Agamemnon Tselikas, on the other hand, has concluded that Morton Smith forged the letter containing Secret Mark. I report this conclusion based on several very pleasant telephone conversations with Dr. Tselikas. However, Dr. Tselikas has failed to submit a written report, missing several agreed deadlines, the last of which was shortly before we went to press. When and if we receive a written report, we will let our readers know.
Based on our conversations, this is the basis for Dr. Tselikas’s conclusion: He has examined other manuscripts from Mar Saba and concluded that the Secret Mark letter was not written by a monk there. He has located another document at another monastery that he believes was written by the monk whose handwriting Smith was attempting to imitate. He has also learned that Smith was at this other monastery examining manuscripts. This, as best as I can reconstruct it from our telephone conversations, is Dr. Tselikas’s reasoning. If I have erred, I hope Dr. Tselikas will correct me.
I actually reported this information over a month ago believe it or not. Here was the original email that I posted here on February 25th from an email I received from a mutual friend:
What also Memos told me is that he is checking-comparing the handwriting of some other manuscripts kept in various monasteries which may be hoaxes. If I understood well his reasoning: the scholar who is at the origin of this quest [I do not remember his name] has visited/lived in all these monasteries.
If there is anything new I will let you know.
The bottom line folks, is that if Tselikas has found something important that is good news for everyone. If the evidence helps settle the issue, all the better. I am still confident that the text can't be fake based on other evidence. However I also admit that Tselikas is a weighty authority whose testimony won't be easily overturned.
Why hasn't Tselikas completed his work on time? This is an open question of course but I have known since December of last year that he was working with the new head librarian of the Library of the Patriarch in Jerusalem to actually find the original manuscript. Here is an email from December 2, 2009 from a mutual friend:
I was told by Memos that he will travel to Jerusalem, but I have no idea if it is for December of for later. Memos is in Alexandria --I just spoke over the telephone with him-- and he will be back in Athens tomorrow. As to the documentary all what I did tell him is that if he finds the lost Manuscript you will like to know it immediately as you may send a cameraman to shoot a sequence. He laughed ... and his reaction was: Lets first try to find the document.
I will check on his voyage to Jerusalem tomorrow.
And then in another email dated February 25th:
Some time ago I had a long chat with Memos on the manuscript and I understand that the present librarian of the Patriarchal Library is methodically checking to see if the document was by error misplaced. In memos opinion the present Librarian genuinely wants to trace this document.
My guess is that late March/early April was around the time that Memos (Professor Tselikas) was supposed to go to Jerusalem to check in on how the search for the original manuscript.
Does this mean that he has found some new evidence which either strengthened his original suspicions or caused him to change his mind and develop a new hypothesis?
Stay tuned. I am working all my connections at the local Greek restaurant for more information ...
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."