Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 07-04-2003, 12:25 PM

The last time I looked at this issue, I think I remember being told that there was a popular mystery story involving the Mar Saba monastery with some uncanny resemblance to this story, but I can't find a reference to it. (This was mentioned by someone who believed that SM was authentic based on the manuscript, but admitted that the background details looked suspicious.) Does anyone know the name of the mystery?

Geoff Hudson · 07-04-2003, 12:32 PM

The first fragment of the Secret Gospel of Mark, meant to be inserted between Mark 10.34 and 35, reads:

They came to Bethany. There was one woman there whose brother had died. She came and prostrated herself before Jesus and spoke to him. "Son of David, pity me!" But the disciples rebuked her. Jesus was angry and went with her into the garden where the tomb was. Immediately a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going up to it, Jesus rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb, and immediately went in where the young man was. Stretching out his hand, he lifted him up, taking hold his hand. And the youth, looking intently at him, loved him and started begging him to let him remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus gave him an order and, at evening, the young man came to him wearing nothing but a linen cloth. And he stayed with him for the night, because Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And then when he left he went back to the other side of the Jordan.
***********
Some sex-starved monk rationalised his prediliction for boys, in his own hand-writing.

Geoff

Ted Hoffman · 07-05-2003, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
The last time I looked at this issue, I think I remember being told that there was a popular mystery story involving the Mar Saba monastery with some uncanny resemblance to this story, but I can't find a reference to it. (This was mentioned by someone who believed that SM was authentic based on the manuscript, but admitted that the background details looked suspicious.) Does anyone know the name of the mystery?

I can't remember the title correctly but there was a "ku" and a "chink" somewhere

. I think it was quite funny.

See, the chief librarian handled the ms severally (wonder whether he was memorizing it) and saw the ms with his own eyes and he even had colour photographs of the ms! (now, whose photos were those[originally] - M. Smiths or the chief Librarians?).
And photographs can be used as evidence in court! In any case, they have sniffer dogs [my insertion] trying to track the ms down further.
No ink for radiocarbon dating. It must be genuine since Smith was an honest scholar who devoted years of his life to studying this ms

.

Quote:

Foremost is the lack of the physical manuscript. Smith left the manuscript in the tower at Mar Saba in 1958 and had been working with his set of photographs ever since. Quesnell regards this as a neglect of Smith's scholarly duties.[40] Perhaps those duties might be assumed to include the theft of the volume a la Sinaiticus or the Jung Codex. In fact, even Smith's publication of photographic plates of the ms. are considered sub-standard by Quesnell. They "do not include the margins and edges of the pages," they "are only black and white," and are in Quesnell's eyes marred by "numerous discrepancies in shading, in wrinkles and dips in the paper."

* [questionable] neglect
* sub-standard photos
* discrepancies in the photos

Quote:

Although Smith consulted many paleographic experts, Quesnell feels this information to be useless as compared to a chemical analysis of the ink, and a "microscopic examination of the writing

* outside of Smiths own word, there is no evidence that he found the ms in the monastery

Quote:

He produced no MS., only some "photographs" he claimed to have made at Mar Saba monastery in 1958. He kept the matter secret for 14 years, then published two books, a "scholarly" one and a "popular" one. No other person has ever been able to locate the book in which this stuff was supposedly written (mainly on the flyleaf and the binding paper). The entire affair reeks of fraud, which Quentin Quesnell had the courage to publish aloud (I DID have the courage to call attention to his work during the Colloquy!)

more here on Smith's hostility and "madness" as a consequence of the frustration arising from the way people treated his - um- "obsession".

Yesterday, I had to laugh when I read this:

Quote:

Please, people. If you have no knowledge, fine, but at least you can have some decency

Yuri, you are good. I love your rhetoric

.
Speaking for myself, I do not respect the dead. Neither do I disrespect them. I dont interact with them just like I don't interact with ghosts. And I do not think that respecting the dead means someone is decent.

Quote:

If some scholar rang the bell about the importance of studying the ink and the paper of the MS, then s/he should have contacted the monastery authorities about it ASAP, even way back in the early 1960s. And yet, obviously nobody bothered to do so. I assume that Smith himself didn't bother to do it simply because it never occurred to him that some people could be so paranoid as to suspect that he forged the MS himself, and he was too busy with other stuff, that at the time seemed more important to him.

Yep, like taking photos of the same manuscripts.

Smith didn't have to have fabricated the "gospel" himself as Q. Quesnell stated (and as someone has implied, a sexually-repressed monk could have been overtaken by his perversions...

). But your impassioned vindication of Smith against his detractors and your arguments for the authenticity of the "gospel" are very intriguing.

Quote:

3. And, finally, the handwriting. As Smith details in his book, the near consensus of all the top palaeographic experts he consulted both in Greece and the US was that the manuscript dates to the 18th century (on pp. 22-23 of his SECRET GOSPEL, Smith gives the long list of the names of these experts).

Certainly the opinion of these competent scholars should not be taken lightly. We are talking here about some highly specialized criteria that they take into consideration, such as the use of special scribal ligatures, of subscripts, of very complex abbreviations, both medial and terminal, the use of the coronis, and other such matters comprehensible for the most part only to experts.

Why don't you enlighten us on these "scribal ligatures, of subscripts, of very complex abbreviations, both medial and terminal, the use of the coronis" since you do understand them. What would be the job of a handwriting expert since the author of the text is unknown (I thought the paleography can only help in dating)?

After the James Ossuary fiasco this kind of argument is still valid?

Quote:

So this is the combined opinion of top paleographic experts, the scholars who specialise in studying the MSS of this particular historical period. And what is your basis for questioning it?

Also, please note that all of them were apparently quite satisfied to give their opinion without having the original MS.

Their "expert opinion" does not concern authenticity - they are dating the writing style.

The ms is missing so we do not know when the act of writing took place. And I repeat Smith did not have to personally do the writing for him to have forged it.
Nice handwaving on the paleography/epigraphy distinction. And when are we seeing those oh, so important credentials?

And its Olson, not Olsen people.

Nice discussion. Great drama and rhetoric. I'd rather just curl up, get popcorns and watch the protagonists do their thing.

Ted Hoffman · 07-05-2003, 03:15 AM

Where is Altman when you need her?

Haran · 07-05-2003, 06:35 AM

Quote:

IronMonkey
more here on Smith's hostility and "madness" as a consequence of the frustration arising from the way people treated his - um- "obsession".

Thanks for posting this, IM. It's been so long since I read this exhange, I had forgotten all the good information in it.

There's definitely some good information in there for Vinnie and Yuri about many good scholars reservedly thinking SGM might be a forgery.

I'm sure most here are familiar with and mostly respect Bart Ehrman. He is commendably reserved, but states his views as follows (w/my added emphasis):

Quote:

Bart Ehrman
I should point out in fairness to both Smith and the discussion, that the forgery question was raised but it has not been answered to the satisfaction of all; before everyone jumps on that bandwagon, they should reread Smith's longer treatment of the question in his _Clement of Alexandria..._; I was inspired to do so by the discussion, and despite my propensity to think he forged it, have to say that his analysis is *extremely* compelling -- the sort of thing that loses almost everything in translation. If he did forge this thing, it's one the most amazing feats of scholarship in the 20th century; and he would have done so at a remarkably young age.[/b]

So, just like yours truly, it seems that Ehrman does or at least thought that "whipped cream pie" looked good for some reason.

Again, Yuri, I have not been trying to prove to anyone that SGM is a forgery. I just believe it is a likelyhood and am explaining my views.

It is no more "looney" (as you said) to believe from the convincing circumstantial evidence that Smith may have forged SGM than, say, holding theories on TC that very few, if any, subscribe to. There are reasons for those beliefs. I believe there are fairly good ones for believing that Smith may have forged the document.

Some of the quotes on that page help to show that many scholars apparently felt and probably still feel that SGM is probably a forgery, but since it may be hard to impossible to prove, they just leave it alone and treat it marginally.

Oh well, I'm just trying to explain why I see it the way I do. If you don't buy it, then you dont. Et c'est �a.

Haran · 07-05-2003, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by IronMonkey
Where is Altman when you need her?

:banghead:

Haran · 07-05-2003, 06:49 AM

Quote:

P.W. van der Horst, of Utrecht, published an article in Dutch in 1979 in _Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift_ 33, pp. 27-51, titled "Het 'geheime Markusevangelie'. Over een nieuwe vondst" ("The 'Secret Gospel of Mark.' Concerning a new find"). It is a survey of the first 5 years' scholarly reaction to Smith's publication of the text(which appeared in 1973), and deserves study. He has, with typical thoroughness, examined every position; therefore, even if you don't read Dutch, the bibliography in the notes is valuable.

The article is reprinted in v.d. Horst's collected essays, _De onbekende god_, Utrechtse Theologische Reeks 2 (Utrecht 1988), pp. 37-64.

Hmm... Does anyone know Dutch? It'd be great if there was someone who could find and translate this. I'm not sure if I could find either of these journals in the libraries here, but I might check.

Haran · 07-05-2003, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Paul Moser:
The book [i.e. Jacob Neusner's Are There Really Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels? (Scholars Press, 1993).] is a vigorous criticism of Morton Smith's *Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels*. In addition, Neusner announces that Smith's proposed evidence for the so-called Secret Gospel of Mark "must now be declared the forgery of the century" (p. 28).

Peter Kirby · 07-05-2003, 07:03 AM

Haran, if we could find the article, and if we could find someone fluent in Dutch and English (or pay a professional), we would still have to obtain copyright permission in order to distribute a translation. Lots of hurdles there.

Jacob Neusner is a great scholar who hates his former teacher with a vengeance.

best,
Peter Kirby

Haran · 07-05-2003, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Yuri Kuchinsky
And, finally, the handwriting. As Smith details in his book, the near consensus of all the top palaeographic experts he consulted both in Greece and the US was that the manuscript dates to the 18th century (on pp. 22-23 of his SECRET GOSPEL, Smith gives the long list of the names of these experts).

Certainly the opinion of these competent scholars should not be taken lightly.

After reading Quesnell, this list of experts didn't seem to mean much. Apparently Smith was rather vague about the role of those scholars. Re-read section III. Further Questions for Smith question number 3, How much of the text of CA was actually seen by the many scholars named as readers? , p. 64 of Quesnell's first article.

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07-04-2003, 12:25 PM	#61
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	The last time I looked at this issue, I think I remember being told that there was a popular mystery story involving the Mar Saba monastery with some uncanny resemblance to this story, but I can't find a reference to it. (This was mentioned by someone who believed that SM was authentic based on the manuscript, but admitted that the background details looked suspicious.) Does anyone know the name of the mystery?

07-04-2003, 12:32 PM	#62
Geoff Hudson Banned Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: UK Posts: 318	The first fragment of the Secret Gospel of Mark, meant to be inserted between Mark 10.34 and 35, reads: They came to Bethany. There was one woman there whose brother had died. She came and prostrated herself before Jesus and spoke to him. "Son of David, pity me!" But the disciples rebuked her. Jesus was angry and went with her into the garden where the tomb was. Immediately a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going up to it, Jesus rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb, and immediately went in where the young man was. Stretching out his hand, he lifted him up, taking hold his hand. And the youth, looking intently at him, loved him and started begging him to let him remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus gave him an order and, at evening, the young man came to him wearing nothing but a linen cloth. And he stayed with him for the night, because Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And then when he left he went back to the other side of the Jordan. *********** Some sex-starved monk rationalised his prediliction for boys, in his own hand-writing. Geoff

07-05-2003, 03:15 AM	#64
Ted Hoffman Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: "" Posts: 3,863	Where is Altman when you need her?

07-05-2003, 07:03 AM	#69
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	Haran, if we could find the article, and if we could find someone fluent in Dutch and English (or pay a professional), we would still have to obtain copyright permission in order to distribute a translation. Lots of hurdles there. Jacob Neusner is a great scholar who hates his former teacher with a vengeance. best, Peter Kirby

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