If You Hate Someone You Tend to Believe Forgeries Which Serve to Undermine Their Credibility

[Secret Alias]

I've often felt that because most people studying the Bible are religious that homosexuality is naturally seen as a productive criminal motive. After all, the Devil inspires people to have homosexual desires. It wouldn't be hard to see that 'inspiration' as something productive in Medieval minds. But have there been 'homosexually inspired' forgeries before this alleged one? Clearly the Nietzsche forgery has incest as a motive - but here again to discredit the German - i.e. sex with his sister. It is interesting to note that while My Sister and I is almost universally regarded to be a forgery - there is a small 'die hard' group that actually believes this to be an authentic work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sister ... Nietzsche) This of course is the standout statement in that article - "Since the only copy of this alleged work is in English, and there was never a single page of what would have been his original in German, opinion has been largely that the work is a forgery." But still I've read countless books that mention this as a possible 'authentic' work of Nietzsche - especially by people hoping to discredit the German.

The question is - do those who oppose the authenticity of the Mar Saba document acknowledge:

1. that their conservative religious background makes them more prone to believe theories which discredit both the discovery and Morton Smith?
2. do they acknowledge that their conservative religious background makes them more prone to see homosexuality as a motive in a case which MIGHT - and I stress MIGHT - involve forgery?

Remember in this story you have two 'mights' that you have to consider. There is the likelihood that the Mar Saba document is a forgery. It is not a forgery but an alleged or a possible forgery. And then you have the likelihood that Smith was a homosexual. He was not a homosexual, he is alleged to have been a homosexual mostly on the basis that he never married. He certainly wasn't 'gay' in the sense of a happy-go-lucky guy. He was actually quite the opposite of gay in that sense - mean, acerbic etc. So there is no clear cut (a) the text is a gay forgery and (b) Smith its gay discoverer. There are actually three 'maybes' - i.e. the text (Secret Mark) MIGHT have a homosexual story in a letter which MIGHT be a forgery discovered by a professor who MIGHT have been gay. From what I remember of statistics, three variables like this rarely add up to a positive correlation.

But getting back to the original question. In the case of point (2) I have grown up with artists so I don't see 'homosexuality' as anything other than a condition of hyper-sexuality. In other words, it isn't a motive to do anything other than have a lot of sex (that's why people become famous) - or in the event that said individual lived in a monastery or some cloistered environment (heterosexual marriage for instance) masturbation or the visiting of prostitutes, massage parlors or a pornography addiction. I don't see it as motive for forgery. I see hyper-sexuality as a motive to have more sex. As I mentioned in the other thread - a man inclined to hyper-sexuality would find gratification of his desires quite easy living as a single male in New York City in ANY ERA. The gratification of hyper-sexuality wasn't 'discovered' in 1967.

Of course I happened to have lived life beyond the walls of academia. Having direct knowledge of hyper-sexual individuals i.e. performers guides my knowledge of these matters. But what 'expertise' do a bunch of boring philologists bring to the question of what an alleged 'closeted' hyper-sexual i.e. Morton Smith would or couldn't have done as a single man in New York? What vast pool of experience do they draw from in terms of a 'homosexuality' - a wholly modern construct - being a motive for forgery? Given that they are so used to drawing from examples in the literature perhaps they could draw my attention to other scholarly examples of 'homosexuality' - or perhaps in this case 'homosexual inclination' (as there is no evidence for Morton Smith ever being homosexual) in particular as a motive for forgery.

[Secret Alias]

And furthermore, as I reflect on this theory some more. IF Morton Smith was a closeted 'hyper-sexual' - remember no one ever remembers him getting any action - IF his hyper-sexuality was his motive for forgery it would have been a motive for SEX. Right? If I am arguing that compulsive eating caused the restaurant goer to kill the chef of his favorite restaurant I expect to find him gorging on the food being prepared in the kitchen. Where is the evidence that Smith actually got sex out of the deal? So Smith is this closeted unhappy homosexual who is the one gay in New York who can't find release. So instead of hiring a prostitute he goes through this elaborate plan to forge an ancient text learning (1) 18th century ligatures (2) the writing habits of the evangelist Mark (3) the writing habits of Clement (4) researching a fabulous 'coincidence' that the obscure John of Damascus mentions a book of the letters of Clement of Alexandria that happen to be in the Mar Saba monastery and noticing that Clement uses a lost gospel in the Stromata and puts together all of these elements after buying a 17th century book on Ignatius (and not Clement of Alexandria for some reason) flying all over Mediterranean searching in monasteries deciding to smuggle the text into a Palestinian library and then spend 10 years where only a footnote is devoted to possibly homosexuality (and only a passing mention at that). IF THE MOTIVE IS REPRESSED HOMOSEXUALITY WHERE IS THE PAYOFF? WHERE IS THE SEX? You expect people in the 21st century that don't have your hang ups about homosexuality as some sort of Satanic inspiration to believe that he carried out his elaborate plans WITHOUT ACTUALLY GETTING LAID? This is the dumbest theory ever. If homosexuality is the motive we have to expect that he ultimately got 'paid off' with a hand job, blow job - SOMETHING FOR GOD'S SAKE - out of the deal. In other words, instead of just going to a coffee shop or a party somewhere in Manhattan (where he lived) and striking up conversation and ultimately finding the 'action' craved he did all of this nonsense as a substitute. Not a chance. Smith lived in Manhattan NY not Manhattan KS for God's sake. He never used his oven. That's where he stored his books. So he went out all the time. He wasn't a monk. He was very social. Gaster's daughter said he had an affair with his best friend's wife. He had visitors at his house all the time. No male lovers. No boy toys. No one sees or hears anything gay. Complete nonsense.

[Secret Alias]

Another great one-liner (I hope):

Morton Smith being unable to find gay partners in Manhattan is like Jacob Neusner not being able to find Jews in Manhattan.

I can find more examples of Jacob Neusner not keeping kosher than I can Morton Smith having a gay lover.

[Maestroh]

I honestly thought this was a post about Steven Avery Spencer and his farcial Federicco-Augustus Research Team (abbreviation is FART, which is appropriate).

It isn't, but your point applies to his nonsense as well.


He hates Sinaniticus because he's a KJVO. Therefore, it HAS to be a forgery or else what he "believes" is a domino tipping over into enlightenment.