good as its weakest link. All Historical study is based on dialectical appraisal of evidence, and all sources of information subject to interpretation as the "weakest link." Knight and Lomas are not professional historians nor have they any qualifications in history or research, and their case is open to the criticism that they accept references that fit their theory and reject those that conflict with it. . Nonetheless they argue in the book that the foundations of the Christian religion are a distortion by the early Roman Catholic Church of the teachings of the real Jesus and his followers. They claim to have found in Freemasonry 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 Religion may well have come to be, at least partly, through imprecise historical interpretation. Knight and Lomas state that one of the main motivations in writing the book stemmed from a desire to ascertain the origins of Freemasonry, following their own experiences of being initiated into it. Did it arrive, fully formed at the foundation of the Premier Grand Lodge of England on 24 June 1717, or was that the first public acknowledgement of something much older? One widely held theory is that Freemasonry evolved out of guilds of stonemasons. Traditional Masonic ritual claims that one of the first Freemasons was Hiram Abiff, a widow's son from the tribe of Naphtali, who was the Architect of King Solomon's Temple. His name has never been recorded as such historically, although there is a similar character in the Old Testament of the Bible, who is not named, but is described as a widow's son, in the First Book of Kings. Although not apparently named in some translations of the bible, others, such as the Coverdale translation and the original Martin Luther translation do indeed refer to him as "Hiram Abiff" or as "Huram Abi". The word "abi" is translated as "father" or "my father" in other translations whilst the Luther and Coverdale translations treated it as a personal name. The Jewish Study Bible suggests that the word "father" is an honorific title applied to a skilled craftsman. The use of "abu" meaning "father" as an honorific is still used in the Middle East today, hence "Abukir" named after "Father" or Saint Cyril. The book's authors