- Duke University is perhaps the home of the argument against Q.
- Duke University is certainly the epicenter of the effort to use homosexuality against the Letter to Theodore by claiming that Morton Smith and the letter came from a "gay point of view."
What's the underlying relationship? I think Mark Goodacre's attack against Q is really part of a broader effort to preserve the sanctity of the received canon. The idea that there was another gospel of Mark other than canonical Mark is what is really driving the effort to use essentially gay-bashing against a dead scholar. The Letter to Theodore has already been demonstrated by the greatest authority on post-Byzantine handwriting to have no gay reference. Clement is not saying "naked man with naked man" (in reference to Jesus or the Carpocratians) but "nakeds with naked" with respect to the practices of the Carpocratians as already elucidated in the Third Book of his Stromata and undoubtedly in Hegesippus's original testimony (as echoed in Epiphanius). So there's no "gay conspiracy" with respect to the document. After an extensive four year effort by Ariel Sabar to uncover Morton Smith's homosexual relationship none were found. But there is a strong possibility of an anti-gay agenda to purge the world of "Secret Mark" emanating from Duke University.
