Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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rakovsky
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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I gave at least 23 red flags that Secret Mark is a forgery in my first post in my thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4843

At first, I assumed it was real because it was on the EW list of early writings. Then I was unsure when I read Wikipedia. Then when I got into the arguments from both sides I got convinced it was a hoax. Then when I chose to get into its issues in detail, the red flags became overwhelming. It became like trying to diagram a giant funhouse of smoke and mirrors. And it became exhausting. Why? Because you don't have a single direct explicit proof that M. Smith invented it, even though that is the reality staring you in the face just as he stares at the camera and lets his jaw drop and gape playfully when he lies, asking why the Bible never talks about Jesus performing baptisms.
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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All eisegesis. Not substantial
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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With Eisegesis, a person is making arguments to confirm their bias. In my case, my presupposition was that Secret Mark was real because the EW website listed it. It was only after reading so much about it and the pro and con arguments that it came to feel like a giant trash heap.

Take for instance the fact that M. Smith "found" it the next year after someone proposed a theory of an early Mark manuscript leading to Egyptian Christianity, a theory that the scholar later rescinded. Here is how I summarized this issue:
According to Andrew Criddle, in ''The Codex'' (published 1954 in a journal and separately in 1955), the scholar C.H. Roberts suggested that a very early manuscript of Mark played a central role in the beginning of Egyptian Christianity. A few years later in 1958, M. Smith made his alleged discovery of the Mar Saba Letter, which described Egyptian Christians as using "Secret Mark". Decades later in ''The Birth of the Codex'' (1983), Roberts largely retracted his theory of the early manuscript of Mark. But I don't think Roberts theorized that Mark had an earlier, quite different version of his gospel.
The theory of an early Mark manuscript leading to Egyptian Christianity turned out to be a little piece of trash.

Certainly one can argue that this little trash piece doesn't disprove Secret Mark's authenticity. But there are so many little pieces of trash like this, that Secret Mark feels like a trash pile. The more that I wade into it, the more dishonest slime I feel.

It's like how when J.Smith invented Mormonism, there was a popular theory, that the Amerindians came from the ancient Israelites. In modern anthropology, the idea has been discredited. Obviously, a LDS apologist can give his own take to make the LDS Israelite Amerindian theory somehow work, and the same is true for C.H. Roberts' theory. But with Mormonism, as with Secret Mark, there are so many problems like this that the fraud starts to feel obvious.
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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Just like Mormonism. 👍
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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Secret Alias wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:47 pm Just like Mormonism. 👍
It's like Mormonism, in that you are dealing with a series of unlikelihoods that show that it's probably a fraud. Even if you accept that J.Smith could have a rare, supernatural ability to translate the Book of Mormon using a Seer Stone, there are still a ton of other unlikelihoods that add up to show that it was a fraud. M. Smith did not lead his own cult like J.Smith did, but he did something like publish one of his books on the topic through a cult in the Pacific.

M. Smith's creation of Secret Mark reminds me of Mark Hoffman's creation of the Salamander Letter. Probably both forgers were disaffected with their respective religions and religious communities. The way that M. Smith's playfully gapes his mouth open and holds it there when he asks "Why?" after blatently lying that the Bible is silent on whether Jesus baptized anyone suggests that he did it as a "fun" or entertaining jab at Christianity. Indeed, the main benefits of Secret Mark includes its entertainment value and its help in the field of uncovering forgeries.
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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I've tried to remain civil in this discussion. But you keep perpetuating the same idiocy over and over again. Let me continue to try to break through your narcissism.

1. There's a world.
2. You're in the world (at least I presume, I can't imagine anyone wasting their time making a bot to spout the nonsense you do).
3. You see A VERSION of the world.
4. You don't see 'the world.' Nothing that comes out of your imagination is 'THE WORLD.' Again it's just your version of it.

As such you can't just spout complete nonsense and then assume the nonsense you come up with is factual or worth anything.

You're not an expert on Morton Smith. I doubt you've read anything he's written.
You've only got a superficial knowledge of the Church Fathers.

We are dealing with a NEW letter of Clement of Alexandria writing about a PARTICULAR edition of the Gospel of Mark which has only been obliquely referenced by Jerome.

Every scholar similarly goes through 1 - 4 above. Everyone at the forum 1 - 4. We're all trapped in this prison of only seeing a version of the world that is filtered through our past experiences. This is what makes things 'sound funny' or 'look funny.' I will give an example. I hire a lot of black people who have to go to Red States and they will casually mention the experience of 'being black' in North Dakota. It's not that people treat them badly. But they're away that 'they don't look normal.' People don't just treat them as they would if they were white and driving a pick up truck. Whether or not you are racist or not racist, sexist or not-sexist, homophobic or not-homophobic just relying on 'what feels right' is not an accurate way to proceed. In order to deal with the question of authenticity you can only deal with the text itself. Not what 'feels wrong' with Morton Smith or 'feels wrong' about someone writing about the gospel of Mark discovering a reference to an Alexandrian gospel of Mark. Because in the end 'feelings' are just an expression of:

1. There's a world.
2. You're in the world (at least I presume, I can't imagine anyone wasting their time making a bot to spout the nonsense you do).
3. You see A VERSION of the world.
4. You don't see 'the world.' Nothing that comes out of your imagination is 'THE WORLD.' Again it's just your version of it.
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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50 years of this 'feeling' nonsense. No progress at all on the proofs that the document is indeed a forgery. Just a lot of people with a lot of 'feelings.'
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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One alleged internal sign of forgery is that there are no errors, corrections, or Scribal notes in the "Letter of Clement." One of the scholars who looked at it noticed this and then realized that he was looking at an "original." I think that he meant that if the text was copied into Vossius' book from a medieval copy that was in turn a copy of Clement's actual writing from ancient times, then it would likely have accrued errors, scribal or editorial corrections, or other Scribal notes over the centuries.

Another internal textual argument that it was a forgery was that the writing "too perfectly" matched Clement's. M. Smith had a compendium of Clement's phrases, so that he could patch them together to make one that "checks out" as having Clement's phrases. But an actual Clementine letter would probably have at least some occasional non-Clementine terms as a writer occasional picks terms that are outside his normal lexicon.

To give an example, it's pretty rare for me to use the term Lexicon. This might be the first time in my life that I ever used it, because I would always pick words like Vocabulary. It's a very bookish technical term. If someone was going to forge a message by me and had a compendium of my past words, he would not pick Lexicon to include. Yet actually I did just pick the word Lexicon right now. My point is that authors do in real life pick new words to use that are outside what they have used in the past. So since the Letter of Clement has "100% pure Clementine vocabulary" and phrases, it's actually a sign that someone was carefully and deliberately trying to compose a letter that looked Clementine.

Absence of Provenance and Authentication is also a sign (but not proof) of forgery. If you go to court to authenticate a document, one of the elements that the person alleging authenticity should or must try to establish is the chain of ownership. We know that Vossius' book existed in the 17th/18th century, and we know that M. Smith had the book with the letter written into it in the 1940's-1950's, but we don't know who owned the book before M. Smith, nor do we know of anyone in particular who knew of the alleged "Letter of Clement." It's unprovenanced.
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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One alleged internal sign of forgery is that there are no errors, corrections, or Scribal notes in the "Letter of Clement."
Isn't this a little like drown the witch if she lives she's a witch. If you were at all objective you'd see how comical this is. So basically 'errors' = authentic, 'no errors' = forgery? Really? Sounds a little like you're part of a good cop/bad cop routine. One guy says 'if there are errors it's a forgery.' The other guy says 'no errors? Too good to be true. Has to be a forgery.' The bottom line it's a forgery all you have to do is cover all bases.
Another internal textual argument that it was a forgery was that the writing "too perfectly" matched Clement's.
See above. Reminds me of the guy who's girlfriend who leaves him but it's okay because 'I knew it was too good to be true.' So what are you looking for? Too bad to be true? Forgettable? Trust me there really are women who are too good to be true. Smart, beautiful, funny, successful, sexy. To say 'too good to be true' is just to resign yourself to mediocrity.
Absence of Provenance and Authentication is also a sign (but not proof) of forgery.
What absence? We know where the book was found. We know that the monks wouldn't allow Quesnell to take the manuscript to be examined at the police station. He couldn't just walk out the door with the manuscript. Why? Because they claimed ownership over the book and the manuscript. Sounds to me like provenance. Even now the book is part of the library. I asked Father Aristarchus if I could have the book since it wasn't theirs. He laughed. Hung up the phone.

Here's a photo of the book still in the possession of the Jerusalem Patriarchate in the 21st century.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp- ... ititon.pdf

Again you want it both ways. (1) the book doesn't belong in the library (2) the library says 'it's our book.' How do you reconcile (1) and (2)? If Morton Smith had kids this would have been over a long time ago. Just have the heir sue them for ownership of the manuscript. 'Yeah my dad forged it. He left it in the library. Give us back the book.' Then test the ink. But the library would never the book leave their possession. Because they know it's theirs. The last I heard from a Metropolitan that used to work in the library and was there when it is moved from Mar Saba to Jerusalem Archbishop Theophanis of Gerash ALWAYS took an interest in the manuscript. Studied Patristics in the UK. It's with him.
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Re: Decoding Mark revealed Secret Mark

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Echoes of the Letter to Theodore in contemporary literature:
Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) truer than the truth itself. (Irenaeus Against Heresies preface Book 1)
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