This is a follow up to my last post on Roger Viklund's article demonstrating the shoddy methodology Carlson used to produce his most important proof in Gospel Hoax - the so-called "forger's tremor." As David Trobisch noted in an email to me, Carlson's "forgery accusations only works with the low resolution photos" from Morton Smith's 1973 book. In other words, the proof that To Theodore is a forgery DISAPPEAR when you employ the superior photos published in 2000 by Hedrick and Olympiou.
Did Carlson know and use the superior color photos for at some of the preliminary assessments related to his research into the Mar Saba manuscript? Yes, as I will demonstrate here.
The evidence speaks for itself.
Why then did Carlson base his arguments on anomalies that only appear in inferior reproductions of the Mar Saba document, anomalies that could obviously be explained as resulting technical issues related to the low resolution of the black and white reproductions?
I will let my readers draw their own conclusions. For the moment let's just look at the evidence.
We go back to the last century (how strange it is to say that) where we see Carlson respond to some points of Wieland Willker in a discussion group:
original source At 09:27 AM 9/16/99 +0200,
Stephen C. Carlson wrote: What is the status of having a scholar other than Smith to inspect the actual manuscript? I recall rumors about Hedrick, but the rumors as I received them were inconsistent...
Hedrick tried to look at the manuscript in Mar Saba and in the Greek Patriarchate library (Jerusalem) without success. But there they showed and copied for him other photos that are different from M. Smith ones. It seems as if they have removed the letter from the book.
[Wieland wrote:] This fact, if true, is a serious cause for concern, because removing the letter from the book destroys a link in the chain of authenticating evidence for the document. How can we now verify that the letter was actually found in the book that Smith claimed he did?
[Carlson wrote:] Hedrick thinks the letter is authentic and he will continue trying to locate it. He thinks that is has been removed to another library (maybe Istanbul?)
due to its special status.
[Wieland wrote:] I hope he succeeds. Is there any chance someone can get a current report from him (e.g. a colleague by email, etc.)?
[Carlson wrote:] I don't know of any other atempt to investigate this (which I find very strange because it is a very interesting topic).
[Wieland wrote:] I agree; it is strange.
Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson mailto:scarlson@mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words." Shujing 2.35
Far more interesting is a chain of posts on a thread called 'Secret Mark' on a discussion group called 'Crosstalk2' original source dating back to 2000.
It begins with a post in Mon Oct 9, 2000 7:07 pm from a certain Mahlon H Smith Associate Professor at Rutgers where he announces that he has just seen the color photos of Hedrick and Olympiou:
mahlonh.smith@:
Greetings all:
Just got back from the JS meeting in Santa Rosa where Charles W. Hedrick showed his new slides of the Clement letter to Theodore regarding secret Mark. Excellent color reproductions of these slides have been published in the latest issue of 4th R (the Westar journal) vol 13/5 (Sept-Oct 2000) along with Charlie's detailed account of the mysterious maneuverings that have surrounded the "disappearance" of the book in which Smith found the copy of the Clement letter. I picked up an advance copy fresh off the press. For ordering info see
http://westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/4r_articles.html
Hedrick commented that this new info more or less puts an end to the speculation that Morton Smith fabricated the story of the find. These new color slides were taken by the former librarian of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Jerusalem who himself removed the end pages from the Voss edition of Irenaeus' letters in which Smith found them. An aged foxing stain clearly visible on all photos confirms that these pages were where Morton said they were. I further volunteered the observation that the visibly uneven aging of the ink with resultant discoloration of the paper around the letters (particularly visible on the photo of p. 2 [4th R centerfold - p. 14]) pretty much discredits Quesnell's theory of a modern forgery, especially one perpetrated by Smith who, under the circumstances of the find would not have had the technology available to effect such aging of ink (compare the non-aged sample of Smith's name on the upper corner of the first page of the same Voss volume [4R p. 10]).
Unfortunately, the original pages are still not themselves available for scholarly perusal. The man who photographed them is no longer associated with the Patriarchate library in Jerusalem. He had originally removed them to be shelved among the other mss. in the patriachal library (rather than buried among bound print volumes) but never got around to cataloging them. So where they are now is anyone's guess. Given Greek Orthodox embarrassment over the controversy caused by Morton's hypothesis it is highly questionable whether they will ever turn up.
Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath or lose any sleep over it. This apocalypse is far from imminent. The most important thing about this latest info is that it discredits most of the nasty *ad hominem* propaganda by scholars who sought to dismiss new historical evidence by attacking the scholarly integity of the man who discovered it. From now on arguments about secret Mark will have to focus on questions about the contents of this letter that claims Clement as its author.
Shalom!
Mahlon
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*********************
Mahlon H. Smith, http://religion.rutgers.edu/mh_smith.html
Associate Professor
Department of Religion Virtual Religion Index
Rutgers University http://religion.rutgers.edu/vri/
New Brunswick NJ
Carlson clearly read this post but it is Wieland who is first to respond. On Mon Oct 9, 2000 9:29 pm Wieland comments about the 'unskilled' effort to remove the pages demonstrated in the color photos. On Mon Mar 22, 2004 2:38 pm someone else again directly references the color photos:
Listers... it has been several years ago and I just didn't put the particulars in my head, but Charlie Hedrick wrote a good article about this in "The 4th R." I don't have it, but folks might check that out. Jeffrey, do you have it or easy access to it?
Gordon Raynal
Inman, SC
It is then that Carlson responds, acknowledging first hand knowledge of the article and the accompanying color photos:
Hedrick's article includes some nice color photographs of the MS of Secret Mark taken in the 1970s and generally confirms Morton Smith's report that "I left the MS in the Mar Saba library" (Smith, CBQ 38 (1976): 199). Beyond that and some interesting background material, Hedrick was unable to obtain the MS for physical inspection, so, in the final analysis, the "stalemate in the academy" over Secret Mark continues.
Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson,
mailto:scarlson@...
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words." Shujing 2.35
The million dollar question of course is why if Carlson thought the color photos were 'nice' - that is presumably the equivalent of saying 'superior' - A YEAR BEFORE THE GOSPEL HOAX CAME OUT why didn't he use these 'nice' superior color photos (or a black and white copy) for his book rather than the low grade material from Smith's 1973 book?
The next day - Tue Mar 23, 2004 2:54 pm - Carlson proves that he read Hedrick's article where the color photos appeared when he writes:
Goranson did post to ANE last summer a notice about three articles published in the Journal of Early Christian Studies by Charles Hedrick, Guy Stroumsa, and Bart Ehrman, respectively. The second article is a memoir by Stroumsa of his having seen the MS of Secret Mark in the Voss edition at Mar Saba in 1976 along with the David Flusser, Shlomo Pines, and Archimandrate Melito(n) and their taking the book to the Jerusalem Patriarchate library.
This makes Stroumsa the last Western scholar to have seen the MS of Secret Mark. According to Hedrick, the pages on which the letter
to Theodore were written had been removed from the book, photographed, and misplaced. Perhaps, the pages will turn up again soon; I'm not holding my breath.
Stephen Carlson
This is the end of the thread. Yet there can be no doubt that Carlson knew and used the superior - i.e. 'nice' - photos of Hedrick and Olympiou for everything other than developing his critical argument for the "forger's tremor." For this he used the apparently 'not so nice' inferior plates which Viklund has already demonstrated are the only ones which evidence any anomalies.
Carlson's book the Gospel Hoax was published in 2005. More to follow ...
Stephan Huller has had a life long interest in religion and spirituality 
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."