PhilosopherJay

Hi Vorkosigan,

You make an excellent point that we should be careful about our own motivations for accepting or rejecting Smith based on whether we find his discoveries support or are against our personal reconstructions of Gospel development.

For me, I accept Smith's findings, because I have the greatest difficulty in figuring out Morton Smith's motivation for forgery.

As far as I know the two primary motivations for forgery of religious objects are religious zeal and money (usually both). There is, as far as I know, no evidence that Smith had religious zeal or attempted to make money off of his discovery.

You seem to imply in your first paragraph that he did it to enhance his reputation. In your last paragraph you imply that he did it as a practical joke. These are contradictorary motivations. If he did it to enhance his reputation then he was quite serious and couldn't have been joking. If he was joking than he certainly was not caring about his career in any way.

If he did it to enhance his reputation, would he not have produced a fragment that the vast majority of Christian scholars would have embraced -- perhaps a few new sayings by Jesus on truth or simplicity (e.g., "truth is like a shepard who leads his lost sheep over a rocky crag," or "be simple like the goat and eat what is placed before you.")? Such a find of even a few broken sentences would be much easier to produce, make him a celebrity, and would not meet with an army of critics eager to debunk the work. If he produced the work to enhance his reputation then he was extraordinarily stupid to forge something so outrageous. On the other hand, Smith must have had an incredible sense of humor to risk his reputation and career, something he had worked hard for over many years. Fraudalent activity by historical investigators is only particularly funny when done ineptly and when done well and works for a period of time is actually quite distressing.

In either case, one wonders why Smith left the manuscript at the monastery. He must have realized that sooner or later it would be examined and subject to testing and any forgery would be discovered to his considerable detriment. The correct procedure in this case would have been for Smith to tell us that the Monks were so upset when he questioned them that they grabbed the manuscript from his hands and vowed that no human being would ever see the passage again.

As far as the Sophocles Scholia Fragments, please explain the motive for that. It seems to me that finding a few scholia fragments by an author whom we have a number of whole plays by would be a very minor and unexciting discovery (the exact opposite of the Lost Mark discovery). Was Sophocles so hot at the time that finding a few scholia fragments would be considered a great achievement? Do you imagine him at a party, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, slapping the backs of aged professors and laughing, "Do you remember those Sophocles Scholia Fragments I found a few years ago that you were so excited about, well the jokes on you, I made them up!"

If there is real evidence that these Sophocles Scholia Fragments are fake, please tell us about it. I have not heard this charge before.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

DramaQ

I like the idea of a modern analogy to get a better handle on the content of the letter. It's sometimes difficult for us in the 21st century to get into the heads of people from a couple thousand years ago.

The thing I find most fascinating about the Secret Mark discussion is that it lets us be "true" skeptics. After all, on the surface, those who have been skeptical of biblical stories would love to have this kind of evidence of tampering, editing, and secretiveness to expose to the world. (I know I wanted it to be real.) At the same time, it's a good skeptic who looks at even material that tends to back him up and give it a double take and say, "Hmmmm.... I'm not so sure..."

For what it's worth, I touched on the subject of motivation in this thread. I didn’t get much reaction to it there, so I suspect it’s not worth much. But it’s a motivation that has to do with neither money nor reputation.

[Just got back from voting!]

dq

Yuri Kuchinsky

Good point, Jay!

Well, this is the logic that everyone should be able to understand but, I'm afraid, in the mind of your typical conspiracy theorist, such rather simple considerations are always clouded by lots of other stuff... Such folks always feel a need to find some sort of a conspiracy... somewhere... even where there seems to be none on the horizon.

And neither have I... I think our friend Vork has just sort of made it on the spot.

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

CASPER:
I am more interested in criticisms which intend to explain the apparent "missing verses" as simple syntax exclusions or some other non-secret redaction.

In regard to the second fragment, I actually have quite a long study in the works. It's already over 3000 words, and still growing. It may need to be cut into a number of parts soon.

I've been trying to figure out what insights various old manuscripts may contribute here, and I must say that this thing is just going out of control now... There's just so much out there -- completely new textual stuff -- that it needs some time just to analyse it all.

I've found all sorts of evidence of redaction -- of how the canonical Synoptic texts originated -- too much, actually.

I think at this point I can almost figure out the whole picture of how SMk fits into the general context of our existing old manuscripts.

This is going to be a pretty cool study!

Best,

Yuri.

PhilosopherJay

Hi DramaQ,




Thanks for this. I think that this is a more plausible suggestion than the ego/joke motivation that Ehrman and others have suggested.

We should keep in mind that being gay in the 1950's was not a matter of personal choice, but a matter of deep social concern. Homosexuality was considered criminal and people were persecuted for it. As Lillian Hellman's play "The Children's Hour" shows, even the suggestion of homosexuality would destroy any chance of a career in teaching. I think Smith, if secretly gay, would have had to have weighed this heavily before producing the forgery. He must have known that it would arouse the greatest suspicions towards his own sexuality. This is not something that a gay man in the 1950's seeking an academic career would have rationally done. But, pehaps it was something he did irrationally.

Since he was making up the description of Jesus with a young man, he would have known that it was not true and could not have used it as a direct religious justification for his own Homosexuality. However, he may have thought something like, "if I can convince others that Jesus engaged in homosexual activities then maybe they will see that it is not a bad thing."

One has to weigh this against the possible negative consequences: A discovery of the forgery, and a discovery of his own homosexuality, either of which would destroy his career. Perhaps Smith was a gambler and would risk it.

Now, Smith knew that probably fewer than a hundred scholars then living would actually have the expertize to conclude that the findings were real. He could not have believed that this letter would have much influence beyond this small group of peers. Anybody outside the field would simply say, "so a Church Father tells us that a homosexual writer from the second century made up a scene of Jesus naked with a man, it just shows how sick some people were back then." It could hardly be expected that anyone would take it as evidence that Jesus was a homosexual.)

It is only people inside the field who would attach any significance to Clement's letter. This leads to a catch. Those colleagues who knew about Smith's homosexuality would immediately suspect and convict him of forgery. Those colleagues who did not know about his homosexuality could not have given their understanding or approval to it regardless if Jesus engaged in homosexual acts. Therefore, Smith could not hope to win any kind of approval or understanding through his discovery. So one must ask again, why would he risk his career and personal reputation for this?

This hypothesis still leaves us without a strong motivation for the forgery. Unless some evidence of Smith's homosexuality can be brought forward to support it, it seems to me that it is more difficult to believe than the simpler alternative that Smith really made a unique discovery.


Warmly,

Jay Raskin

DramaQ

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the comments. You gave some excellent and thoughtful insights.

However, I think I would have to disagree with, or at least offer an alternative possibility to one point:

I think the motivation of justifying one's feelings in the context of one's religious beliefs does not require that person to "convince others". He could simply be doing it for his own rationalization. (At least it could have started out that way.)

The forger, like most believers, would want to see in his version of Jesus as a sort of mirror of himself. He may well have believed, or wanted desperately to believe, that Jesus was gay.

This - again in the suppressive, conservative milieu of the 1950's (a time we seem to be sadly regressing to) - could well have been enough of a motive for him to “prove� it. If only to himself.

In other words, he started out by creating his own self-fulfilling prophesy for his own mental well being. Only after he's done so does it go out of control in much the way Vork says. Only not as a "joke".

Um…. You’ve done so much terrific work, Yuri, but I have to confess that I’m baffled as to why you keep bringing up this stuff about “conspiracy theorists� and their state of mind. As far as I can tell, YOU’RE the only one who’s brought up a conspiracy theory. No one else seems to be “clouded� by it. Anyone else…?

dq

Toto

FWIW

Speculation on Smith's Motivation (and Jesus' sex life)

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

The logical question after being told that Morton Smith was gay (or closeted gay) should be "How do you know this?"

One would expect that people interested in discrediting Smith would spread this rumor. So we should not accept it without evidence.

If this is true and Smith was gay (openly or closeted) I would immediately change my opinion about the letter and dismiss it as a forgery. The coincidence of a gay man finding a letter describing Jesus having sex with a man is too great to be believable.

So who has any evidence of this proposition?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Toto

I don't know how this would be proven to your satisfaction. Who would have recorded the intimate personal details of Smith's life (b. 1915 - d. 1991) especially if he didn't make them public? I can't vouch for the reliability of the two academics quoted in the Salon article, but Walter Wink seems to be a liberal and does not seem to have any particular motivation to discredit Secret Mark. I assume that if he knew Smith, he might have known.

I would not think that whether Smith was gay or not would be the smoking gun. It is argued here Interesting interview with Smith

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Thanks for this information.

If Smith was a "closet gay," this means he never made any public statements about his homosexuality. We know many times public people are pointed out as closet gays and it is true, and just as often it is not true. This means we have to weigh the evidence very carefully before concluding that it is true.

Since I can find no indication during his life that he was gay, I would suggest this as a plausible scenario for the deveopment of the idea.

After his death, a single Christian asserted Smith was gay based on a desire to discredit the concept of the Secret Mark Gospel. Finding no direct evidence of this, a better Christian scholar decided to say that Smith was a closet gay. At this point more Christian scholars supposed it as a fact.

This is very close to a primitive model of Christian mythmaking that I have found:

When confronted with an unpleasant clear fact, "Jesus was (or did) X," Christian #1 asserts the exact opposite, "Jesus was not X, but Y." Christian #2 finds no direct evidence that Jesus was Y, but suggests that some text allows us to suppose "Jesus was Y." Christian #3 quotes Christians #1 and #2, and suggests both the certainty of Christian #1 and the allegorical soft evidence of Christian #2 must be accepted as good evidence. Christian #4 refers to Christians #1,2 and 3 as great scholars who have proved without doubt that "Jesus was Y." Christian #5 then notes that "all mainstream scholars agree that Jesus was Y." The independent investigator now has the greatest difficulty in determining if "Jesus was Y or X."

I have come to the conclusion that the phrase "all mainstream scholars agree" is a Christian code phrase best translated as "my evangelical group made up this ridiculous lie last week and there's no evidence whatsoever for it."

The same type of invention took place in the recent U.S. Presidential election with the Republican created Swift Boat Veterans For Truth group, Republican AM radio commentators and Republican Fox Television News all quoting each other as sources to discredit John Kerry's VietNam service record. Similarly the perception of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was created by the New York Times quoting unnamed Government sources declaring it to be virtually certain and these unnamed government sources then giving speeches quoting the New York Times as proof.

This is not to say that it may not turn out that Morton Smith was gay. I would like the evidence presented before accepting or rejecting the fact.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

The writer of the 365gay article does not appear to know that Morton Smith died over 10 years ago. He seems to be a bit confused by the subject he is writing about.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin