No, They Didn't Find the Holy Grail

It's easy to discredit some things.

Two researchers have decided that a certain gold chalice is surely The Holy Grail. If you're anything like me then the first time you heard about the Holy Grail was from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. (Which just might be my favorite movie.)

I saw that flick when I was a kid and wondered about this cup. Was it real? Did Jesus drink from a cool, magical chalice? Could I find it, some day? The answer to those questions was disappointing (but it probably did help me start a hobby in medieval history), because there is no mention of The Grail until the second half of the Middle Ages where it shows up in fiction. It was only a plot device and was never meant to be taken seriously. No such Holy Grail is mentioned in the Bible, and it has never been a part of Christian teaching.

So what did these scholars find? The 12th-century Chalice of Doña Urraca, a cup from Spain (over there on the right) that does not date back to Jesus' time. Not even close. Furthermore, it's polychrome inlaying does not bear resemblance to ancient Roman designs or Middle-Eastern art of the first century. Note the very Latin lettering surrounding the base; it ought to be Greek if Jesus had used it. There is also a small cross in the middle that appears to be medieval heraldry. It's possible that only the inner marble part of the cup is what is claimed to have belonged to Jesus and that the gold and jewels were added later, but that doesn't explain why the cup exists at all.

How do we know this cup is not the Holy Grail? Because there's no such thing as the Holy Grail. That would be like spelunking in Peru and finding Indy's whip next to a huge boulder. The Grail is a wonderful fictional story but nothing more.

Someone Found the Holy Grail. Yay.

Once again, the Holy Grail has been found.  As this article tells us:

A retired Royal Navy officer who has spent years studying ancient texts, believes he has at last solved the mystery of the disappearance of the Holy Grail....For millions of believers, the Holy Grail is the most precious object on earth.

OK, let's stop.  The "disappearance" of the Holy Grail is no mystery because it never existed in the first place.  In the late middle ages some stories began to circulate about it, but from a Biblical and historical standpoint it doesn't exist.  No one ever made record of any cup Jesus drank from and no one ever used one of these cups to catch His blood.  Those stories took around 1,300 years to be written and no trace of them exists until then.  I hate to be a killjoy, but it's all fiction.  Let's move on:

The chalice, which Christ drank from at the Last Supper and was later used to collect some of his blood at the Crucifixion, is a priceless Christian relic.

No, it isn't.  But I already said that.  I digress.

Faithful have searched in vain to find it. Finally it has been discovered, overlooked and unrecognized, in the corner of a cathedral in the heart of England.

No, the "faithful" have not been looking for this.  Faithful believers own and read actual Bibles that say nothing of a grail.  The so-called "faithful" are the ones who don't believe in this thing.  Moving on:

Historians and academics will be astonished by the revelation that Christendom’s most prized historical object has been under their noses for decades.

Nope.  I think you'll find that this will be ignored just like every other attempt to stir up interest in the Holy Grail.

In 1889 Lincoln Cathedral was undergoing repair. A group of workmen lifted a large Portland marble slab and revealed the tomb of Bishop Oliver Sutton, who died in 1299.  Inside the grave, archaeologists found a chalice next to the skeleton; it was still standing where it had been placed almost 600 years earlier. It was made of silver, four-and-half inches high and completely without decoration.

In this case, Indiana Jones makes some sense.  Do you really think that a carpenter and his fishing buddies were drinking out of silver goblets?  I don't.

 "You call this archaeology?"

“This was the Holy Grail but no one acknowledged it....In my own mind and in all good faith I am confident that the chalice recovered from Bishop Sutton’s tomb is the Holy Grail.”

Faith?  Look, religion concerns faith, but history doesn't.  You don't dig up the remains of a pachyderm  in France and tell your colleagues that your faith and your "own mind" confirms that it was Charlemagne's pet elephant*.  That's not how historians do things.

The truth is, there was no Grail, and Christians of all people certainly don't believe in one.  Everyone who is NOT a Christian thinks that people who sit in church will find some kind of hope or encouragement in this so-called relic, but that's not the case.  You'll find the biggest skeptics concerning the Holy Grail are sitting in church pews on Sunday morning.  Christians don't believe in the Holy Grail, and neither do real historians.

*By the way, Charlemagne did actually have a pet elephant.