Yuri Kuchinsky

Thanks to Haran for his alert about these new articles in the Journal of Early Christian Studies. You can read TC-List without subscribing to it. Just go to this URL, and then click on "Read Messages".

http://rosetta.reltech.org/cgi-bin/l...?visit=tc-list

That info was posted by Wieland Willker, and he provides an interesting cite there from Guy Stroumsa's article.

Stroumsa: "It was only recently, more than a quarter-century later, in talking to American colleagues, that I realized that I am the "last living Western scholar" to have seen the Clement manuscript, and that I had a duty to testify in front of a skeptical scholarly world. ... "

Thus, Stroumsa, as well as three other eminent biblical scholars that he names actually saw the MS with their own eyes back in 1976!

But, otherwise, according to Willker, these 3 articles don't really break any new ground. I'll read them soon, and will report on them further.

All the best,

Yuri.

Haran

I'd be interested to know what Bart Ehrman's response was to Hedrick and Stroumsa.

Roger Pearse

Thank you, Yuri, for pointing us to these. The quote by Wieland is very interesting (to others: do look at the TC-list post -- it contains a long description of the visit to Mar Saba). I think we can take it, then, that the Ms. does/did exist. (The hostility of Fr. Melito to the Israeli police is also comprehensible -- an Irish friend of mine, who is a RC priest and a very mild-looking man, had a dreadful Nazi-style experience of being stopped and searched by them.)

One wonders, tho, why no photographs were taken. (Although having had no experience with Greek monks, I can't comment on how easy these are to deal with in such matters -- maybe the idea of easily photographing them is naivety on my part).

Incidentally, isn't it unfortunate that journals such as the JECS which we as taxpayers fund are only accessible to the privileged, also on salaries paid for by us? I do understand how this has come about naturally, but surely the situation needs attention? Cannot a funding model that facilitates rather than obstructs access be devised?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ted Hoffman

The ms might have existed. But even if it did, we would be interested in its authenticity.

But again other questions: who exactly was Mark? (is he still supposed to have been Peter's interpreter per Papias? - which doesn't fit the facts when one reads Mark)

What are these higher mysteries that the gospel was to be used in initiating people to? Is this an indication of Gnostic roots of that Gospel?

Why is it that Smith was linked to the sex cult (the Free Daist Communion) similar to the Carpocratians that Clement sought to distance from the authentic secret Gospel in his letter to Theodore?

Doctor X

Yes, it is often not reported that it was written on the back pages of a Harold Robbins novel. . . .

HA!HA!HA!HA!HA! . . . HA! . . . ha! . . . ha? heh?

--J.D.

Roger Pearse

I agree entirely. There are some basic tests on ink and paper to be undertaken before any real discussion can take place. I know that people have supposed that no modern could write Greek in a convincing 18th century hand, but this seems odd to me. Any paleographer could do this, surely?

I hadn't heard the last. However, my ignorant instinct is that the letter is a little too convenient to the sort of views going around in the era in which it was 'discovered'. If so, this will become apparent once the current era passes away. When fashions change, forgeries which looked authentic sometimes suddenly reveal that they display period features.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Vorkosigan

I agree entirely. There are some basic tests on ink and paper to be undertaken before any real discussion can take place. I know that people have supposed that no modern could write Greek in a convincing 18th century hand, but this seems odd to me. Any paleographer could do this, surely?

I have always distrusted this argument too. Surely the famous fake Van Meergen Vermeers and the Chingshan diary would explode the "it couldn't have been done" argument. It can be done, by a forger of sufficient skill and persuasiveness. Soon all of Oded Golan's fakes in museums overseas and in Israel will be exposed, and once "it couldn't be done" will be shown to be false.

Vorkosigan

Roger Pearse

I think so. Where there is money or ideology involved, and money and time to spare, it can be done.

However, we have no certain knowledge that this is the case here, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

godfry n. glad

JECS is publicly funded? By which agency? Why? Can you enlighten here, please?

Is this a UK thing?

godfry

Roger Pearse

Sorry if I was unclear -- my thinking was as follows.

Who do these people sell their print runs to? How is it funded?

Academic journals are published by academic publishers such as Oxford University Press. These sell the runs to universities and the like which are all state-funded (at least here in the UK). The articles in them are written by academics at these universities, whose salaries again depend on the government grant.

In the US it might be different, but in the UK every penny involved at every stage comes from the taxpayer. And I would strongly suspect that even in the US, the state is the major player also.

If this is right, then a journal like the JECS is more or less completely reliant on state -- i.e. tax -- funding, small amounts of private funding aside.

The logic for this is that publishing in this way -- a mechanism I think the Germans invented in the 19th century, since their journals seem to be more scholarly earlier than anyone else -- is an effective mechanism for scholarly collaboration, and so in the interest of the community in general. This is a good thing, I agree -- however, in the age of the internet, it seems to me that more options are available, and without damage to the basic funding model, you and I might be allowed to see the results.

All the best,

Roger Pearse