Doctor X

Haran:

I had a funny italic commentary to show it was a joke but it was not actually funny. [You are never funny.--Ed.]

I also did not want to seem I was belittling Yuri. I am not "convinced" of his argument against the possibility it could be a forgery, but he has done far more research on the subject than I have. If BillyGrahamEtc is watching, this is a topic I refer'd to on another thread.

Toto:

I do not know how "earth-shattering" it is other than it would change a conception of Christian development. There was an article in the JBL I happened to be skimming when those threads you linked came about, and I thought, as trying to follow the conclusions of the writer, that "well, if it is a forgery, you have wasted a lot of time!"

--J.D.

Haran

I'm not sure who I'd say uses Secret Mark as a "lynchpin", but as I stated above, it can be said that SGM is "important to their theories of textual development". I edited my post above to give the example of Koester and Crossan. From reading Peter's webpage (or their books...), you can see that they make good use of it.

Bernard Muller

I wonder what would be the definition of unauthenticity regarding SGM:
1) The two pericopes reported by Clement of Alexandria are latter Christian interpolations on GMark (but the SGM manuscript is truly a copy of something written long ago by Clement).
2) The whole SGM document is a fake done by a monk.
3) The whole SGM document is a fake generated by Morton Smith.
4) Anything else ???

Best regards, Bernard

PS: I used to opt for 1), but I may reconsider. BTW, SGM is never mentioned on my website.
Isn't it true the SGM manuscript is now in the possession of the orthodox archbishop of Istanbul, who does not allow access to it?

Roger Pearse

The authorships of various bits could also be different from those supposed above, and it could be an ancient or a modern composition. No doubt other possibilities exist.

I'm not sure where it is -- does anyone know?

Obscurantism, however, has been a feature of every manuscript library I have ever visited (except Balliol College, Oxford). The people who run them would usually rather see the books burned than copies made (a hobby horse of mine, I should add). I have a charming letter from Lambeth Palace Library refusing to let me photograph a printed book, and demanding I pay them $1300 if I want them to do so, plus an annual fee which they don't specify if I want to put them online.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Bernard Muller

Thank you Roger.
It looks now this document would be in the care of an orthodox church high level cleric in Jerusalem, but it is out of sight.
I found a website which treats well of the controversy:
http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/S...mark_home.html
It even has the picture of the SGM!
Most of the opposition seems to have come from conservative Christians (a good reason for it to get lost!).

Best regards, Bernard

Haran

Too many strange coincidences (and some new ones I had not heard about before were added by Ehrman). It could have given him a lifetime of scholarly "job insurance". I lean toward this choice. Even if it was not forged by Smith and/or an accomplice, I cannot see it dating much further back than the book it was written in.


I don't think so. Ehrman states that no one seems to know where it is. I believe it is said that the last western scholar saw it in Jerusalem. It has been said that the MS was cut from the Voss edition! This was a mistake! Now both the book and the MS need to be found!

Haran

Ehrman states that the Clement of SGM is more Clement than Clement. And I have also heard it said that the Mark of SGM is more Markan than Mark. In other words, SGM contains a larger than normal number of Clement and Markan special words/phrases. It would have been relatively easy to use Stalin's work to create something so Clementine. A scholar such as Smith would also have had no problem with Mark's style. All of this can easily lead one toward forgery and probably Smith.

Near the time SGM was discovered, Smith also discovered a 15th century MS of a lost work of Sophocles in the binding of an 18th century book.

What I hope someone does is to study this other work for similar strange coincidences such as overdone style. Smith himself, in his CBQ response to Quesnell, mentioned that no one had questioned this discovery. What a quaint little scholar's game this could have been and, if playing, he was winning! Look! Everyone's focusing on the biblical MS! How predictable! Perhaps the "lost work of Sophocles" should be examined as well....

Steven Carr

Is this the same erudite scholar Bart Ehrman who documented the early doctrinal editing , corruption, and fabrication of the Gospel texts in 'The Unorthodox Corruption of Scripture'?

Roger Pearse

I'd like some details of this, and a reference -- it sounds interesting.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Vorkosigan

My jaw about hit the floor when I read about Sophocles. That means that Morton Smith is a genius or a forger. And the fact that he hinted to Quesnell....oh, hello Oded. Looks like the pantheon has to make room for another.

From Catholic Bible Quarterly
But then, Smith wonders, why did I not object when he published his Sophocles scholia in 1960, also without having made his manuscripts available? Surely only difference in content would explain my reacting in one instance and not in the other?

So nobody has seen this manuscript either. The author also makes the following deadly point:

• Imagine a different situation. Imagine that the Dead Sea scrolls had been discovered, not by a Bedouin lad, but by an American scholar making a private retreat in the desert. He photographs some of them and then walks out of the desert, leaving the scrolls where they were. He spends ten years analyzing his photographs and after fifteen years publishes a long analysis of the grammar, vocabulary, and handwriting of the scrolls. He concludes his book with a statement that he is not sure how the scrolls came to be where he found them, for strange accidents are always occurring in the desert, 12 but at least "as far as I know, they are still where I left them."
  
  If that were the story of the Dead Sea scrolls, would the Morton Smith whose high critical standards gave us the classic "Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark" (HTR 48 [1955] 21-64) not himself be raising questions about their authenticity?

Vorkosigan