The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasonry, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus, is a 1996 book by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. The authors, both Freemasons, present a theory of the origins of Freemasonry as part of their "true story" of the historical Jesus and the original Jerusalem Church. Key points in theory The authors claim that their work proves the following: Freemasonry can trace its roots to the death of the Egyptian king Sequenenre in 1570 B.C. at the hands of the Hyksos. Moses merged this event with Sumerian and Egyptian mythology, symbols and philosophy, to create a putative 'royal line'. Solomon incorporated these symbols into his temple Jesus and the Qumran community used a ritual based on this story The early Roman Church effectively suppressed the original beliefs of this Jerusalem Church. The Knights Templar, discovering the Qumran communities' records in the vaults under the Temple in Jerusalem, transported them to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. When Scotland became unsafe for the Templars, they incorporated their beliefs and history into the rituals of Freemasonry as it is known today. America named after the Nasoraean Mandaean morning star 'Merica' Synopsis Knight and Lomas begin by quoting Henry Ford, who was a Freemason, as saying "all history is bunk". They express the belief that, though Ford's statement may be abrupt, it is accurate, as history is often not a completely accurate and comprehensive account of facts, but only what the dominant or orthodox view of the time has recorded for posterity. The authors make their case through the use of dialectics. The technique requires the reader to accept a basic premise, and then proceeds in a logical order; requiring the reader to weigh the merit of each step on the way to a conclusion. If the initial premise, and each of the steps in logic towards the conclusion have merit, the conclusion can represent a legitimate, possible explanation. The authors of The Hiram Key propose a possible sequence of events that led to modern Freemasonry, although much of their narrative has been debated by historians and other researchers. A criticism of their approach by those unfamiliar with the science of "dialectical progression" is that the authors have gathered irrelevant and often unevidenced 'facts' to arrive at an equally unproven theory. Even those familiar with the application of dialectics may concede that the conclusion of such logic is only as