Vorkosigan

I've made a quick page with some speculation on the real source of Secret Mark. I think the forger constructed it out of the modern critical gospel.

http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/nt1/secmark.html

Vorkosigan

Rick Sumner

I am, at least, suspicious of Secret Mark, but you aren't making the case here.

Your first parallel is pretty specious. It's a fairly standard Markan introduction. See 5:1, 10:46, 14:32, for easy examples. Secret Mark would be suspicious if the pericope wasn't introduced with something in that vein. There's nothing suspicious about the fact that it does. We should expect an authentic Secret Mark to have stylistic parallel to Mark, and this is one of the points I'd suggest we would be most surprised to see missing.

Besides which, it's pretty standard in a lot of texts (e.g. 1&2Ch). That's not dependence, it's parallelomania.

With your second parallel you're on to something with a little more substance. In canonical Mark, Jesus is called "son of David" (or anything even close to it), but once--Mark's Jesus does not appear to be David's son.

The remainder follows largely the problem you create for yourself in the first. We should expect a Markan writing to contain Markan style. You have no firm evidence of direct plagiarism, you have "X" is similar to something Mark wrote elsewhere. That is entirely what we should expect to find. It would be rather suspicious if an authentic Secret Mark didn't echo Markan style.

The problem, rather succinctly, is that I could walk through virtually any pericope in Mark and preform this same excercise. Which is not at all surprising, after all, Mark wrote them both.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Bede

Rick and Vork,

While I agree that Vork hasn't demonstatred Sec Mark is a modern forgery, he has perhaps help show that it is not a pre-modern forgery. The parrallels he notes are most likely to result either from Mark himself or a modern forger using modern methods. And as Mark himself is prima facie fantastically unlikely, a modern forgery looks the most likely...

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Vorkosigan

Yes, that's quite true. Mark has a habit of introducing things with geographic movement.

It was actually that phrase that set off my alarm bells. Then I noticed that the woman had combined the role of Jairus and the hemorrhagic woman in one role. That set me off again.

It would be devastating if it didn't! But offhand I couldn't think of another pericope that contained the features of the gospel in order, or at least, could be seen to function in that way. Can you parallel a couple of others to show me how easily it can be done?

Can you parallel a couple of others to show me how easily it can be done?

andrewcriddle

Professor Best (recently deceased) wrote an article in 1979 in JSNT 4 pps 69-76 primarily a review of Pryke's 'Redactional Style in the Marcan Gospel' but which includes an argument that the Secret Gospel contains more distinctively Marcan stylistic traits than one would find in a passage of canonical Mark of similar length.

He claimed that this shows that the pasaage is a deliberate imitation of Mark's style, which has inadvertently resulted in 'overkill'

See http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2...-best-rip.html

Andrew Criddle

(How far this argument bears on the question whether the passage is an ancient or modern imitation of Mark is another matter)

Vorkosigan

Best's conclusions:

"From these figures it can be seen that non-canonical Mark stands by itself. We noted earlier that it had Markan characteristics at unexpected places. We must now conclude that it is too much like Mark. All this implies it was not written by Mark but |76 by someone who know Mark well and picked up his phrases. We might describe it as a mosaic of Markan phrases. It looks as if its author thumbed through Mark until he found the phrase he wanted, if necessary modified it and then made it part of his text. Inadvertantly he produced an 'overkill'. It is impossible to determine when or by whom this was done."

It is interesting that he came to the same conclusion I did but through a different route. Thanks Andrew.

Rick Sumner

The "son of David" line is telling. It simply doesn't sound like Mark (I'm suspicious of the possibility of interpolation in the canonical instance of the phrase as well).

The addition to that is, as Bede notes, we wouldn't expect an ancient forger to be so alert to stylistic concerns. Sounds like a modern forgery to me.

Will do, though it might not be until tomorrow or the next day.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Vork,

I think it would be helpful if you try to state clearly from the outset what is it that you're trying to prove with all this. Are you (a) trying to show that SecMk is some sort of a forgery, based on the canonical Mk? Or (b) are you trying to show that Smith was a forger?

If (a), then one can dispute various parts of what you're saying, such as for example pointing out that the sequence of borrowing from the canonical Mk that you suggest has some problems. For example, the incident with the naked young man in Mk 14:51 is omitted in your sequence, whereas it happens to provide the best parallel to SecMk.

But if (b), then I don't think you've even started to make your case.

Please keep in mind that accusing a scholar of forgery is nothing less than character assassination. That is why one needs some very good evidence for such a grave accusation.

Likewise, the type of an argument that Dr. Best makes, while perhaps legitimate for some other purpose, is completely insufficient as a basis of accusing Morton Smith of forgery. Sure, some scholar may think that some stylistic traits may be seen as typically Marcan, while others may be seen as not really Marcan, or insufficiently Marcan, or perhaps that the accumulation of some stylistic traits in a document X may be seen as too Marcan, while some others may disagree with any of the above. All this provides fine fodder for a nice after lunch conversation in the faculty lounge. You know, abstract theoretical stuff -- often rather speculative -- that can be tossed back and forth till kingdom come. But from such rather conjectural stuff, to go straight into character assassination is not really legitimate.

All the best,

Yuri.

Notsri

Hey, Vorkosigan. There's an interesting study, although a brief one, on Secret Mark, in an appendix to F.F. Bruce's The Canon of Scripture. It might be of some interest to you if you haven't already read it. He argues along the same lines as you: SecMk. is essentially a pastiche of canonical-Gospel texts, relying mostly on Mark itself (which would account for its Markan language). He does allow for the possibility, though, that it is indeed an ancient forgery, and even that the letter in which it was preserved is truly of Clementine origin. Here's a brief excerpt:

Regards,
Notsri

Vorkosigan

Only (a). I don't have the evidence to convict Smith, though I believe he was the forger. I tend to side with Akenson when he says that Sec Mark is a forgery aimed at our modern sensibilities.

I didn't parallel the young man who flees naked in 14:51 because then the parallel would have been out of sequence. The young man in linen at the tomb was better. Not only does the parallel stay in sequence, but SecMark says the young man was with him all night while the Tomb Man was found at the Tomb in the morning.

Vorkosigan