Agamemnon Tselikas’ Handwriting Analysis Report Did Morton Smith Forge "Secret Mark"?

[StephenGoranson]

Smith could have known a Catholic and a Jewish woman, and or also one who was both, or also a Zoroastrian. So what.
A fake ms is still a fake ms.

[Secret Alias]

In my opinion the conversation went like this:

QQ brings up the gay Jesus and Smith being gay.
Flusser knows that people said this about him at Columbia.
But also Flusser knows "a woman who almost married Smith, but whom Smith finally refused to marry on the grounds that he - then a Protestant - could not marry a Catholic. Was this a cover-up? (All thru Flusser played Fr Brown looking for deeper psychological motivations)."

I see no evidence of Flusser ever residing in the United States. The only place he could have known Smith had a girlfriend was in Israel. It should also be noted that QQ likens Flusser to Father Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Brown:

Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective. He is featured in 53 short stories by English author G. K. Chesterton, published between 1910 and 1936.[1] Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intuition and keen understanding of human nature.

So while likening Flusser to a Catholic priest he remembers the story as Smith not being able to be a Catholic. But Flusser was an orthodox Jew. I think Flusser was telling the same story to both QQ and Rainley but QQ was in his own world. Clearly QQ was thinking HE WAS FATHER BROWN. He makes mention to something telling a few lines later:

Now, speaking as no expert, but just trying to remember what I read about forgeries in detective stories – I think I see all through the text, under magnification, the usual signs of someone trying to write in a style other than his own: breaks where there should be smooth loops linking the letters; wobbles at unusual & tricky places; and dots indicating the pen is resting while the writer is thinks where to move it next – dots at the beginning & end of words, syllables, letters. [ligature] has for instance.

So QQ who was an ordained priest likens the whole trip to Jerusalem I would argue as something like "Father Brown goes to Jerusalem." As Flusser is psychologizing he likens him also to Father Brown. The whole context was imagined to be a Catholic detective story hence the substitution of Morton Smith having a Jewish girlfriend in Jerusalem to what QQ remembers as a Catholic girlfriend who Smith was supposed to marry. Surely Protestants and Catholics in 1941 were not being prevented from being married. But Jews and Protestants yes.

[Secret Alias]

And of course, as fate would have it, there was a Father Brown detective story that touched upon forgery:

"Well," said the secretary, "Muggleton looks a dingy down-and-out-sort of cove to me. There's no story but his about what happened on the pier, and his story consists of a giant who vanished; quite a fairy-tale. It isn't a very creditable tale, even as he tells it. By his own account, he bungled his case and let his patron be killed a few yards away. He's a pretty rotten fool and failure, on his own confession."

"Yes," said Father Brown. "I'm rather fond of people who are fools and failures on their own confession."

"I don't know what you mean," snapped the other.

"Perhaps," said Father Brown, wistfully, "it's because so many people are fools and failures without any confession."

Then, after a pause, he went on: "But even if he is a fool and a failure, that doesn't prove he is a liar and a murderer. And you've forgotten that there is one piece of external evidence that does really support his story. I mean the letter from the millionaire, telling the whole tale of his cousin and his vendetta. Unless you can prove that the document itself is actually a forgery, you have to admit there was some probability of Bruce being pursued by somebody who had a real motive. Or rather, I should say, the one actually admitted and recorded motive."

"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," said the Inspector, "about the motive."

"My dear fellow," said Father Brown, for the first time stung by impatience into familiarity, "everybody's got a motive in a way. Considering the way that Bruce made his money, considering the way that most millionaires make their money, almost anybody in the world might have done such a perfectly natural thing as throw him into the sea. In many, one might almost fancy, it would be almost automatic. To almost all it must have occurred at some time or other. Mr. Taylor might have done it."

"What's that?" snapped Mr. Taylor, and his nostrils swelled visibly.

"I might have done it," went on Father Brown, "nisi me constrinderet ecclesiæ auctoritas. Anybody, but for the one true morality, might be tempted to accept so obvious, so simple a social solution. I might have done it; you might have done it; the Mayor or the muffin-man might have done it. The only person on this earth I can think of, who probably would not have done it, is the private inquiry agent whom Bruce had just engaged at five pounds a week, and who hadn't yet had any of his money."

The secretary was silent for a moment; then he snorted and said: "If that's the offer in the letter, we'd certainly better see whether it's a forgery. For really, we don't know that the whole tale isn't as false as a forgery. The fellow admits himself that the disappearance of his hunchbacked giant is utterly incredible and inexplicable."

"Yes," said Father Brown; "that's what I like about Muggleton. He admits things." https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/chestertong ... -00-h.html

Chesterton was a crusader against homosexuality https://catholicgentleman.com/2015/05/g ... -marriage/

[StephenGoranson]

Smith was not prevented from marrying.
Flusser was not stupid.

[Peter Kirby]

I have to respect an expertise here with your commitment to tracking down all these stories. Thanks.

[Secret Alias]

But two men discussing another man being gay and then one of the men interjects:

a woman who almost married Smith, but whom Smith finally refused to marry on the grounds that he - then a Protestant - could not marry a Catholic.

All the while Quesnell likens himself and Flusser to a fictional Catholic priest detective and a very similar story is told to another scholar and Smith only went out with Jewish women. I don't get that. The Jewish women I mean. But whatever floats his boat. Jewish women have too high a sex drive for me. Maybe that's what bothered Smith. Maybe that's Flusser was really getting at.

[Secret Alias]

I have to respect an expertise here with your commitment to tracking down all these stories. Thanks.

And then I have to ruin it with my personal references. I can't help myself.

[Peter Kirby]

I feel like I know you well enough now to know not to take that too seriously. Unfortunately it will also be the only thing some people remember.

[Peter Kirby]

I have elsewhere written:

Also, and I have said this before, but Martijn unintentionally discourages candid discussion of his work by his toxicity.

So I completely understand not wanting to engage if this keeps happening.

But the reason I avoid interacting with you on this forum in general is not your inconsistency. A lot of forum members are inconsistent. Everyone is at times. It's your toxicity.

This is completely expected. Everyone should be sympathetic to what Ken is saying here.

I can't help myself.

The starting point for any kind of change here would be wanting to change.

[StephenGoranson]

That particular type toxic attempted defense of M. Smith may not be what M. Smith wished for, nor would have appreciated.

As to Martijn, he asserted his that view was supported by Coptic dictionaries, yet those same dictionaries were written by Coptic scholars who would not ever accept this dating of Coptic Gospel of Thomas to a time before Coptic language even existed.