Chris Weimer

I just blogged my short review of the book here. Kudos to Stephen.

Toto

The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark by Stephen C. Carlson

Yuri Kuchinsky

Just to keep things in perspective, here's an alternative view,

(June 16, 2005) Why I think that Carlson's SecMk Debunking Theory is Completely Silly
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=128104

Best,

Yuri.

Chris Weimer

Yuri, you should know that I at first was a skeptic of Carlson, and even still I am not 100% completely satisfied by the book - lots of weak arguments where I at first thought especially strong. I still find the handwriting most convincing and everything else less so. The more I research, the less some of the more convincing argument appear as they rather shaky and wouldn't alone stand. But now that we actually have Sec Mark again, we should be able to study the manuscript in lieu of Carlson's call for further research (or rather, his hesitancy for further research, but acknowledgement that it is crucial). However, you still need to read it first before judging.

Chris

Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear Chris,

You seem to have misspoken here a bit...

Do we actually have Sec Mark again? Is it something new?

I'm planning to read Carlson's book soon.

Meanwhile, having read it already, do you mind posting to that old thread of mine, and pointing out where my proposed scenario of what Carlson might say in his book is not in accord with what he actually did say in his book?

Best,

Yuri.

Ted Hoffman

Carlson,
I think this is great work that you have done. Prof. Jim West's unreserved recommendation of your book as a must read makes it even the more interesting.
Congratulations and keep up the good work. I wont be reading it soon myself. I just got a carton of books last week.
Jacob

Chris Weimer

Walter (remember him?) said BAR mentioned it, or something along the lines of other scholars attested its existence. Personally, I don't know. Has anyone else heard this?

Back to your argument. Actually, none of your supposed scenarios are how Carlson tells it to be, so your logical refutation doesn't hold scrutiny. There are some reasons for doubting Carlson, but I don't want to misrepresent Carlson at the moment with strawmen, so wait for Walt's and I review of the book. As for the handwriting, indeed that was the most convincing of his arguments for me also. I'll keep you updated in a bit.

Loren Rosson III

Like Chris, I've read Carlson's book. It's convincing. I blogged a couple of posts about it:

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...ention-of.html

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...spel-hoax.html

JoeWallack

JW:
Hi Chris. Whether or not "Secret Mark" is a forgery isn't important to an objective evaluation of "Mark" because we can be absolutely certain that "Mark" is Fiction either Way it swings. In an Irony though that I think the author of "Mark" would really appreciate, the Internal Evidence is exponentially better that "Mark" is a Forgery compared to Secret Mark. Internally, "Mark" has been stuffed full of the Impossible so it can clearly be outed as Fiction. Secret Mark on the other hand, has the Possible, such as Jesus being Gay. The External evidence for Secret Mark, compared to "Mark" is also interesting as it was supposedly discovered by a known person who just happened to be a Bible scholar, at a known location at a known time and supposedly quoted by an early Church Father who would have been a hostile witness.

The problem with Christian Bible scholarship is that it is Christian Bible scholarship. IIDB would be unnecessary if it hadn't always been Church Fathers critiquing the writings of Church Fathers. Authors should always identify their backgrounds and possible motivations. My first question to you Cris is that with Mr. Carlson being Christian does his book illustrate a motivation to Out Secret Mark for religious reasons? I also wonder when Mr. Carlson will be collaberating with Helms on the next Gospel Fiction book since those are so much easier to demonstrate than Secret Mark was.

The second question I have is did Mr. Carlson deal with the Vorkosigan Chiasms in his book. I'm guessing that Mr. Carlson considers chiasms one of the bad reasons for Markan priority. In Dart's related book Dart takes Secret Mark as completing chiasms in "Mark" and therefore concludes that this proves that Secret Mark is authentic. To me (and I believe Vork also) Dart's attempted construction of chiams using Secret Mark is unconvincing and therefore proves the opposite - the lack of well defined chiasms in Secret Mark is evidence that it is a Forgery. I would assume that Smith never recognized the chiastic structure of "Mark".



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Loren,

Have you read my analysis of Carlson's SecMk Debunking?

(June 16, 2005)
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=128104

What do you think about it?

Best,

Yuri.