claim that the stonemason-origin theory could be discounted because it had so many apparent fallacies. Why would powerful and rich people have been attracted to join a fraternity that came from poor and uneducated stonemasons' Guilds? The theory of Freemasonry originating in London in 1717 is also regarded as unlikely, because there are earlier mentions of Freemasonry in other locations. The authors concluded that Freemasonry was actually as old as it claimed in its traditional ritual, dating back to the building of King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem Knight and Lomax claim to have analysed their sources rigorously, including the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible, ancient Jewish texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic Gospels, and Masonic rituals to support their conclusions. They note the global significance of religion and that any major refutation of commonly held beliefs would meet resistance from the established and orthodox authorities in any particular religion. In support of that point Knight and Lomax cite the treatment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They note that, 40 years after their discovery, only about half of the available material had ever been published or made available for independent review. It was not until 1991 that public access restrictions were lifted. The scrolls contained various versions of Biblical texts, all of which were more than 1000 years older than the oldest surviving Hebrew texts that were produced by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher in AD 1008. The texts of these scrolls are believed by the authors to have been written by ancestors of the same Qumran community of the Judaean hills that found them. The authors also believe that the Qumran Community were Essenes, and that they and the Nasoreans and the original Jerusalem Church were all one and the same. That is, the ancient Qumranians were the first Christians. They decided that the story of Hiram Abiff was actually based on the initiation ceremonies of the ancient kings of Egypt. They also came to the conclusion, after analysis of the New Testament, the Gnostic Gospels, and Masonic ritual, that Jesus and the original Christians were thoroughly different from what the Roman Catholic Church and orthodox Christianity has taught they were. The authors believe that Jesus did not claim to be divine, but was instead a messiah in the Jewish sense of the term, a good man and a freedom fighter, trying to liberate the Jews