I will not touch on much of the story of the book, because it would be a spoiler for anyone who wants to read it. Above which, I am a really lousy book reviewer and I can’t really remember exactly why I picked up the book from MPH, except for its title.

While the idea that the Knights Templar blackmailing the Vatican is interesting (or revolting, since everyone knows the Templars to be a military order formed to defend pilgrims going to the Holy Land), the author of this story also made use of the characters in his book to raise some interesting points. To the logical and analytical mind, one cannot refute these points right away. For e.g.

1. No one knew exactly who wrote the Gospels and much of the New Testament, as we know it: Archaelogists and scholars generally agree that it is common for people in that era to use the names of others to write stuff, and thus the argument that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John might not necessarily be written by the disciples of Jesus with those names (in the case of Matthew and John), or Mark and Luke.
2. Some of the earliest books were written many years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ: The first Gospel, the Gospel of Mark appears about 40 years after, and the Book of Revelations almost 70 years after. In other words, if these were really written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the writers themselves would have been quite old. Considering the human lifespan at that time, the detractors do have a point. Also, if written records have come later, it would mean that it was just a record of an oral tradition prior to that. Knowing how things gets distorted when passed mouth to mouth, the truthfulness will thus be in doubt.
3. The the present day Bible is a political construct. It did not come into being until the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. (My personal opinion is that the powers that be at that time, the Roman Emperor Constantine and the church leaders, all have their own agenda in doing so. The leaders a desire to crush any self-contradicting views, doctrines and beliefs among the believers, and the Roman Emperor the intention to mold the Christian religion as some form of social control of a fragile Empire that has only been recently unified after a long civil war, and also to pacify the now numerous Christian community in the Empire.)
4. Many conflicting books which are difficult for reconciliation were discarded: The Gospels of Peter, Philip, Thomas, Judas, Mary Magdeline and the Egyptians, along with the secret book of John and the Gospel of Truth are such examples. All of these were ruthlessly destroyed because it challenges the Church’s stand that it is the only way to God. It is somewhat a miracle that copies of these gnostic books survived, hidden away for thousands of years until very recently.

The question is, if you are a believer, will you now start questioning your faith? Certainly almost no one could doubt that this social system proposed by Jesus – a system of compassion, care and welfare for those who needed it – is one of the best systems around in taming the savage and selfish beast within the human being. But what of your faith in the divinity of Jesus?

The author of the book raised another interesting point when he pointed out using one of his characters in the book to argue that if you are ready to believe the ‘alternate views’ of Jesus Christ, such as Jesus having left behind a bloodline, or that he is absolutely human but not divine, then you clearly never truly believe the Gospels in the first place. Above which, just as much as people believe in Jesus’ miracles without having seen him done them, how could anyone believe in any documents having a contrary view of him?

‘The Last Templar’ might have been just another ‘Da Vinci Code’ type fiction, had it not gotten me to start thinking about such things and getting myself to put them down in writing.