If you think Barbara Thiering is loony, you haven't yet seen The Hiram Key. I can't offer any opinions on what is says about Freemasonry (based on Amazon reviews, some Masons think they're right; those who sound more intelligent think that Lomas and Knight haven't got a clue), but what they say about the Bible certainly isn't worth a hill of beans -- and I suggest that that tells us enough about these writers' capabilities as a whole.

Written by an advertising and graphic design marketing specialist and an electrical engineer (who needed the help of a kidney specialist), The Hiram Key is what you think it is -- a speculative conspiracy piece that claims that Christianity is a fraud, and that Masonry is at the root of the truth. As a research specialist, I found this book painful: Documentation is practically non-existent, and that's enough for me to dismiss this work completely and justifiably out of hand. Key claims about matters of history (especially with reference to claimed travels of the Knights Templar) are made with nary a footnote; the claims are merely asserted as though they were common, indisputable knowledge -- no works are cited from respected medieval historians, classicists, or anyone whose work is germane to the topic. What few notes are offered do not even give page numbers; anyone seeking to cross-check this work will have a long travail ahead of them. (I would suggest that the authors do not want anyone checking their claims, because they are either bogus or else speculation being paraded as fact.)