Was Morton Smith sometimes an unreliable narrator?

[StephenGoranson]

Here is one case, all from his 1973 book, The Secret Gospel.

On page 6 MS recounted his 1941 visit to Mar Saba. He described the liturgy, which he attended, as "hypnotic."
"I knew what was happening, but I relaxed and enjoyed it." (In what other context have heard that phrase?)

On page 10, he explained that in his 1958 visit to Mar Saba he was no longer attending the liturgy, and was "under no obligation," but instead was intent on his studies.

On page 13 he recounted that having found the "Clement" text,
"Then the bell rang for vespers, and I went off, walking on air."

But he no longer, he had recorded, participated in the liturgy, including vespers.

[RandyHelzerman]

Here is one case, all from his 1973 book, The Secret Gospel.

On page 6 MS recounted his 1941 visit to Mar Saba. He described the liturgy, which he attended, as "hypnotic."
"I knew what was happening, but I relaxed and enjoyed it." (In what other context have heard that phrase?)

I don't know, Dr. Stephan Goranson, of Duke University. In what other contexts *have* we heard that phrase? You lost me, what are you getting at?

On page 10, he explained that in his 1958 visit to Mar Saba he was no longer attending the liturgy, and was "under no obligation," but instead was intent on his studies.

Don't get this either. I mean, I haven't read the book, but a lot of people get less religious as they get older and stop attending services.

On page 13 he recounted that having found the "Clement" text,
"Then the bell rang for vespers, and I went off, walking on air."

He might not have been going to vespers, but his Library buddy chaperone might have been.

At best this is grasping at straws. What it is at worse depends on your answer to my first question.

[StephenGoranson]

Well, Randy. Stephen here, not Stephan.
If you had read the book, you would know that Smith did not go to vespers with his chaperone, who was not his buddy; he did not go at all in 1958, his disdain for it made abundantly clear.
And that Smith didn't just get less religious but turned from exceedingly religious to exceedingly anti-religious. (Maybe interesting in this context.)
Maybe read the book before asserting grasping at straws.

OK that you haven't heard that phrase, which he used (in 1973) in reference to attending the liturgy in 1941.
It refers to rape: as in "if you're getting raped, then relax and enjoy it."

More Smith humor.

[RandyHelzerman]

OK that you haven't heard that phrase, which he used (in 1973) in reference to attending the liturgy in 1941.
It refers to rape: as in "if you're getting raped, then relax and enjoy it."

What does this have to do with him being an unreliable narrator? If Smith were using it in that sense, why would you have to postfix the quote with "(where else have we heard that)?"

IDK man, maybe the standards are different in academia these days, and this is not my profession. But if I *were* in a forum like this, which all my professional colleagues, potential future employers, reviewers of my papers/books, were either on, or that a quick google of my actual name would bring up....

...I would never try to use sexual innuendo--about rape, of all things--as a rhetorical device to discredit someone. Im aghast. Perhaps I'm just getting puritanical in my dotage, but I recommend you take a page out of Secret Alias's playbook for rhetoric like that.

Or rather, I recommend you both use your real names, and keep in mind that you're on the record here. The internet is forever.

[StephenGoranson]

That was Morton Smith's joke, not mine.

[RandyHelzerman]

That was Morton Smith's joke, not mine.

Then why did you feel the need to explicitly, and cryptically--wink wink nudge nuge--bring it up? Is it somehow relevant to his being an unreliable narrator? What function does it serve in making your point?

Even if it is completely innocent (and I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt), why write something which is so easy to take the wrong way? My rule of thumb is that if I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it to my daughters, I won't say it on the internet. That is *not* advice I'd give to my daughters. YMMV.

[StephenGoranson]

I thought the "joke" was better known. That's why I didn't write it out it full, at first. Anyway, it's easily googleable. I brought it up in part as an example of his "humor," as I already said.
One, could, if interested, see when it became well known. Post 1941, so revisionist, when MS had not yet, as he did by 1973, turned to hate religion?
One could consider whether it is a modification of a probably (?) earlier quote: "lay back and think of England."
One could offer other similar jokes from MS, or read Peter Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (Yale University Press, 2007) for other examples.
If you choose to.