report: doctoral dissertation on "secret gospel" claims not a fake

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
StephenGoranson
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: report: doctoral dissertation on "secret gospel" claims not a fake

Post by StephenGoranson »

Librarians generally do not appreciate visitors stealing or destroying books in their library. And stealing or destroying it would not further QQ's aims. No equivalence?
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: report: doctoral dissertation on "secret gospel" claims not a fake

Post by Secret Alias »

Librarians generally don't allow people to put forged books in their collection. Same difference. You guys have engaged in warfare by mythopoesis for the last twenty or so years. You've treated Smith's account as a 'story' and then latched on to the stupid of stories - Carlson's 'Morton Salt company' clues - as a kind of 'counter-story.' These aren't scholarly arguments. They're not argument but a bizarre counter-reality you guys have concocted. They are story-lines that exist developed from a pseudo-mythicist 'false-equivalency' with the shared assumption that since Smith was lying there's no harm in developing all sorts of ridiculous 'alternative realities' to punish his deception. It's simply evil for perceived evil-doing.

So Smith is now at once a closeted gay Crowley acolyte who read a pulp fiction novel and then slavishly devoted himself not only to create a forged document - but one which would allow us as people living in the 21st century to participate in a DaVinci Code-type story line 40 years before Dan Brown wrote the novel! That's the part where everything really breaks down for me. How can the main premise of the Gospel Hoax be anything other than a cheap imitation of the DaVinci Code? I mean, it's DaVinci Code-like at the very least. But it was Carlson - not Smith - who wrote after the DaVinci Code. Yet you didn't see it that way. You thought the DaVinci Code elements were prescient rather than a clear sign that it was Carlson was channeling Dan Brown! I think this all indicative of the boredom that religious scholarship breeds. That anyone could bring what amounts to a creative writing exercise into the realm of serious scholarship exposes the essential subjectivity of the humanities.

Someone should have gone to Mar Saba after Smith discovered it and tested the document, examined the document, whatever. That's the fault of the way religious scholarship is configured. Maybe it was too concentrated in America at the time and the distance too great. I don't know. But that's where things broke down. There should have been an effort made to examine the document by a governing body of some sort to determine whether or not it was authentically ancient, authentically Clementine, authentically Markan - whatever. Maybe things are better now. I don't know.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
andrewcriddle
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Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: report: doctoral dissertation on "secret gospel" claims not a fake

Post by andrewcriddle »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 6:24 am No you're not getting it. There are bits of printed text in the spine. Like reused pages of a printed book as part of the binding/rebinding. I am not sure if the low resolution copy of the journal article made that clear. QQ found that interesting enough to ask Garo to photograph it.
Apparently this was quite common in older methods of bookbinding.
See recycled bindings

Andrew Criddle
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: report: doctoral dissertation on "secret gospel" claims not a fake

Post by Secret Alias »

Yes but I sent the photo to the world's authority and he wondered whether there was something special about THIS book.

Dear Mr Huller,

The structure of this book, as far as it can be seen in the photographs, would be absolutely typical of a book bound in Amsterdam in the mid-seventeenth century, sewn on four (the typical Dutch number) flat parchment-tape sewing supports with transverse linings of printed paper waste, cut narrower than the panels on the spine (not a tacket in sight, I'm afraid). Unfortunately, it is not possible to be sure from the photographs whether the tail edge (on the left) was left uncut or has simply been damaged. It could well be uncut and it was possible to buy books as sewn bookblocks, often left with uncut edges, and a few of these have survived, but it is perhaps equally likely that the book has thst it has simply lost an original parchment-covered laced-case cover with boards, which is what you would expect to find on a Dutch retail binding of the period. There appears to be no visible evidence of endbands, which would usually be found on such bindings, but the photographs are not clear enough to prove that either way. If there were no endbands, that would support the theory that this might be a sewn bookblock. Photographs of the outer surfaces of the endleaves might yield some more information. Either way, it is no surprise to find such a book at Mar Saba. My experience of the library at St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai indicates that the fathers acquired many relevant printed Greek texts from the late fifteenth century onwards, so finding this edition at Mar Saba is to be expected. St Catherine's had dependencies in various European countries which bought books locally and, in general, it seems that the fathers in Orthodox monasteries travelled widely and acquired books, and even had books printed, when on their travels (Vatopaidi has a book from the library of Prince Henry, elder brother to Charles I of England, bought at an auction in Amsterdam in 1641). Visitors to monasteries also left books behind when they left (or died) and the personal books of the fathers were also taken into the library when they died.

I hope this may be of some assistance

Yours sincerely

Nicholas Pickwoad
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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