Thoughts on Secret Mark by Smith and Landau

[Secret Alias]

Memorializing Morton Smith, Shaye J. D. Cohen identified five “central themes and concerns” that characterize Smith’s academic achievement: (1) a “determination to destroy boundaries” (disciplinary, linguistic, conventional); (2) a “concern for varieties” (of Judaism and Christianity in particular); (3) “terminological precision” (e.g., “zealot” and “gnostic”); (4) a “concern for the big picture” and (5) “scorn for pseudo-scholarship,” directed, especially against “pronouncements and opinions born of religious faith and confessional conviction but masquerading as ‘objective scholarship.’”

So this is the son (Cohen's) eulogizing of the father (Smith) used against Smith. Already on shaky ground.

[Secret Alias]

Smith comes right out and calls Deuteronomy a forgery—after first poking fun at scholars who would admit as much in their semi-private classrooms—while warning their students against saying such things in public

And Hedrick calls Matthew and Luke forgeries of Mark and Marcionite scholars assume that Mark is a forgery of the gospel of Marcion. Some controversy here.

[Secret Alias]

Smith knew well that Scholem, his former teacher, was among those who argued for exempting religious pseudepigrapha from the charge of forgery: Pseudepigraphy is far removed from forgery. The mark of immorality, which is inseparable from falsehood, does not stain it, and for this reason it has always been admitted as a legitimate category of religious literature of the highest moral order.2

There already is a pattern here. Using people associated with Smith against Smith. What Cohen says or Scholem says is irrelevant. Why can't Smith call Deuteronomy a forgery?

[Secret Alias]

I can where this is going. Morton Smith was a bad scholar. Maybe he was maybe he wasn't. As I don't agree with his interpretation of the document on some level I must agree that he recklessly applied his own pet theories to the text. But in the big scheme of things it's like your footnote argument. Ignore SL's book because they are bad scholars not including proper footnotes. I mean, really? Is it really possible that he was so sloppy and yet pulled off a masterpiece forgery? I will pick up reading this after the game. Watching Barcelona Cadiz. How are they going to win this game without Dembele and Pedri. Seems a more interesting way of spending my time this weekend. Will come back to this later.

[Secret Alias]

But it does feel at times like your attack isn't so much against the document as it is Morton Smith. The forum has recently put Ehrman under the microscope and our friend Neil has found citational problems with his scholarship too. They want to "cancel" him for this and other reasons. I wonder which scholar would escape "problems" if put under a similar microscope. Certainly not one who wrote and published as much as Smith.

[Secret Alias]

And on Deuteronomy being a "forgery" of Exodus cf. the Samaritan Pentateuch and Qumran. Whole sections repeated verbatim like Matthew and Luke's use of Mark. Not sure this is really controversial, new or original. It had been said or argued many times before in print before the discovery of To Theodore or Morton Smith:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Le ... frontcover
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jo ... frontcover
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Me ... frontcover
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ez ... frontcover
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/arts ... overy.html

Morton Smith hardly invented the idea that Deuteronomy was a forgery. It was a forgery. He's just saying it like it is. Who cares of Scholem didn't come out and say it. The two men respected each other. But on the premise that Smith shouldn't have gone beyond what his teacher believed or said. As Nietzsche said, "Man vergibt seinem Lehrer schlecht, wenn man immer nur der Schüler bleibt.“

[Secret Alias]

Continuing with the article as I have just walked the dog.

A more disturbing example is found when Smith pre-emptively confronts what he knows will be a likely objection to what we can, with good reason, refer to as Smith’s own “extravagance of exegetic fantasy”: Clement’s letter, if authentic, survived intact for over 1700 years without ever being quoted, referenced, or even acknowledged to exist. Smith’s treatment of this issue is elaborate and must be quoted in full

Strangely enough the same situation exists with respect to the Marcionites. I know it is a bad thing to have such broad interests and exceptional knowledge of early Christianity (and at the forum I am second only to Andrew in this respect). But ...

In Eznik and other earlier sources the EXACT SAME THING occurs. Yes, Morton Smith didn't see this or quote this. But I don't find that surprising because I see no reason for doubting the letters authenticity. Without citing the relevant sources as I feel it is everyone's duty who has pontificated on the question of authenticity should have rudimentary knowledge of the facts regarding "alternative gospels" here's the reality.

1. the Marcionites thought Paul wrote the gospel (the first gospel)
2. the gospel had no name (like Secret Mark) but was referred to as "the gospel of Jesus" or the gospel of Christ or the gospel of the Lord undoubtedly because of Mark 1:1
3. the Marcionites connected their gospel to Paul's heavenly ascent where, in the tradition of the mystery religions he received a revelation he couldn't reveal.

The critics of Marcionism immediately seized upon a dilemma for Marcionism (and this is Eznik as well as other early sources). If the Marcionites or Marcion revealed their "secret" (and presumably "secret gospel") they were breaking Paul's prohibition of speaking of the mysteries in 2 Corinthians 12:4. Not surprisingly from this perspective the Letter to Theodore begins with an allusion to 2 Corinthians 12:4 and then moves on to the nonsense about Mark writing the gospel and blah, blah, blah. But if it was the Marcionite gospel of Jesus that Clement was protecting then it all makes sense. By inventing a story about the gospel being a gospel of Mark you get around the prohibition on revealing Paul's revelation. You also get around the problem of admitting you are using the Marcionite gospel. Marcion is a subform of Mark. Perhaps a dimunitive and even in modern Greek part of a way of expressing love and affection to the one being addressed like "Johnny" "Pauly" "Joey" etc.

[Secret Alias]

Oh boy. Now this:

This brings us to the matter of gay sex. Despite Scott Brown’s vigorous efforts to drive a wedge between the sexual reading of Secret Mark and Smith’s own hypothesis,53 there really can be no doubt that Smith wants his readers to consider the possibility that Jesus’s initiation involved intimate physical union.5

Really "wants"? If you polled the population of the United States with the question "is the Catholic Church an organization secretly run by and for a mostly homosexual clergy?" what do you think the poll result would be? 50 - 50, 60 - 40, 40 - 60? I would say a large minority of the American people, 30 - 40% of the population at least acknowledge, believe or suspect that the hierarchy of the Church not only are gay but have always been gay. This author acts like Smith is bringing up things which are totally outrageous. "A gay document from within the Church." Scandalous! I think people in the know. Montaigne for instance quietly assumed the same things that now a large percentage of the American and world population take for granted. Priests like guys. My wife is Catholic. Her mother was really Catholic. They assumed that a good looking priest was probably gay. So the idea that the paradigm for this "don't have sex with women" practice and belief is supposedly a red-blooded male. Come on, it's hardly outrageous. At least not as "incredible" as the author makes it. Smith obviously hung around monks. He must have known whispers about Roman Catholic "buggery." My mother knew it and she was Jewish. It's not like every priest was like Richard Chamberlain (a homosexual in real life) with a "struggle" to restrain himself with a hot babe. So stupid. Gays likely became priests and nuns because it was a way of avoiding being something they weren't i.e. straight.

[Secret Alias]

Here we go again.

Smith’s interest in homosexuality is two-pronged. First, it is an index of sexual freedom; where homosexuality is practiced, Jewish and Christian puritanism has been defeated by antinomianism.

Ummm. No. Most rich or influential people in antiquity were most likely bisexual. Just like today. Gay people are better, more accomplished than straight people. Who is included in the list of ancient homosexuals? Socrates, Plato and all those famous philosophers. It was assumed that teachers had sex with their students so any educated person like had sex with a male. Am I overstating matters? You had a wife to make babies and a gay lover to have a real relationship for the most part. How can someone study antiquity, hope to understand the ancient mind and not develop a similar "interest" in homosexuality. Maybe the author assumes that wearing blinders is the right path to understand antiquity. But even in modern times. Where are the straight celebrities? Even footballers. Pique and Ibra:



Mbappe: https://www.pride.com/gay-sports/mbappe-transgender Mbappe and his teammate Hakimi https://www.sportsmanor.com/soccer-news ... oes-viral/

It's true in almost every generation. The gays are unshackled by the requirements of domestication and can live out their potential. Show me a married man and I will show you someone who has given up on their dreams.

[Secret Alias]

Do I really go through the rest of this stupid article? There is nothing in here which helps the case for forgery as the author almost admits at the beginning.