Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Vork,

This Mar Saba MS is a completely unique case, for a number of reasons. The whole story is very unusual. Where else do we have a case such as this, when we have two sets of photos of a MS -- good quality photos -- but no actual MS?

Thus, it's not appropriate IMHO to draw parallels with some cases of real and suspected forgeries, and to make sweeping judgements on such a basis.

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As for the Clement letter being accepted by scholars that is meaningless.

No it's not!

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Basic principle: you cannot authenticate an item based on scripts and content, you can only disprove it. That ought to be glaringly obvious after the ossuary thing.

Once again, you're making general judgements based on some other considerations that may not be relevant.

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All the Clementine scholars have shown is that the forger is very good -- that the text falls within an acceptable range, which is what we would expect if the forger were good. The crucial evidence is the physiochemical evidence of the item and we cannot access that. Until we do and it confirms that the text is of ancient rather than modern origin, I will continue to believe this text is a forgery for sociological reasons. Vorkosigan

You can believe anything you want...

Meanwhile, I have found solid textual evidence to demonstrate that this text could not have been a modern forgery.

Basically, you're allowing some conservative Christian monks to exclude certain textual evidence from consideration. But I will not follow that path.

Also, Vork wrote:

"Yuri, in case you haven't noticed, Haran and I share no significant ideology in this area."

But I think you do!

Both of you want to discourage the study of this MS essentially on ideological grounds IMO. While your ideologies are indeed very different, in this case your agendas seem to coincide quite nicely.

IMHO, Haran wants to discourage the study of this MS because of what it may imply about the HJ. And you seem to want to discourage the study of this MS simply because it may imply the HJ!

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

You omit to mention the fact that the photos Hendrick obtained were (1) not the same as Morton Smiths and (2) that they were not obtained from Bar Saba Monastery but from a former librarian at Jerusalem Patriarchate library.

Dear Sir,

In the interest of sanity, and in the interest of general productivity, I'm putting you on my ignore list.

It is obvious you have some sort of a strong emotional attachment to Mar Saba MS being a forgery. Fine with me... I have no special interest in changing your mind.

Some of your quibbles have already been answered by others, and some of them have been answered by me a while back. I will not waste any more of my time.

Yours,

Yuri.

{edited by Toto to fix formatting for clarity}

Toto

I do not think that Secret Mark shows the existence of the Historical Jesus any more that Canonical Mark does, so I see no motive for discrediting it there.

It could have been a second century "forgery", which would absolve Smith and discredit whatever implications it might have for early Christianity. But if you think, as I do, that Canonical Mark was a fictional account in any case, what would make Secret Mark a forgery?

I still haven't seen that anyone's interpretation of early Christian literature depends heavily on SM.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, Roger, Ehrman is not really one of my favourite subjects. As I say, I consider him a quintessential mainstreamer. His book about the orthodox corruptions of scripture is only "radical" in its title. The contents of the book isn't really breaking any new ground, and is quite limited in scope.

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Permit me a personal remark. This is the second time today you have attempted to pillory me personally for a general comment. I know you are cross with Didymus for comparing your website and approach unfavourably with mine, but that is hardly my fault, is it? Please desist. Surely I have the same right to talk generally as anyone else, without people jumping on me and demanding footnotes, proofs, cross-references and the like? Someone asked for some names. I offered some suggestions. If you don't like them, why attack me? -- instead why not demonstrate that the persons concerned do not hold the views attributed to them. All the best, Roger Pearse

Well, I don't really mind your habit of archly putting down mainstream NT scholars -- after all, I'm not a slouch in this area myself. But it's the way you do it sometimes that I find a bit annoying.

Some of us, like Iasion and myself, also have a low regard for mainstream scholarship. And yet, we still do read mainstream scholars quite a lot (as well as the primary sources, of course), trying to find some wheat among the chaff. So suppose I did a lot of background reading on a given subject that interests me, and I did find some small amount of wheat among the chaff... So, after doing all that hard work, I write an article where I'm happy to report some good findings, some interesting stuff that I've discovered...

But then in comes Roger; he didn't do any work at all in investigating this area; he basically knows nothing about the subject, and yet he's ready as always with his put-downs of _modern scholars in general_, thus undermining my whole often very complex argument in one fell swoop. From a position of ignorance.

So then what am I supposed to do? Launch into the defence of modern scholarship in general? Try to explain to Roger the basic facts on the ground -- what our primary evidence is, what the current consensus is, and how it came about? But why doesn't Roger do some of this background reading himself, for a change?

So here's my suggestion. You keep putting down the modern scholars all you want, but when I'm citing some modern scholar in an argument that I'm making, how about sparing us your opinion about modern scholarship _in general_, which would only distract from the point at hand?

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear Roger,

All these things I've said about the Clementine scholars, and about the professional paleographers, and about their collective evaluation of Mar Saba MS are well known to anyone who has read anything on the subject.

I hope you will not be one of those who would make nasty accusations against a respected scholar without familiarising themselves with the basic evidence on the ground.

Best,

Yuri.

Vorkosigan

If you want to understand whether something is a forgery, you need knowledge of forgery cases. This case is extremely suggestive.


I am not a mythicist, so this would certainly not bother me.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

Aaah, Yuri, always the disciplinarian. You should have been a headmaster.

Haran

You certinaly helped yourself by including the "without familiarising themselves with the basic evidence on the ground". You make quite a lot of "nasty accusations" against respected scholars yourself.

Anyways, I'm not sure that everyone would agree that Morton Smith was a "respected scholar". Whenever he comes up, quite a few, even his "fans", remember that he was not always a particularly nice or agreeable fellow. All one has to do is read through the links on W.Willker's Secret Mark page to find that out.

Did he know his stuff? Sure. However, a person can be scholarly without being a particularly respectable fellow.

Haran

Of course you may think what you like, but I want to discourage the study of Secret Mark because I think it is probably a forgery and I do not like it when history is rewritten based on forgeries. This is why I have given up on the James ossuary. If I was truly motivated as you say, then I would still be supporting the ossuary as well. I simply want the truth and I'm sick and tired of people forging things to create their own history.

I think you have Vork wrong as well.

And I'm surprised that you do not see that Ehrman should have interest in Secret Mark. He could be using it to show how the Orthodox have corrupted scripture. Yet, looking at the similarity of this case to other forgeries, he seems to come to the conclusion that Secret Mark is very possibly a forgery. It would fit right into his theories, so what ideological reason would he have to reject it?

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Toto,

I would say that, logically, since the Secret Mark seems to present a somewhat different image of Jesus, there might be some chance that the Secret Mark's image of Jesus could be a bit more historically accurate than the Canonical Mark's image of Jesus.

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It could have been a second century "forgery", which would absolve Smith and discredit whatever implications it might have for early Christianity. But if you think, as I do, that Canonical Mark was a fictional account in any case, what would make Secret Mark a forgery?

But how do you know that both the Secret Mark's and the Canonical Mark's accounts are entirely fictitious?

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I still haven't seen that anyone's interpretation of early Christian literature depends heavily on SM.

But how about Morton Smith's own interpretation of early Christian literature? While his interpretation wasn't really embraced by all that many people, it's still out there...

Best,

Yuri.