Plumbers and Architects

I don't dislike Stephen Carlson. Honestly. In fact I generally prefer and respect those who take the opposite side of an issue. My contempt is reserved instead for those who make a bad case for things I believe in.

To this end, I HATE Scott Brown's argument in favor of the authenticity of To Theodore. It is so palpably Canadian - so lacking in boldness and flair - that I sometimes wish I were on the other side.

Anyone that we end up getting to represent the 'against' position on to Theodore has nothing to worry about. This will be a fair documentary. As I see it, if to Theodore is authentic it represents a radical revision of our traditional understanding of the gospel of Mark. In that way the 'against' side and me are very much on the same pages.

Scott Brown's namby pamby attempt to make 'Secret Mark' look 'acceptable' to its opponents is stomach turning - at least to me. It might have a practical benefit of bringing a handful of timid scholars who are 'for' the authenticity 'out from the closet.' But so what? I hate wimps. If you weren't strong enough to stand up to conservative scholars what good are any of these people? Really.

Let's be honest. Most scholars are plumbers. They didn't get into academia because they had a lot of other choices in their lives. They weren't going to become movie stars or write successful screenplays. That would require 'imagination.' They are and always - wimps, losers and social outcasts.

Indeed in what other field is creativity shunned the way it is in New Testament scholarship?

I think the whole idea that the controversy surrounding Secret Mark would be decided by textual criticism is entirely naive.

All that Carlson did was provide a plausible argument for those who didn't want to accept to Theodore in the first place. As long, as Morton Smith was alive these cowards wouldn't dare to confront him or impugn his reputation. But now that he is dead all this stuff about his 'queerness' comes 'out of the closet.'

As if 'weirdness' and 'eccentricity' is somehow correlated with forgery and criminal activity. I bet most white collar crime is committed by pencil pushers and unremarkable people who look and sound like Stephen Carlson and Jim West.

Morton Smith didn't need to commit a crime because he was already an architect. He wrote great, original books and had great, original ideas, unlike these jackasses. So what if he attacked Jacob Neusner in public? Neusner did more damage to the study of Judaism than anyone else in the history of scholarship.

I would quicker keep my eye on the resentment pent up in plumbers - i.e. the traditional New Testament scholar - those who are so restricted by convention that they would concoct a vicious and mean spirit hoax - an implausible scenario where Morton Smith took a book from his own library smuggled into the Mar Saba monastery and allowed other scholars to see it and then somehow managed to have it 'disappear' in time for no one to examine the ink - all to impugn the reputation of a flamboyant bon vivant who accomplished things that would be impossible for these unimaginative pencil pushers, these otherwise unremarkable plumbers.

This 'crime story' is so stupid and implausible that no one outside of scholarship would 'buy it.' Even conspiracy theorist demand a plausible narrative. But not New Testament scholars.

Their ancestors believed Irenaeus when he claimed the Devil 'caused' the heretics to dream up their heresy.

Yet there is a more powerful evil in the world than the Devil. As Nietzsche once quipped “Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.”

Morton Smith had no ressentiment because he was a great man. Plumbers lack greatness. Hence their resentment against people like Morton Smith.