Two Prominent Well Wishers for My Efforts to Redeem Morton Smith's Reputation

I received two emails today wishing me well with my efforts to rescue the Mar Saba document - and Morton Smith's reputation - back from the grave. These are two men for whom I have the highest respect - Professor Tjitze Baarda and Hermann Detering (interestingly if I am right about Carlson he shares my adoration of both of these men especially Detering).

The point is that THERE ARE a number of scholars who quietly believe that Morton Smith's discovery and his reputation were victimized as a result of this witch hunt. When they read Roger Viklund's article proving that the most important in the most important book arguing for the forgery proposition has serious methodological issues, they are encouraged that the process of restoring acceptance of his important discovery.

I don't want to get into the personal lives of either of these great men. I know that everyone reading this hopes and prays that they will overcome their difficulties.

It is difficult for me to cite much from their emails as I want to keep private details of their life private but I can tease this out of Baarda's correspondence:

Although I have contributed to the book that Morton Smith wrote (partly under my name, partly under the name of my then professor R. Schippers whose assistant I was) I am not able to enter into a discussion of the text and of the attacks made by Carlson and others. Due to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I have abandoned most of my studiose plans and limit myself only to a few items that I have at my desk. But I want to wish you good luck with your plans.

As I have noted many times before, the REAL situation in scholarship is that MOST scholars either accept the authenticity of the discovery or feel that we have to accept an agnostic position regarding the whole question.

It is only in America - that well known bedrock of intellectualism and critical thinking - that two mean-spirited books with questionable methodologies could succeed in poisoning any meaningful discussion of its contents. America is also a country where a disproportionately large part of the population has radically conservative religious views.

Do I smell an 'agenda' at work here ...

NOTE - I don't for a minute think that Carlson SHARES these radically conservative views. Nevertheless his book has been embraced by this radical faction owing to their common goal of wanting to dismiss the discovery as a forgery.