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.

[StephenGoranson]

Clarification and correction. Above in this thread, Sun Apr 21, 2024 2:17 pm, I wrote:

""MS got early liturgy wrong." Wrong for what fit Clement in Egypt.
This, supported from, iirc, Robin Jenson (a Columbia grad, I think), and Peter Jeffrey, an early liturgy specialist, and a colleague prof of Smith's at Columbia."

A clarification. That's three people, not two. In other words, Jeffrey was at Princeton and now Notre Dame, so not to be confused with a Columbia prof.

A correction. The "Columbia" prof I was thinking of was Cyril C. Richardson, who was at Union Theological Seminary, not [my mistake] Columbia, but nearby in NYC, and a close colleague of Smith's.
Richardson appears significantly in Smith's exceedingly-academic 1973 book,
as does Gershom Scholem.

Speaking of Scholem, remember that Scholem is the first person Smith mentioned to whom Smith showed "Secret Mark." And remember that Carpocrates--which immediately interested Scholem--appeared in the same sentence with "Secret Gospel." Whether one thinks Smith composed the text or found the text, you can't miss it. Smith knew in 1958, when visiting his mentor Scholem in Jerusalem, that the "Letter" suggested an antinomian Jesus, which Smith associated with another person, Shabbatai Zvi, "the Mystical Messiah," as the English Translation of Scholem's great book title has it. Scholem had started publishing on Zvi (or Sabbatai Sevi) long before meeting Smith, so Smith, in the 1940s in Jerusalem became familiar with Zvi.

[StephenGoranson]

The Smith-Scholem Correspondence book [published in 2008] is interesting, concerning Mark, concerning Sabbatai Sevi,
and concerning paleography.
Smith p. 23 wrote to Scholem that he (Smith)
"shall have in any case to begin learning something about palaeography."
Letter date:
January, 6, 1950.

[JoeWallack]

IMO
...
He was capable: motive, means, opportunity.
...

Do you believe that any of these statements represent a sound argument for your opinion on the authorship of the document?

If so, which and why?

JW:
The Young Wolf's persistence in questioning the relationship of your claimed evidence to your conclusion reminds me of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2gCadq9xQM

I fear that if this Thread is left unattended it could take hundreds of spinoffs and cost millions of bytes. So:

Hammer Time!

Motive

You claim that evidence against Smith is "motive". You present claimed evidence that Smith had motive to forge but don't have much to say about Smith having motive not to forge.

Beware of only using/emphasizing qualifications on one side. They who shall not (and now can not) be named here, like Neil Godfree who you are now familiar with, do this Ad Nazorean.

The basic question here is whether Smith wrote The Letter. So the candidates here are not just Smith but Smith and not Smith. Specifically, who had more motive to write The Letter, Smith or anyone else. I emphasize "wrote" the letter and not just "forged". You have to consider all the possibilities.

So what is the evidence that Smith had motive to forge the letter:

• Direct evidence that he had motive = None
  
  Evidence that he had ever forged a letter = None
  
  General observation that Bible scholars like Smith are likely to forge letters = No

Your related conclusion is already in trouble. It gets worse. What about the motive to write the letter by everyone else?

Any monk (or someone else) at Mar Saba (or elsewhere) from the 18th century forward whose job it was (or wasn't) to copy Greek writings in
a location designed (or not designed) to copy Greek writings.

The point is we don't just assume it's forgery and inventory evidence for. We leave that for an attorney who is an advocate for one side. If the question is whether or not Smith forged, you have to look at both sides and the other side is everything not Smith. Forged or not forged.

Now I can do the same as the above for "opportunity" whether or not someone wants me to.


Joseph

"If you cheat to win...you still win." - Morton Smith

The New Porphyry