Yuri Kuchinsky

Not impossible, I'd say...

In general, I have no objections whatsoever if someone wants to demonstrate that the MS was some sort of a medieval or ancient forgery. It could have been. My only point in this really is to defend M. Smith against what I see as slanderous accusations that he, himself, was the forger.

Originally, I came to this whole debate primarily because of my interest in the early history of GMark. The main question for me was, Could this tradition go back directly to the Historical Jesus? But then, after some investigation, I came to the conclusion that SecMk was a later addition to Mk, based on some gnostic ideas. So my answer was in the negative, No, this material does not go back to the HJ -- which of course goes contrary to what Smith, himself, believed...

So after I decided that this is not the original Markan tradition, much of my interest in SecMk was pretty well gone. Thus, at this point it really doesn't make much difference to me what this SecMk stuff is all about, and what people think of it. If it was a forgery, fine, present your theory of forgery -- just keep Smith out of it, because, in my view, it's impossible that _he_ was the forger.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

This is what I meant by blatantly false accusations based on ignorance. For the record, Smith discovered the MS in 1958, and announced his discovery publicly in 1960. He did NOT keep "the matter secret for 14 years".

I understand that some people might be having fun just accusing everyone left and right of all sorts of things, and spinning wild conspiracy theories. But this is actually a very serious matter for those who truly care about history.

In my view, any MS, or any historical artefact that seems genuine should be assumed to be so until shown to be otherwise on good grounds. Baseless suspicions are just that, baseless suspicions, and they are dime a dozen.

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, if I'm not mistaken, dear Dr. Hobbs is the fellow who came up with this jewel that Smith "kept the matter secret for 14 years".

If I got the attribution of this quote right, then it is Dr. Hobbs who is the ignorant rascal who spouts false personal accusations based on nothing more than his own professional bias.

Yuri.

Haran

Does Smith's report in the Patriarchate's journal in 1960 talk abou the manuscript? How widely read is this journal? Smith didn't mentioned the volume number or anything. Makes it kind of hard to check the report. I've never heard of this journal or noticed it being listed in scholarly books. Again, if the manuscript was so important, why did he wait so many years later to really make it public in such a way the the majority of scholars would know about it? Why did he seem to just keep it to himself and/or a small group of scholars of his choosing? How much did he tell them about the manuscript? There are lots of questions I'd like to see answered.

Haran

This seems ingenuous, Yuri, in light of your many vocal accusations against modern biblical scholars, especially those on other e-lists....

Yuri Kuchinsky

Speaking for myself, I doubt quite a lot if this article would be of any real interest to all that many people at this point. I'm pretty sure that it will not make any sort of a case that Smith forged the MS.

Nobody has made any such case so far. And the reason for this, IMHO, is that no credible case for forgery by Smith can ever be made.

In my old article, I've outlined briefly what it would have taken for Smith to pull off such an extremely complex forgery. It would have meant a personal investment of many years of his time -- working in absolute secrecy! -- to become a "secret world-class Clement scholar", plus a "secret world-class Markan scholar". Then, he would have needed to find an accomplice who was a professionally trained scribe, specialising in 18th century scribal hands (the number of such people in the world is probably less than 5).

Thus, an investment of many years of hard work, and organising a complex conspiracy (possibly maybe involving some of the monks in the monastery?), at the risk of permanently damaging his professional and personal reputation if caught, and maybe even facing criminal charges... And what is the potential pay-off?

The pay-off was next to zero! While he never got caught red-handed, the pay-off was still next to zero...

Excuse me, but the idea is just plain crazy.

BTW, I have no idea how such things work, and this probably has very little to do with the subject matter of this forum, but in the last few days I've also been involved in Usenet in discussing yet another claimed forgery that has been debated endlessly for many years already.

Has anyone here heard about the Kensington Rune Stone? It's a runic inscription that was discovered by a Swedish farmer in Kensington, Minnesota in 1898. There are by now dozens of books and hundreds of articles about this item. I and others have been defending the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone (KRS) for quite a few years already, and recently there's been yet another round of debate on this.

Check it out if interested,

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...ci.archaeology

There are some really strange parallels between the arguments people make against the KRS and against SecMc...

Cheers,

Yuri.

Ted Hoffman

How about this:

He discovered the ms in spring of 1958. Took three sets of photos of the ms.

In 1960 at the annual conference of the Society of Biblical Literature, he publicly announced his discovery to the scholarly community. After this the NY Times published his presentation with a photo of the Mar Saba Monastery.

In the same year, a list of the 75 ms he catalogued appeared in Archaeology as well as in the Greek Patriarchate journal Nea Sion.

He then went into further research of his novel find (nine years went by).

In 1966, he wrote Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark which was considered scholarly but Harvard University Press, which received it, was slow inpublishing it.

He then wrote the controversial The Secret Gospel in 1973 [Harper and Row] and this is the one most scholars got to read first.

So, is it correct then to state that most scholars got to know about Smiths findings 14 years later (perharps, his earlier treatment of the "gospel" was muted and hush-hush that it went unnoticed?).

Why has Smiths finding encountered so much Suspicion?

this site says:
This is what Smith wrote:

ibid., 113-114

Under a NY Times article titled A Scholar Infers Jesus Practiced Magic, Smith remarked : "Thank God I have tenure."

And the stage was set for the backlash:
Then of course are the lack of the ms, questionable photos, questionable neglect, some degree of initial secrecy....

And the backlash [from outraged scholars] came:

Stranger Still :
Is Smiths link to Free Daist Communion, a California-based eastern religious sect whose leader is American-born guru Da Avabhasa (aka Franklin Jones, Da Free John, and Da Kalki). In 1982, this sects publisher, Dawn Horse Press, re-published Smith's Harper and Row volume, with a post-script by Smith and a foreword by Elaine Pagels.

Shawn Eyer, cites Bonder from The Divine Emergence of The World Teacher.

More:
I don't think we need to the ascribe the sexual innuendoes and tension evident in the secret gospel to the repressed-sexual desires of a perverted monk anymore.

We have the culprit before our very eyes!

But like Haran, I treat the existence, authorship, dating and authenticity of this "secret" Gospel as a marginal issue - more like pseudoepigrapha.

Indulgence of sexual desires and sexual fantasies, especially when sprinkled with religious ideology can be very fulfilling. Add public attention and outrage caused by the sexual tension...and the moral vindication and spiritual uplift from the idea that the saviour himself practiced these acts - with a close circle of willing "Kanyas"... its ecstatic. Pure heaven .

Satisfaction of perverted/ repressed sexual desires and fantansies has been a payoff for MANY people over the ages. I neednt list any. The history of mankind is replete with them. Serial killers, sadistic leaders, religious leaders in sex cults etc etc. You dont need a brain surgeon to figure this out .

Geoff Hudson

Where did you get that lot from IM? You should have been a detective, or may be you are.

As the cliche:"there is no smoke without fire".

Geoff

Vorkosigan

Great post, IM! I assume you believe this is a forgery by Morton-Smith?

Certainly is a strange case. Although worth the price of admission, just to see Fitzmeyer rant about the SGM and rave about the James Ossuary.

Vorkosigan

RED DAVE

I'm probably going to be banned from II forever for this, but could we rename this thread Raiders of the Lost Mark?

RED DAVE