How did early Christian texts just go missing?

[Roger Viklund]

Could anyone give a summary of the "new" arguments or a link to the "recently published works".

I did co-write another article with Timo Paananen on Secret Mark, dealing with the IMO “only” remaining strong argument for Secret Mark being a modern forgery, namely Tselikas’ linguistic argument:

Paananen, Timo S.; Viklund, Roger, “An Eighteenth-Century Manuscript: Control of the Scribal Hand in Clement’s Letter to Theodore”, in F. Amsler, Apocrypha: Revue internationale des littératures apocryphes. International Journal of Apocryphal Literatures. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015). pp. 261–297.

The article has received little or no attention, but for those interested the pre-press version can be read here (since I seem to be not allowed to post url's, I have removed the www): academia.edu/23949772/An_Eighteenth-Century_Manuscript_Control_of_the_Scribal_Hand_in_Clements_Letter_to_Theodore

[Secret Alias]

And I've just published an article with another co-writer on the last known witness to the text (outside of the Greek in the monastery of course).

[Roger Viklund]

And I've just published an article with another co-writer on the last known witness to the text (outside of the Greek in the monastery of course).

Where? I've been waiting for this one.

[rakovsky]

Main thread question:
How do major writings like Papias' and Hegessippus' 2nd century discussions and histories of the church just go missing?
Did they contain potentially damaging information or ideas contradicting the NT?


Second major thread question:
What are the three strongest arguments for and against the legitimacy of Clement's document mentioning "Secret Mark"?

One of the stronger ones for its validity for me was the claim by Herman's friend that he saw the alleged letter after M.Smith "discovered" it. Unfortunately, this is actually not so persuasive. All it might mean is that M.Smith wrote it in the ancient book and then later on Ehrman's friend discovered it.

One of the strongest arguments against its validity for me was that M.Smith had a thesis or belief that Jesus was involved in homosexual acts, and then "coincidentally" M.Smith found this never-before-mentioned document talking about claims of acts by Jesus that could be construed as homosexual. It seems to me too much of a "coincidence".

[rakovsky]

You didn’t say how many people knew the story and I expect you can’t say, Hadith like, who were in the chain of transmitters.

I'm not sure how many people knew the story, but the relatives did and so did the random bus driver I met.
The story was the kind of thing you might have a guess about, if not in all details. It fit into what people in that region were going through in that period (WWII).

Probably his relatives would eventually tell them. It doesn't really matter for purposes of my research how many people were involved in the train of transmission (It wouldn't be like 30, the village was small), I just would be looking for any confirmation at all. If people were telling me the opposite of the story, that would send up red flags.

So if I go to Cana, Sepphoris, or Nazareth in 100 AD and everyone in the area is saying that Nazareth was just founded 10 years before (90 AD) vs. 70 years before, obviously that would be the kind of fact that discussions with villagers could easily bring out.

People in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Antioch, Damascus spoke Aramaic, the main language of Judea.
People in Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt spoke Greek, a common language among Judeans and the language of the NT.
Even if all I knew was Latin, I could still go to Jerusalem and ask the Romans basic questions. For example, did the Romans keep records of the crucifixions they performed? Were the Roman officials unhappy in 63-70 AD that Jesus' brother James got killed like Josephus said, and what was James' background? Did Joseph of Arimathea the influential Sanhedrin member that Pilate knew even exist? Had they heard about the gospels and Paul, and what did the Romans think about these stories?

[Roger Viklund]

One of the strongest arguments against its validity for me was that M.Smith had a thesis or belief that Jesus was involved in homosexual acts, and then "coincidentally" M.Smith found this never-before-mentioned document talking about claims of acts by Jesus that could be construed as homosexual. It seems to me too much of a "coincidence".

Well, no matter how hard I try, I find nothing sexual at all in Secret Mark. I tend to agree with my compatriot, Per Beskow, on this particular issue:

“According to Smith there would be hints in the text that Jesus was a homosexual, but this reading is not evident for the reader of the text but arises from Smith’s interpretation of it. It would have been expressed more clearly if this were the purpose of a possible forgery.”

[rakovsky]

“According to Smith there would be hints in the text that Jesus was a homosexual, but this reading is not evident for the reader of the text but arises from Smith’s interpretation of it. It would have been expressed more clearly if this were the purpose of a possible forgery.”

Unfortunately, a good forger might not choose to make that obvious, just like a good forger might do other things like intentionally use Clement's favorite expressions.

We couldn't say "These expressions are Clement's, they must be real", because a skilled forger would copy Clement's expressions from other writings. Likewise, we couldn't say "It doesnt narrate gay acts, so that cant be the purpose", because a skilled forger might not narrate the gay acts either and only open up potential allusions.

[Roger Viklund]

What are the three strongest arguments for and against the legitimacy of Clement's document mentioning "Secret Mark"?

The strongest arguments, IMO, is a number of combined arguments.

1) Smith’s skills in patristic Greek and in writing 18th century Greek was not nearly as good as it should have been in order for him to forge the text.

Fact remains: It doesn’t matter if he had all the reasons in the world for forging the text if he lacked the skills to do it.

2) No one in modern time would take the trouble of forging a text like this, then put it in an obscure book and hide it in a remote monastery in the hope that someone like Smith eventually and by pure chance would find it.

3) Although the writing would present no problem for a monk in the 18th century, that monk just wouldn’t have the skills to compose and imitate Clement’s Greek so perfectly back then.

4) It has been suggested that someone not long after Clement working in his spirit could have imitated his writing. But even if this were true, what would be the point? Further, would that someone be able to imitate “Mark”? The previous attempts with the different endings does not suggest that they were capable of such a thing. Besides, the framing story and the intercalation that arises in combination with the canonical Gospel of Mark, strongly speaks against an ancient forgery, because no one apart from the author of Mark knew of this technique.

[Secret Alias]

These debates go back and forth with the vaguest of proofs on either side. The bottom line for me at least is that - as with the Jesus's Wife fragment - why can't anyone come up with a smoking gun? Why can't a convincing argument be found to ignore the fragment?

The argument that Morton Smith is gay and the fragment is gay is a dubious argument owing to the fact that neither proposition has been established as any approaching a 'fact.' Did some people question the fact that Smith never married? Sure. But we have to remember that he was almost 'to the right' of Hitler in many ways. So now he's a fascist closeted fag who is 'conflicted' about his sexuality and then this or that or whatever helps keep alive these arguments.

On the other side of the coin, you have Jesus and a disciple and some hints at ritual nudity which is paralleled by the Alexandrian baptism of the catechumen in the fragment. So the Alexandrian Christians are all gay now? Smith is gay, the Alexandrian Church is gay, Jesus and the disciple are gay - all to make an argument for forgery?

My take is that if we have to go so far to make the fag forgery argument work it's probably not a very good argument ...

[Secret Alias]

The great thing about homosexuality as a motivation in early periods of history is that it is un-falsifiable. Remember the classic scene where Quentin Tarantino gives his Top Gun gay subplot:

The argument (as with Secret Mark) only works if you change the words of the evidence being used to establish a 'gay subplot'