are these supposed to be sound arguments?

[StephenGoranson]

Here's the full title of Smith's Harvard Theological Review article
"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA AND SECRET MARK: THE SCORE AT THE END OF THE FIRST DECADE."
HTR 75:4 (1982) 449-61.
In context, the word "Score" is an unusual, provocative, choice.

As for "Manufactured in the United States" which he wrote in handwriting on his copy of the text,
that is, in context, an unusual choice, because it was not a mechanically printed book. (Though, in a different sense, he did "manufacture" the "Mar Saba" text--in NY, USA.)

One can choose to ignore cumulative arguments--about a previously unknown and anomalous text--if one wishes.

But you may have heard:
if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

[AdamKvanta]

As for "Manufactured in the United States" which he wrote in handwriting on his copy of the text,
that is, in context, an unusual choice, because it was not a mechanically printed book.

What if Morton Smith intended to mechanically print this text later and this was just a draft?

Another thing is, as I understand it, "Manufactured in the United States" is just a synonym for "Made in the U.S.A." and could be used for anything made/produced in the USA. So I think it doesn't have to be something mechanically printed.

And if there is any humor in that hand-written phrase then I think it's the fact that the etymological meaning of the word manufacture is from Medieval Latin manūfactūra (“a making by hand”).

[StephenGoranson]

De gustibus non est disputandum,
though I am not the only one to notice that manufactured (in 1958 context) and Score later
comport with Morton's long-displayed sense of humor.