Friday, May 20, 2011

BAR Releases Agamemnon Tselikas's Long Awaited 'Secret Mark' Handwriting Report

In January I released an interview that I arranged between Tselikas and Professor Charles Hedrick.  Now BAR has finally released his final multi-part report.

Tselikas explains that the handwriting of the Clement letter doesn’t match that of any other scribe at Mar Saba monastery, where the manuscript was discovered by Morton Smith, and in fact indicates forgery or imitation of 18th-century Greek script. Monastery records show that the book was not in its collection as of 1923, and due to strict supervision in the library, the letter could not have been copied into the book after 1923, so it must have been copied elsewhere and brought to the Mar Saba library later. Tselikas concludes that Smith’s opportunity and motive make him the most likely suspect and that Smith probably forged the letter or had someone else do it for him before bringing the book to Mar Saba.

Transcription of the Text
Grammatical and Syntactic Comments
Palaeographic Observations 1
Palaeographic Observations 2
Palaeographic Observations 3
Textological Observations
The Presence of Morton Smith
Anexe 1. The Ignatios Edition
Anexe 2. Recipe of Ink
Anexe 2. Themata Manuscripts
Anexe 3. Letter Morton Smith 1
Anexe 3. Letter Morton Smith 2
Anexe 3. Morton Smith 3
Anexe 4. List of books 1
Anexe 4. List of books 2

Here is the most important upshot from the study - the discovery of other writing in the book with what Tselikas says is the same ink. Let's buy the book and test the ink!


Email stephan.h.huller@gmail.com with comments or questions.


 
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