Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear Andrew,

I just wonder, how does your list of possibilities accommodate the 6 agreements between SMk and Western/Peripheral MSS, that I've analysed?

One of these 6 was of course known to Smith.

Thus, there are the following options that need to be examined.

-- All 6 of these agreements are purely accidental.
-- One of them (the one known to Smith) was planted on purpose, while 5 are accidental.
-- All 6 had been planted on purpose, but nobody got the joke until now.
-- Some of them are accidental, while others had been planted on purpose.
-- None of them had been planted on purpose.

So what do you think?

Yuri.

andrewcriddle

Hi Yuri

IMHO some of the parallels are much more impressive than others. Rightly or wrongly I do not find the ones present only in the Western part of the peripheral tradition to be particularly significant.

In the case of the parallels between the Syriac and/or Diatessaronic version of the story of Lazarus and the passage from the secret gospel the parallels are IMO much more interesting.

The problem is that they seem to mainly involve cases where the secret gospel tells the story in Markan/synoptic style, the Syriac/Diatessaronic version of Lazarus tells the story in Markan/synoptic style but the standard text of John does not.

Now one thing that I think we can be sure about is that the passage in secret Mark comes from retelling a narrative similar to Lazarus in a distinctively Markan style. (this might have been someone in the 2nd century or someone in the 20th century or someone inbetween but this is what I am convinced happened at some time or other.)

This means that most of the Markan stylistic traits in the secret gospel but not in the standard text of Lazarus, come, not from the use of an unusual text of Lazarus, but from the author of the secret gospel whoever he was, and his attempts to imitate canonical Mark.

On the other hand it is not surprising (though still interesting) that the Diatessaronic text of John, being part of a harmony, should have acquired some stylistic parallels to the synoptics.

This means that parallels between synoptic stylistic traits in the peripheral text of Lazarus and Markan stylistic traits in the secret gospel, although still interesting, are IMO less significant than they would otherwise be.

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Andrew,

Please explain what you mean by this.

Can you please specify which parallels you're talking about? They are numbered in my article.

Secret Gospel of Mark
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/secmk.htm

I think the UBS text of Jn is late. This is a hybrid 19th century text.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "distinctively Markan style". Sounds a bit vague to me, and also rather subjective ...

I don't agree. It's equally possible, and even IMHO probable, that Western/Peripheral text of Jn is more original.

Again, I disagree. In general, whenever I studied Johannine material in the Diatessarons closely, it rarely showed any traces of Synoptic harmonisation. As a rule, it remains Johannine.

I don't quite follow you here.

Also, I wonder why you didn't reply to my question about which of the specific options I suggested you prefer...

All you offered so far are generalities, and very few specifics.

Yuri

andrewcriddle

Hi Yuri

(Going through the parallels in reverse order)

Parallel 6 is, as you state, a widespread variant reading, possibly authentic which is compatible with a 2nd century date for Secret Mark a 20th century date or anything in between.

Parallel 5 I find difficult to evaluate since it isn't really a verbal parallel at all. Nor is it really a new element in the Lazarus account. What it is is a tendency in some parts of the Peripheral tradition to emphasise the love of Jesus for Lazarus. I do feel that this is a particularly subjective case but a/ it seems unlikely that the very strong examples of this such as the Magdalene gospel represent a very ancient tradition here, it is more likely IMO that they are a relatively late somewhat extreme example of a more general tendency in the tradition, b/ this tendency appears to be primarily one of repetition of elements in one verse in adjacent verses, c/ it is not clear how far this tendency to emphasise (and not just state) Jesus's love for the man he resurrects is really present in the text of Secret Mark as distinct from the use the Carpocratians are alleged to have made of it.

Parallel 4/ The verbal parallel is not IMO very close 'Son of David' a very striking part of the account in Secret Mark (and Marcan rather than Johannine in style) is missing, also the support is so limited that I think it is unlikely to represent a very ancient tradition. This is IMO a purely Western European variation.

Parallel 3/ One problem with this parallel is that it seems to be intraversional, ie to be a result of translation from Greek into Syriac, (and then from Syriac into Latin etc), hence it is at least at first sight unlikely to have affected Greek gospel texts. Also the style of Syriac John here, is perfectly compatible with canonical Marcan usage. Mark frequently uses such simple syntax.

Parallel 2/ This is a clear verbal parallel between Syriac and Western John and Secret Mark; however, frequent use of EUThUS is a notable characteristic of Marcan style.

Parallell 1/ Again a clear parallel between Syriac John and Secret Mark; however, 'the door of the tomb' has even closer parallels in Mark see Mark 16:3.

The general conclusions are that IMO the interesting parallels are where Peripheral Lazarus and Secret Mark share stylistic traits of canonical Mark.

The problem is that Secret Mark is very Marcan in style indeed. Whatever the text of the story of Lazarus used by the author of Secret Mark it must have been much less Marcan in style than the present form of Secret Mark. ie most of the Marcan stylistic features in Secret Mark must be a result of redaction by the author of Secret Mark. This is true IMO whatever the date of Secret Mark. Therefore such features in Secret Mark, although possibly significant, are of less value as evidence for use of a non-standard version of John than would at first sight appear.

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

OK, Andrew, let's stop right here, and look at this case.

Sure, this reading is compatible with a 2nd century date for SMk, or a 20th century date. But which date is it _more_ compatible with, that's the question!

For 2c, it is fully compatible.

For 20c, it is almost completely incompatible IMHO.

You have to ask yourself the question, Who would have wanted to include this extremely obscure reading -- something that both Koester and Crossan were ignorant of -- into SMk? And next question, why?

Would have Smith wanted to include it? I don't think so. I think it's fair to say that he was an Alexandrian text dogmatist, so he had absolutely no interest in including such a non-Alexandrian reading into SMk.

You see, you have to approach this matter as a detective working on the case of suspected forgery. So how can you just leave it like that, by saying "it's compatible", but not specifying the degree of compatibility, i.e. how this reflects on the possibility that some individual may have forged the thing in the 20c...

As to the rest, I still find your response a bit vague. What I would like to see is some specific responses, for each of these cases. Which of these 5 remaining parallels you think may be accidental, and which non-accidental. If you say that, e.g. 2 out of 5 are non-accidental, then we can work with this further, and see how this reflects on the possibility of a 20c forgery.

Does the MG represent a very ancient tradition? I have huge amounts of evidence to demonstrate that it does. So taking this one passage in isolation is certainly problematic for judging if MG represent a very ancient tradition or not. By all rights, this should really be a separate discussion.

You say that,

"Whatever the text of the story of Lazarus used by the author of Secret Mark it must have been much less Marcan in style than the present form of Secret Mark."

But this seems to take us very far indeed from the question of 20c forgery, which is really my main interest here. I'm saying that it's impossible that this is a 20c forgery. As to which style the source of the author of Secret Mark was, this may be interesting, but can this really help us in determining if this text is a 20c forgery?

If this is a 20c forgery, then it's perfectly clear that the forger must have used the canonical Jn. If this is an authentic 2c document, then anything is possible, including that this document accurately conveys some early version of the story of Lazarus. So I don't necessarily agree with your statement above.

Maybe the author of Secret Mark did very little redaction of his own? So it seems quite likely to me that this author did indeed use a non-standard version of John.

I'm planning to post a more detailed response later to some of the questions you've raised.

All the best,

Yuri.

andrewcriddle

The issue is not what a 20th century forger would regard as the true text of Mark but what such a forger would regard as the text Clement would have used. These are not necessarily the same.

In this case 'he comes to Jericho' instead of 'they come to Jericho' 'he comes to Jericho' is a Western reading. Now there is other evidence that Clement often uses a text of the gospels different from the Alexandrian, (taking say Vaticanus to represent the Alexandrian), and this is particularly true in Mark. This non-Alexandrian text often has Western type readings. The fact that Clement in the gospels is not a good witness to the type of Alexandrian text represented by Vaticanus and frequently has Western readings is a given of 20th century textual criticism.

Since this particular reading is apparently witnessed to by Origen and hence was probably found in early Egypt, (without knowing in which of Origen's works the citation comes it might possibly be from his Caesarean phase), a 20th century forger could very plausibly think that this is the reading Clement would adopt.

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Really, Andrew?

So if it's really a given, as you say, how come both Koester and Crossan were ignorant about this reading?

So, in your opinion, what would be the possibility that Smith, himself, could have inserted this reading?

Best,

Yuri

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Andrew,

Let's begin dealing with some other parallels between SMk and the Western/Peripheral text that I've discovered.

(I use the term "Western/Peripheral text" as basically an equivalent of the standard "Western text". There are obvious problems with the term "Western text". They are often commented upon but, so far, nothing has really been done to correct this problem of nomenclature. Speaking for myself, I just feel silly referring to the ancient Aramaic gospels as "Western"... They are of course Eastern. The term "Western/Peripheral text", or simply "Peripheral text" seems like a good alternative.)

So let's look at this one,

Well, the Magdalene Gospel doesn't seem to like the title 'Son of David'. It's missing in some other MG passages. So I'm inclined to see it as generally a late title.

The best proof of the antiquity of Magdalene text is its close textual affinity with the Dutch Diatessaron, as well as with the ancient Aramaic gospels. There are literally hundreds of close parallels there.

Please see Plooij's Commentary on the Dutch Diatessaron, where these parallels are listed.

But specifically on this Parallel 4, the simple fact is as follows.

In both SMk and MG, after Mary pays obeisance to Jesus, she makes a specific entreaty for his help. The wording is very close, in so far as she asks specifically for his "mercy". The same word.

This is an obvious parallel between these two texts. Do you really think that it's purely accidental?

Best,

Yuri.

andrewcriddle

At several places in 'Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark' Morton Smith emphasises links between Clement's gospel text, the secret gospel and the 'Western' text (p 78 n6 pps 122f etc).

Hence if he was the author I would think he would quite likely have used this reading.

(FWIW if the letter is genuinely by Clement which I strongly doubt then Clement would quite likely have used this reading)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Hi Yuri

Even if we accept that readings in the Magdalene gospel of John without other support may be of great antiquity, (something which IMHO is doubtful or at least some may be but others aren't and we lack criteria for determining which are genuinely ancient), the phrase 'Son of David have mercy upon me' is clearly Marcan (Mark 10:47) and not Johannine.

IIUC you accept that 'Son of David' was added by the author of Secret Mark so why not the whole phrase ?

One should also note that in the standard text of John's gospel and presumably the text ultimately underlying the Magdalene gospel 'fell at his feet' is 'EPESEN AUTOU PROS TOUS PODAS' whereas in Secret Mark we have 'PROSEKUNHSE' a word used in the synoptics including Mark for ordinary respect and entreaty but which John prefers to restricts to cases of actual worship (John 9 38 is borderline).

Hence this case is IMO at least as much about the use of Marcan stylistic features as it is about a non-standard version of John.

Andrew Criddle