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. 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 ...