit against author Dan Brown. The lawsuit claims that Brown improperly used information from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (which Baigent co-wrote) for Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. This too has drawn speculation that the lawsuit and trial were merely a publicity vehicle for Baigent's new book. On 7 April 2006, High Court judge Peter Smith rejected the copyright infringement claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, and Dan Brown won the court case.

Baigent also appeared on the Today Show in an interview with Lester Holt, in which he claimed that he had seen the papers referred to in the title. Baigent says the papers themselves prove that Jesus existed after his crucifixion, and therefore he could not have been put to death. Most interesting is Baigent's assertion of Jesus the mystical man rather than Jesus the mythical messiah.