Where Did Morton Smith Get the Idea for 'Secret Mark'?

A brief note. The hoaxers always point to all sorts of 'things' in the modern and ancient world that 'inspired' Smith to 'invent' to Theodore, yet the problem here is that To Theodore's main topic - the existence of a longer autograph of the Gospel of Mark - is not explicitly referenced in any ancient or modern source that Smith could have come across.

This is a problem for their argument.

On the one hand they argue that he was inspired by a range of modern ideas ranging from Morton Salt to Oscar Wilde's Salome in order to sabotage his own efforts to 'fool the world' by placing 'clues' in his work like the villain from a bad comic book. On the other hand like a super hero from that same comic book we must imagine a supernatural event must have occurred (a radioactive spider bite, exposure to gamma rays etc.) that transformed an incompetent form-critical scholar into a master forger and moreover an expert on letter writing conventions at the time of Clement.

Timo Paananen is a little off the mark when he identifies these theories as typical "conspiracy theories." They are better described as comic book plots or rip offs of a bad episode of Columbo.

My problem has always been - where did Smith get the idea that the Gospel of Mark was "missing something"? Luke yes (the Marcionites). Matthew yes (the Gospel of the Hebrews). But Mark?

Why would Smith develop his forgery in this remarkably unprecedented direction when we see Origen, Clement's successor, citing from the longer text of Matthew (the Gospel of the Hebrews).

This would have made the forgery seem so much less jarring.

But then again I forgot - comic books don't have to make sense. They just have to entertain.

Secret Mark and the Alexandrian Version of the Book of Esther

I don't trust the instincts of religious scholars. That's the bottom line. I always get the feeling that they lack Fingerspitzengefühl or a critical sense from the 'real world.' I say often say to myself when I read their works - 'these guys just don't got no street smarts,' in my best Bronx accent

Indeed here's something else that I always find. They just spend too much time dissecting and deconstructing the 'ideas' associated with a great thinker - whether it be St. Mark, Irenaeus or Athanasius - and too little time understanding the human beings behind those ideas and their ultimate motivations.

They tend to imagine the great ancient writers of the Church in familiar terms like 'theologian' or 'university professor' when I don't think that this is ever the right way to view the Fathers.

How do you get into Origen's head, or Melito of Sardis guys that are obvious very, very intelligent but who willingly castrated themselves 'for God'? Can anyone imagine having co-workers at the office like this? 'Oh, I ran into Bob the eunuch from accounting ...'

Yes I understand that sometimes we aren't given a lot of biographical information to work with. However I would counter that it is often the unsophistication of many of these scholars - people who generally haven't traveled much, who spent most of their times as impoverished students before landing a job at a faculty where they were underpaid before finally getting their life together - which often can't make sense of what we have available to us.

By this time these same people are making pronouncements on 'life' without ever having 'lived.'

In the very same way I find a familiar pattern in the writings of most scholars which stems from their years spend in a vulnerable, impoverished state - they are overly impressed with what 'the experts' think. They confound what opinions will help secure them a career with what opinions might actually be right.

So it is that because EVERYONE in their faculty and every faculty in the Western world has always developed their opinions from our culture's inherited canon of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Acts of the Apostles, and the letters of 'Paul' that these 'truths' can be taken for granted.

I could have - at least theoretically - become one of these guys but there were a number of factors which stood in the way, not the least of which was the fact that I am Jewish. There is no way that I am going to 'accept' Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of 'Paul' just because some mzungu Joe Dickhead from the University of Lackawanna and many mzungu Joe Dickheads before him all the way back to the early mzungu Church tell me these are the only Lego blocks I can play with.

To this end, when I look at the problem of Secret Mark the central question to me isn't whether Morton Smith forged the document - as Hershel Shanks noted in the latest BAR you can't start a trial when there is no proof of a crime - but what are the implications on our understanding of the Gospel of Mark.

It just so happens that I have always had a special attachment to St. Mark. It's not just that scholarship has almost universally acknowledged that he was the first gospel writer. No, to me at least, he seems to be the one apostolic figure who actually has some kind of 'historical reality' to him.

Just look at the Acts of the Apostle for one moment and strip it down to its most basic - John Mark is the one figure who is witness of both 'Petrine' and 'Pauline' communities. He is the glue that holds the Church together. This can't be accidental. I see it as proving that when the editor of the canon manufactured this false history (I don't believe a single word of the text) having John Mark as the witness for these truths would somehow make people believe that these lies were true.

You also have Hippolytus opening up his discussion of the Marcionites saying that people before him (the Marcionites?) got it wrong - the gospel of Marcion isn't 'the Gospel of Mark' (which confirms my suspicion that the very name 'Marcion' was just another name developed from a back formation of an Aramaic gentilic collective plural.

And then there is the Alexandrian devotion to St. Mark which goes well beyond the 'saints' associated with various places and people. The bottom line is that I think Mark is the rock on which the Church was built and so do the sons of the ancient Alexandrian church.

So when I learn from the Letter to Theodore that our gospel of Mark had a similar structure to an Alexandrian original copy of Mark's original autograph save for the fact that the Alexandrian copy had additional material, I am struck by the similarity with the situation with regards to the Book of Esther.

When comparing the Greek (or LXX) to the Hebrew version of Esther there are an additional 'six chapters' interspersed in Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, which then was noted by Jerome in compiling the Latin Vulgate; additionally, the Greek text contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text. Western scholars are used to the Hebrew text of Esther and so think in terms of this 'extra material' as being 'additions' when I am not at all sure that that the reverse might have been true - i.e. that someone living in Palestine in the late first century might have REMOVED these six original references from the MS.

That Jerome regarded the extra material as 'additions' is not decisive as Jerome was undoubtedly in contact with contemporary Jewish opinion on the matter.

What seems to me to be decisive is the fact that Esther has not been found at Qumran. This suggests at least that the document as a whole was not considered canonical by Jews in Palestine in the early period. The Alexandrian text of Esther makes clear that the text was established there as early as the second century BCE.

Regardless what your opinion is, it is important to note that the 'additions' completely change the complexion of Esther. Scholars like to say that the text of Esther doesn't mention God. This helps them explain the material as being an expression of Jewish nationalism.

Yet the Alexandrian text with those six extra sections of material involving prayers to God and a whole complex theological system involving proselytes to Judaism which completely shatters those assumptions.

Let me give two examples of how the Alexandria 'additions' transform our whole understanding of what Esther is all about. The first of my citations comes from the 'addition' that immediately follows Esther 8:13. The evil Haman has just been hanged during Passover and Persian scribes gather on the twenty third of Nisan to write a decree sanctifying the pending slaughter of all enemies of Judaism the next year. So we read in both the Hebrew and the LXX basically share the same information at first:

So the scribes were called in the first month, which is Nisan, on the three and twentieth day of the same year; and orders were written to the Jews, whatever the king had commanded the local governors and chiefs of the satraps, from India even to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven satraps, according to the several provinces, according to their dialects.

And they were written by order of the kind, and sealed with his ring, and they sent the letter by the posts: wherein he charged them to use their own laws in every city, and to help each other, and to treat their adversaries, and those who attacked them, as they pleased, on one day in all the kingdom of Artaxerxes on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is Adar.

Only the Alexandrian text preserves the copy of the letter which gives the orders from the king authorizing the Jews to slaughter their enemies:

The great king Artaxerxes sends greeting to the rulers of the provinces in a hundred and twenty seven satrapies, from India to Ethiopia, even to those who are faithful to our interests. Many who have been frequently honoured by the most abundant kindness of their benefactors have conceived ambitious designs, and not only endeavour to hurt our subjects, but moreover, not being able to bear prosperity, they also endeavour to plot against their own benefactors. And they not only would utterly abolish gratitude from among men, but also, elated by the boastings of men who are strangers to all that is good, they suppose that they shall escape the sin-hating vengeance of the ever-seeing God. And oftentimes evil exhortation has made partakers of the guilt and shedding innocent blood, and has involved in irremediable calamities, many of those who were appointed to offices of authority, who had been entrusted with the management of their friends' affairs; while men, by these false sophistry of an evil disposition, have deceived the simple candour of these ruling powers. And it is possible to see this, not so much from more ancient traditionary accounts, as it is immediately in your power to see it by examining what things have been wickedly contrived by the baseness of men unworthily holding power. And it is right to take heed with regard to the future, that we may maintain the government in undisturbed peace for all men, adopting needful changes, and ever judging those cases which come under our notice, with truly equitable decision.

For whereas Aman (Haman), a Macedonian, the son of Amadathes, in reality an alien from the blood of the Persians, and differing widely from our mild course of government, having been hospitably entertained by us, obtained so large a share of our universal kindness, as to be called our father, and to continue the person next to the royal throne, reverenced by all; he however, overcome by pride of his station, endeavoured to deprive us of our dominion, and our life; having by various and subtle artifices demanded for destruction both Mardochaeus our deliverer and perpetual benefactor, and Esther the blameless consort of our kingdom, with their whole nation. For by these methods he thought, having surprised us in a defenseless state, to transfer the dominion of the Persians to the Macedonians.

But we find that the Jews, who have been consigned to destruction by the most abominable of men, are not malefactors, but living according to the justest laws, and being the sons of the living God, the most high and mighty, who maintains the kingdom to us as well as to our forefathers, in the most excellent order.

Ye will therefore do well in refusing to obey the letter sent by Aman the son of Amadathes because he that has done these things, has been hanged with his whole family at the gates of Susa. Almighty God having swiftly returned to him a worthy recompense [apodontos]. We enjoin you then, having openly published a copy of this letter in every place, to give the Jews permission to use their own law and customs, and to strengthen them, that on the thirteenth of the twelfth month Adar, on the self-same day, they may defend themselves against those who attacked them in a time of affliction. For in the place of destruction of the chosen race, Almighty God has granted them this time of gladness.

Do ye therefore also among your notable feasts, keep a distinct day with all festivity, that both now and hereafter it may be a day of deliverance [soteria] to us and those who are well disposed towards the Persians but to those that plotted against us a memorial of destruction. And every city and province shall be consumed with vengeance by spear and fire: it shall be made not only inaccessible to men, but also most hateful to wild beasts and birds forever.

And let the copies be posted in conspicuous places throughout the kingdom, and let all the Jews be ready against this day, to fight against their enemies.

What is so interesting about the theology of the Alexandrian Book of Esther isn't just that God is mentioned in the extra material but rather the identification of the fourteenth of Adar as 'the day of vengeance and recompense.' I can't believe that someone named 'Dositheus' just came along and added a few lines about God to the text because he found that they were lacking 'in the Hebrew original.' When you look carefully there is a much deeper and more complex theology at work which I suspect was removed by later Jewish editors in Palestine rather than added by Dositheus in Alexandria.

The last 'addition' to the Book of Esther takes this idea even further. After explaining that the name 'Purim' comes from the Hebrew word for 'lots' the original author goes on to say at the very conclusion of the Alexandrian text that:

Mardochaeus was viceroy to king Artaxerxes and was a great man in the kingdom, and honoured by the Jews and passed his life beloved by all his nation.

And Mardochaeus said, These things have been done of God. For I remember the dream I had concerning these matters: for not one particular of them has failed. There was the little fountain, which became a river, and there was light, and the sun, and much water. The river is Esther, whom the king married, and made queen. And the two serpents are I and Aman. And the nations are those nations which combined to destroy the name of the Jews. But as for my nation, this is Israel, even they that cried to God and were delivered; for the Lord delivered his people, and the Lord rescued us out of all these calamities; and God wrought such signs and great wonders as have not been done among the nations. Therefore did he ordain two lots, one for the people of God and one for all the other nations. And these two lots came for an appointed season, and for a day of judgment (hemeran kriseos), before God, and for all the nations. And God remembered his people and vindicated his inheritance. And they shall observe these days, in the month Adar on the fourteenth and on the fifteenth of the month, with an assembly (synagoges), and joy and gladness before God, throughout the generations for ever among his people Israel.

In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said that he was a priest and a Levite, and Ptolemy his son, brought in the published letter of Phrurae, which they said existed, and which Lysimachus the son of Ptolemy who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted.

The point is that when I read the additions to the Book of Esther I see the 'extra' material cited here as the very purpose behind the original composition of the text. The original understanding must have been that 'the day of vengeance and recompense' (Deut 32:35 Sam; cf Isa 61:2) had already come on that day in ancient Persia. I have suggested that the Marcosian interest in the number thirty in relation to Jesus' Passion suggest a thirty day fast in the lead up to Easter which was still preserved among the Marcionites, the Manichaeans and the Islamic fast of Ramadan.

I won't get into all the details of how I think the six extra sections of material in the Alexandrian version of Esther transform the identity of Esther. The point is that we can no longer say the nonsense scholars like Samuel Sandmel write based on the Hebrew text of Esther viz:

Major objections [to canonicity] can be cited from the religious standpoint of the Pentateuch. First, the story relates that Esther became a concubine to the King of Persia, before becoming the queen; and in becoming the queen, she was married to a Gentile. Secondly, the story contains incidents of bloodthirsty revenge, at variance with the Pentateuchal view that man must not be vengeful. Even more significant is the total absence of any mention of God. The modern commentators who stress this peculiarity are underlining a fact that also occurred to the ancient Greek translators. Esther in the Greek Bible has been expanded by the addition to the Scroll of some prayers which the Greek Jews felt Esther should have prayed." (The Hebrew Scriptures, p. 497 from Peter Kirby's site)

I think that when we actually look at Esther with an open mind we see that the original messianic revelation of the 'day of vengeance and recompense' was actually removed from the original manuscripts in order to make it fit with in a canon of the later Jewish orthodoxy. Much the same thing can be argued to have happened with Alexandrian Secret Mark which I also believe was developed in relation to the Alexandrian Book of Esther.

The point is that it drives me crazy when people on 'my side' of the debate regarding Secret Mark want to retain their inherited ideas about what the Gospel of Mark. Clement only slices off a small piece of this Alexandrian fruit and we find thirteen lines of additional verses inserted within a fourteen verse section of our familiar canonical gospel. As I noted earlier, if we extrapolate based on that ratio the amount of additions that we might expect to find over the course of the 609 verses of the canonical gospel as a whole we end up with at least 500 additional verses - maybe there's more, maybe there's less but it is very important to note that Clement never says 'these are the only additions to Secret Mark.'

My point simply is that Secret Mark is even less like our familiar gospel of Mark than Alexandrian Esther is like our familiar Book of Esther ...

However it is very late and I have to go to bed. Good night ...

Latest on the Sales of the Real Messiah

Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interupted (Harper One) 1,286
Borg, Crossan, the First Paul (Harper One) 9,394
Stephan Huller, the Real Messiah (Watkins), 22,095

Why read my blog for free when you can spend money to get a copy of my non-bestseller, the Real Messiah? Buy it here.

My Next Post

I am quite busy today with my 'real job' but I can't wait to write my next post which has a perfect parallel to my argument regarding Secret Mark. I have stressed that IF the Letter is proved to be authentic (or conversely if it is agreed that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of Morton Smith's claims to have found an ancient letter) we can't continue to perpetuate the old notion of what 'the gospel of Mark' is. Something necessarily 'changes' when you have 500 lines or so of additional text 'missing' from existing canonical gospels from - what must have been - its lost (and ultimately 'secret') Alexandrian original.

I found a perfect parallel to help demonstrate what I mean.

There existed an Alexandrian version of the Book of Esther which completely transforms our inherited notions about 'what the Book of Esther' is. Not surprisingly scholars continue to assume that the surviving Hebrew text of the Book of Esther HAS TO BE the original because it is the familiar version of the text.

However I am not so sure.

I am going to make the case that the Greek additions to Esther transform the Book of Esther in the same way that 'all those additions' to Mark necessarily SHOULD change our perceptions of what Mark is.

Indeed to help bolster my case I am going to cite from my good friend Rory Boid's work on Joshua-Judges - a published article in a major journal no less - which argues that the Samaritan version of Joshua EVEN THOUGH IT SURVIVES ONLY IN ARABIC is actually closer to the original of the Book of Joshua than the familiar Jewish text.

The point is that sometimes - I'd say 'almost ALL the time' - scholars mistake what is useful, what is convenient and what is habitual with what is true. This is especially true with regards to Secret Mark and I submit that the error is made by BOTH SIDES of the debate.

More to come ...

I Think I Found My Place

I am in a strange predicament when it comes to scholarship. On the surface I am an 'amateur scholar.' I do not possess a PhD or any sort of post graduate degree. Nevertheless by the end of the year I will have two academic articles published in two major academic journals.

I am developing a major documentary on the subject of the Letter to Theodore which aims to be objective even though I have come to my own conclusions about Morton Smith's discovery.

I happen to think the letter is genuine, nevertheless I do not consider myself a member of one side in the debate.

I have written about this before at this blog. Most of the people who make the case for the authenticity of To Theodore do so through textual form criticism. I have corresponded with all of the most important contemporary scholars who argue the case this way - and I have to admit it's not my style, it's not my way of thinking.

In fact as I have noted here many times, I think it's the right way to win the academic debate but I am not sure that it doesn't open up a whole other can of worms down the road.

Call me stupid or naive (or ignorant) but I don't see how 'Mark' continues to be 'canonical Mark' once you allow the idea that there were two 'additions' within the very small section of the gospel of Mark that Clement deals with in the Letter to Theodore.

In other words the Letter to Theodore adds thirteen verses to a fourteen verse section between Mark 10:32 and Mark 10:46. If you take that as a rough estimate of the work as a whole, that would suggest that the Gospel of Mark goes from being 609 verses to something approaching 1100+ verses.

How can we possibly account for all this 'additional' material?

I know this isn't scientific. We can't possibly know how much additional material there was in Secret Mark. But at the same time it seems ridiculous to assume that these were the only additions.

I happen to think the Gospel According to the Egyptians cited by Clement in the Stromata and known to other authors is a good place to start looking for 'extra material.' But still even this can't possibly make up for something approaching five hundred verses or more.

I happen to think that the most likely solution to the problem is that Secret Mark was 'Diatessaron-like.' Wieland Willker basically silenced or ignored me whenever I suggested this in his forum.

I eventually left the group.

This is the paradox of Scott Brown's argument that never made sense to me. Yes I acknowledge that 'Mark' has a particular 'form' that Secret Mark seems to agree with. I also acknowledge Jeff Jay's point that the fabrication of Secret Mark would be a superhuman accomplishment which - Koester points out in the latest BAR issue - Morton Smith was incapable of pulling off because he didn't think this way.

I get it. But so what?

As long as we are locked in this struggle with the 'hoaxers' these form criticism arguments are important. But let's suppose the day comes that we rediscover the manuscript of To Theodore or that the general consensus of scholars shifts back toward acknowledging the authenticity of Morton Smith's discovery (or at least denying that he forged it).

We are still stuck with the task of figuring out what this Alexandrian 'ur-Mark' looked like described in the Letter to Theodore.

Yes, Clement ends up assuring Theodore that the sanctity of our canonical text of Mark is not affected by this revelation. This acknowledgement reassures people like Scott Brown and Wieland Willker and the whole new generation of scholars who have argued in favor of the authenticity to keep marching into battle with the opposition thinking that when they return home from victory everything will be the same as it was when they left.

This is stupid. It is such a stupidly naive and uninformed assumption that it makes me want to join the other side.

Because once again even though we don't know the exact amount of extra material throughout the rest of Mark one has to suppose that it is - in the words of Forrest Gump - 'a lot.'

I estimated five hundred verses. It could be three hundred. It could be seven hundred and fifty. Again who knows.

The point is that logic dictates that it is 'a lot.'

The fact that a 'secret' version of the Gospel of Mark was being hidden away in the adyton of the Church of St. Mark in Alexandria with five hundred or so extra verses challenges the foundations of every inherited assumption we have come to assume about the Gospel of Mark.

Clement's language implies that THIS gospel and ONLY THIS gospel was used to initiate members of the Alexandrian community. This sounds suspiciously similar to Irenaeus' statement that a group of heretics (the Marcosians?) PREFERRED the Gospel of Mark and used a variant text which was the basis to their assertion that Christ stood by impassably as Jesus suffered on the Cross.

I have gone over the interrelatedness of Irenaeus' statement and To Theodore and the clear implications of this state of affairs is that THIS SECRET GOSPEL WAS NOT LIKE CANONICAL MARK. It can't have been.

I sometimes think that Scott Brown and others on the 'for' side can't see 'the big picture.'

Again I ask - how can 'Mark' continue to be 'canonical Mark' if it ends with (a) the idea that Jesus and Christ were two separate people and (b) the notion that this Christ-who-is-not-Jesus ends up sitting enthroned at the very concluding words of the narrative (I have gone over Irenaeus testimony in this regard a number of times in last month's posts).

I don't think that Scott Brown and the many other prominent members of the 'for side' have thought through the implications of their position thoroughly enough. They want to distance themselves from Morton Smith because of course he knew and embraced the very implications I mention here (albeit coming to very different conclusions from my own).

As I said IF To Theodore is deemed authentic THEN Irenaeus' statement about a group who had a variant text of Mark with that heretical ending MUST BE ACCEPTED TO BE a 'Secret Mark' sighting in antiquity (F F Bruce certainly thought so).

The community that used this gospel COULDN'T POSSIBLY have willing accepted Matthew, Luke and John to 'compliment' this gnostic gospel. A codex with four gospels was clearly forced upon them from the outside, from Rome, from Irenaeus and his acknowledged co-conspirators who sat in the Imperial court of Commodus presumably next to or close to his beloved concubine Marcia who was a Christian.

I know that with this set of assumption we completely leave the safety of EVERYTHING that we have come to accept as 'holy truth' in Christianity, but isn't that what reason demands of us? The one thing that I could never understand with people like Scott Brown and Wieland Willker and the rest is how does the universe continue to stay the same, how is there the same center of gravity if Secret Mark is admitted into the ancient world of the New Testament?

I actually respect people like Stephen Carlson and Peter Jeffreys in this regard is that I think they HAVE SEEN THE IMPLICATIONS OF SECRET MARK and that's why they struggle against it. I know from first hand correspondence with J Harold Ellens that he thinks the whole idea of an ancient Alexandrian Church is a fairy tale.

Again I have to admire on one level the logical consistency of the position of these men. While I might not agree with their conclusions (or their presuppositions) they 'make sense' from beginning to end.

I find myself in the exact opposite situation with Scott Brown and Wieland Willker and the rest. I simply don't understand how you can allow for five hundred verses to be 'added' to our canonical text of Mark - verses that were either unknown or unused by the editor(s) of Matthew and Luke - AND then assume the antiquity of an Alexandrian See unknown or ignored by the editor of Luke and then just shrug your shoulders and say to yourself some how it's all going to just going to 'work itself out.'

The existence of Secret Mark exposes what every Jew, Samaritan or Muslim has always felt about Christianity - it just doesn't add up. The Islamic tradition - supported by references in other more ancient sources - explicitly states that there was an Imperial cabal to re-engineer Christianity away from its original roots - a conspiracy which involved the manufacture of false gospels like Matthew, Luke and John - which I happen to subscribe to.

I can't make sense of Clement's hypocrisy any other way.

Again if to Theodore is accepted to be authentic then Clement's hypocrisy is openly exposed and it is interestingly confirmed in Hippolytus' citation of Irenaeus' attack against the Marcosians (i.e. those of Mark), a sect I just spent fifty posts demonstrating had Clement as one of its most prominent (albeit ultimately secret) adherents.

"For also the blessed presbyter Irenaeus, having approached the subject of a refutation (of those of Mark) in a more unconstrained spirit, has explained such washings and redemptions, stating more in the way of a rough digest what are their practices. (And it appears that some of these heretics) on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received (the secret word just alluded to), but they have learned that always they should deny. Wherefore our anxiety has been more accurately to investigate, and to discover minutely what are the (instructions) which they deliver ... [Hippolytus AH vi.37]

I know people like Timo Paananen (whose blog I adore) ridicule the notion of 'conspiracy theories' - ancient of modern. Apparently there really was transparency in ancient despotism ...

Yet I wonder how else can Clement's perplexing attitude be explained toward Secret Mark? Who was it that his Alexandrian community was hiding the text from if not the rest of the church which used a shorter version of Mark WITHOUT THE HERETICAL ADDITIONS.

Morton Smith wrestled with Secret Mark for fifteen years KNOWING THE IMPLICATIONS of his discovery. I am utterly convinced that those who have lined up in favor of the authenticity HAVE NOT realized the full implications of this text. They aren't familiar enough with the writings of the Church Fathers. They are too stuck in the minutiae and so avoid (deliberately?) seeing the big picture.

I cannot accuse the 'hoaxers' of the same thing. As I already noted they see what to Theodore is all too clearly and so they declare:

How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning?

Yes I really think To Theodore is that much a danger to the existing order. Those who now argue for the authenticity of the letter might one day learn regret their efforts ...

Well So Much For that Blog Post ...

I had a great idea for a post that I was developing earlier today - questioning why Jeffrey and Carlson didn't bother to submit an article in the BAR issue - and then I discovered from Professor Jeffrey himself that he wasn't asked!

Here is the comment he posted on my previous post:

The reason I did not write for the latest BAR issue is that I was never asked. I did not know it was coming until I saw it on the newsstand as you did. Had I been asked I would have written something. There is a session about my book at the upcoming SBL, in which there will be time for anyone to raise questions.

Peter Jeffery

So much for my post and so much for my praise of BAR for getting it right for once. I am not a partisan. Above all else, I want every REASONABLE position to get heard in an important debate like the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore.

It does not make me happy to hear that people weren't asked to participate who SHOULD HAVE participated.

As I said time and time again, scholarship is in a mess and I for one don't know how to fix it. In many ways it mirrors what's wrong with the country.

It makes you wonder whether we're going to last as a nation if we can't conduct a free and open dialogue about something as basic as the authenticity of Morton Smith's find ...

Against the 'Hoaxers'

I bought the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review featuring the Secret Mark controversy and I was really impressed with BAR this month. I used to be a subscriber but the whole James Ossuary fiasco made me cancel my subscription. One might argue that Hershel Shanks NEEDS to use the Morton Smith case to bolster his own case for the authenticity for the other disputed find while the trial goes on in Israel but that's another argument which I won't get into here.

The Sages have a saying that the same tree that bore bad fruit also gave humanity the leaves with which to cover themselves.

The one thing that I was surprised and disappointed to see was that none of the prominent 'hoaxers' - i.e. those who say that Morton Smith forged the text decided to make their case in the magazine. I can't understand that. Why wouldn't Jeffrey or Carlson at least give a 'top ten list' of why the text is a fake? Isn't the whole point of scholarship to engage with those who disagree with you in order to come to some understanding of the truth? Surely none of the 'hoaxers' would argue that their arguments are infallible? Jeffreys and Carlson disagree amongst themselves about the details of the 'forgery.'

It can't be maintained that 'the truth has already been decided when - as I noted - the 'hoaxers' disagree between themselves with regards to what the truth is.

To this end one must suppose that their reluctance to engage other PROMINENT scholars on the subject of To Theodore's authenticity belies their real motives. For them there can be only one truth to early Christianity - their own. There are atheist 'hoaxers' like Robert Price who only want to prove how untenable the European model really is. At the same time there are 'hoaxers' who teach at Catholic universities like Notre Dame who want above all else to lump Smith together with the very heretics demonized in the writings of the Church Fathers.

Indeed if you peel away at the layers of their argument the underlying commonality to all their arguments is that there is something 'too good to be true' about Smith's discovery. 'Imagine that,' they sneer 'walking into a monastery and finding a lost letter of Clement which describes a gospel associated with Mark which defies OUR ESTABLISHED models for the development of the fourfold gospel ...'

Okay, there is no doubt that To Theodore is a 'once in a lifetime' discovery. But does that in itself suggest some nefarious plot on Smith's part? I wonder if the text that Smith discovered was a lost work of Irenaeus against the heretics whether any of the conservative hoaxers would have taken up their protest.


More to follow ...