Ben C Smith

Ah, but what I was doing was exactly what you explain you were doing with Carlson:

What you did was to turn a particular argument against Smith having perpetrated a fraud into a smoking gun. You said basically that no arguments against authenticity would matter if your argument for authenticity holds.

I did much the same with the anachronisms that Carlson adduced. No argument for authenticity will do the trick so long as there are palpable anachronisms in the text.

This is the same presumption used to date other early Christian materials, is it not? If a text betrays awareness of the fall of Jerusalem, or of the expulsion from the synagogue, or of Bar Kokhba, or of another more securely datable text, then it must necessarily postdate that event or text, no matter how much within it appears to reflect early tradition. The difference, of course, is that a genuinely ancient text that we have thus postdated can still retain early tradition (whether from oral sources or from now lost written sources). In the case of Morton Smith (or any other modern forgery), if any of his text postdates, say, 1910, then there is no chance that any early tradition was in fact preserved in the letter.

Yes, that material is first on my list. But it will be exactly as you have described it here, a reply to your material derived from Talley. I am unable to get hold of his work, and (unlike the Brown book) there seems to be no prospect of doing so soon.

Let me say that both in your fourfold analysis of the western readings and in your analysis of Talley you have taken exactly the tack I would regard as necessary to vindicate, if possible, the text. The best way, of course, would be to actually find a copy more ancient than 1958 (or the eighteenth century, for that matter). But, pending that, the second best way is to identify hitherto unnoticed texts or traditions that can only be explained by recourse to an early date for the secret gospel. And that is what both of your primary approaches attempt to do.

The question is: Are they successful?

Ben.

The first task of the critic is to expose forgeries, whether ancient (like the pastoral epistles) or modern (like the secret gospel of Mark).

Ben C Smith

Keeping in mind, of course, that I do not at this stage regard Smith as a hoaxer.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

I have just ordered this book from Amazon. Scott G. Brown, MARK'S OTHER GOSPEL

Jake Jones

jakejonesiv

Since the title of this thread is A review of Carlson's debunking of Secret Mark, I will give an outline of the arguments that Stephen Carlson presents. I will note my observations ir red.

1. Theodore and Secret Mark reflect the sexual mores of the 1950’s rather than the 200’s.
2. Morton Smith was a life long bachelor, and as far as we know, he was gay. Thus Smith would have a personal interest in attitudes about homosexuality in the 1950’s.
3. There is zero evidence for the antiquity of Secret Mark other than Morton Smith's discovery.
4. According to SC, Morton Smith never stated unambiguously that he discovered Secret Mark at Mar Saba. Such descriptions are always carefully guarded by conditionals. Such “weasel wording� is evidence of Smith trying to convey a false impression while avoiding a lie in the technical sense.
5. Morton Smith was well qualified to perpetuate such a hoax.
a. In 1955 Smith had published an analysis of a commentary on GMark
b. Morton Smith had an intimate knowledge of monastic libraries, particularly Mar Saba which he had visited previously.
c. Morton Smith had inspected, photographed, and transcribed dozens of Greek manuscripts, many of which he dated to the 18th century.
d. While at Drew, Smith had become interested in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus, which includes a discussion of the Carpocratians.
e. Smith, in March 1958, published an article, "Image of God", that cited Clement of Alexandria four times.
6. Smith’s authentication of the manuscript by ten colleagues to “about 1750, plus or minus about fifty years� is inadequate. (pages 23-25).
a. The experts never saw the original document.
b. We don’t know if the experts saw photographs or photostats.
c. We don’t know how much time was spent by each respective college.
d. The results are filtered through Smith. We do not know if he understood them correctly, or if any qualifications were expressed.
e. Most of the experts were consulted orally, so we have no record of what was said.
f. They were simply asked to date the hand. This is entirely too informal.
g. The possibility of forgery and suspicious details was inquired upon after the documents were inspected. In fact, the wording used by Smith may indicate that only a single expert was asked about a hoax.
h. There is no evidence that the ten colleagues were provided with any comparison documents.
i. Smith did not deem it necessary to itemize the replies. This amounts then to nothing more than hearsay by a possible hoaxer.
7. The Letter to Theodore containing Secret Mark was not forged flawlessly. It shows ample evidence of being a forgery.
a. Blunt ends
b. Pen lifts
c. Retouching
d. Shaky lines
e. Forger’s tremor
8. SC identities Theodore and Secret Mark to be written in the same hand, photographed and published by Morton Smith, assigned number 22 in Smith's catalog (pages 42-43). Smith dates the first hand, not to the 18th century, but confidently to the 20th century, and attributes it to M. Madiotes -- the "bald swindler". Smith was folically impaired, so this is a confession.
9. Theodore begins with a sphragis, "From the letters of the most holy Clement, the author of the Stromateis." This is evidence of a forgery. See pages 54-56 of The Gospel Hoax.
10. SC gives credit to Andrew Criddle (p. xv) who identified that Theodore is hyper-Clementine (a deliberate imitation of Clementine's style)
11. A work of Christian fiction, entitled The Mystery of Mar Saba, by James H. Hunter, was originally published in 1940 but frequently reprinted afterwards. The story revolved around the discovery of a revolutionary, ancient text in the monastery of Mar Saba that turned out to be a forgery (the Gospel Hoax, page 19). The forgery in the book is discovered by a scholar while he was cataloguing the manuscripts there. The Mystery of Mar Saba mentions the rolling away of stones and of linen clothing. It appears that Morton Smith modeled his hoax on the book.
12. Bart Ehrman noted the significant humor of Theodore being found into the flyleaves of Epistolae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris, Isaac Voss, 1646. This is ironic because the book concerns itself with forgeries. (page 20).
13. SC identifies within Secret Mark support for Morton Smith's own previous works.
a. The coupling of "the mystery of the kingdom of God" with a forbidden sexual relationship supports Smith's earlier linkage in 1951 of Mark 4:11 with forbidden sexual relationships (page 81).
b. The similarity of Secret Mark to the Lazarus story in GJohn supports Smith's 1955 contention that Mark used a "source with Johannine traits".
14. SC notes that apparently free flowing salt adulterated by adding another ingredient is an anachronism. See page 60.
a. "Morton" salt is considered a confession. (This could be a mere coincidence). However, if this is true, then Secret Mark is salted with clues.
15. According to SC, M.Smith also buries a reference to "Smith" in the commentary on the text, Jeremiah 28:17. This is also considered a confession. (This could also be a coincidence).
16. Theodore and Secret Mark are almost too good to be true.
a. The cliff hanger right at the end is extemely convinient. If any more was revealed about Clement's alleged secret gnostic doctrine, the harder it would be to defend.
b. Jesus is so gay that no only is it said he loves the youth and the youth loves him, but he will have nothing to do with three women.

I have read some of the reasons about how it was totally impossible that Morton Smith could have hoaxed the thing. I know what you mean. I have often felt the same way after seeing tricks by professional magicians.

I will address those type of issues in a future post after doing more reading.

Jake Jones IV

S.C.Carlson

In the January edition of Expository Times, Scott G. Brown will be publishing a review of my book.

My review of his book will be in the February edition of Expository Times.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Jake,

How come you didn't reply to the points I raised in my post #34 in this thread?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Thanks for your reply, Ben.

Not quite. Rather than "a smoking gun", I showed that Carlson's main thesis is just plain silly.

I've analysed Carlson's thesis on its own merits, and showed that it doesn't hold water.

But enough of this 'you did' -- 'I did' stuff... The textual evidence is the only thing that really matters. So I'll just await your reply to my textual evidence.

Nevertheless, I'd still like to point out a fundamental difference between Brown's book and Carlson's book. Brown's book is written in a rather conventional academic style, and it covers a wide variety of issues relevant to this MS. It makes an effort to deal with the issues objectively and even-handedly.

His book doesn't even have one central thesis, I'd say; rather, it covers a very wide variety of matters, and it doesn't really have an axe to grind -- at least not on the surface.

Carlson's book, on the other hand, really seems like a lawyers brief much more than an academic study. It's really one-sided -- the whole thing is organised around just this single issue, trying to prove that Smith was a hoaxer.

These two are very different books.

Regards,

Yuri.

Ben C Smith

Hey, what is going on with your website? I have been trying to access it for the last two days, to no avail. Good thing I already had most of your stuff on the secret gospel printed out.

Also, you mentioned a sixfold coincidence. I have not yet found any part of your writings where you enumerate the coincidences and come up with six (though maybe you did in some section I did not print out), and just to avoid any misunderstanding could you perhaps list them for me here?

Amen to that.

I think most folks who expose frauds or fallacies look rather one-sided. Recently T. Weeden exposed scores of weaknesses, oversights, and what really look like dishonesties in the informal controlled theory that Bailey proposed several years ago. And he looked very one-sided in doing so. His whole effort was organized around just that single issue, after all, trying to prove that Bailey had misrepresented the data and vastly overstated his case. Weeden was not vicious about it, so far as I could tell... just devastating (this is all based on his XTalk posts; I gather he also presented his case to the SBL, but I was not there).

But that is how one exposes a forgery.

Ben.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Ben,

My service provider is having some problems. Let's hope this will be resolved soon.

Actually, it's not yet on my website, but it's been discussed at IIDB.org. Since, as you say, you don't have access to Talley's book, you may find it useful to review this discussion,

IIDB - Thomas Talley in support of SecMk
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=106282

And here there's an explanation of some of the coincidences,

IIDB - Carlson's attempt to debunk Secret Mark
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=125174&page=3

Here again are the coincidences, as I see them.

In the Longer Gospel of Mark (Secret Mark), Jesus apparently performs a baptism right before his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem -- he baptises one of his chosen disciples.

No other such account is known prior to LGM manuscript.

A few years later, Dr. Talley discovers in some obscure Coptic sources, not just one, but two similar accounts, that describe Jesus baptising some of his chosen disciples. Which would have already been remarkable enough... But, moreover, the time frame that these Coptic sources indicate for Jesus' baptising activities is _the very same week_ just before Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem!

Isn't this remarkable?

Thus, we seem to have the following apparent coincidences,

#1
-- LGM purports to come out of Egypt.
-- Our Coptic sources also come out of Egypt.

#2
-- LGM says Jesus was a Baptist.
-- Our Coptic sources also say that Jesus was a Baptist.

#3
Since our Coptic testimony comes from not just one, but two apparently independent sources, all these coincidences are thereby _doubled_.

#4
-- The time frame for Jesus' baptising activities, as indicated in LGM, is just before his entry into Jerusalem.
-- The time frame for Jesus' baptising activities, as indicated in our Coptic sources, is also just before Jesus' entry into Jerusalem.

And so, we have the three coincidences here and, doubled by two, we get six coincidences all in all.

So how could Smith get it so close, if he just made up this whole Longer Gospel of Mark thing himself?

Yes, I'm familiar with Weeden's investigation of Bailey's claims.

But Carlson says it's not a forgery!

Of course I get your point, Ben... Lawyer's briefs are also useful under various circumstances. Yet, to be sure, they are also normally accompanied by the briefs coming from the other lawyers.

All the best,

Yuri.

Ben C Smith

I saw that other discussion, and this list. What I missed was the doubling part from #3. Thank you.

Ben.