The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus »

Christopher Knight has a degree in advertising and graphic design and is the managing director of a marketing and advertising agency. In 1976 he became a Freemason.

Robert Lomas is the co-author of The Hiram Key, The Second Messiah, and Uriel's Machine. A Freemason, he lectures at Bradford University in England.

The Hiram Key is a book that will shake the Christian world to its very roots. When Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, both Masons, set out to find the origins of Freemasonry they had no idea that they would find themselves unraveling the true story of Jesus and the original Jerusalem Church. As a radically new picture of Jesus started to emerge, the authors came to the startling conclusion that the key rituals of modern Freemasonry were practiced by the early followers of Jesus as a means of initiation into their community.

Introduction xii
1 The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry 1
2 The Search Begins 19
3 The Knights Templar 26
4 The Gnostic Connection 36
5 Jesus Christ: Man, God, Myth or Freemason? 44
6 In the Beginning Man Made God 81
7 The Legacy of the Egyptians 98
8 The First Freemason 120
9 The Birth of Judaism 152
10 A Thousand Years of Struggle 170
11 The Boaz and Jachin Pesher 189
12 The Man Who Turned Water into Wine 216
13 The Resurrection 257
14 The Truth Breaks Free 275
15 The Lost Scrolls Rediscovered 294
Postscript 323
Appendix 1: The Development of Modern Freemasonry and its Impact on the World 326
The English Reformation and the Conditions fo Emergence 326
The King Who Built the Lodge System 327
The Architects of the Second Degree 331
The New Heresy 333
The Old Charges 336
The Rise of the Republicans 342
The Royal Society Emerges 346
Freemasonry Finds Its Feet 348
The Spread of Freemasonry 351
The Development of Masonry in America 354
Appendix 2: Pre-1710 MasonicLodges in Scotland with Date of the First Recorded Mention 358
Appendix 3: Early Grand Masters of English Freemasonry 359
Appendix 4: Early Grand Masters of Scottish Freemasonry 361
Appendix 5: Chronology 363
Index 372