Sabar's New Morton Smith Article

[Peter Kirby]

I've wondered IF M. Smith encountered a forger, and paid for a page executed on old parchment. I doubt that would have been so expensive, particularly if Smith provided the text.

Where does one find a forger like this? Sincere (not just rhetorical) question.

[Secret Alias]

The reality is still that there is no "homosexual reference" in the letter. We can only deal with what is. There is this tendency to make Smith omniscient like he "really knows" what the letter is about. But finding a lottery ticket doesn't mean it's your ticket. The basic reality is:

1. the text says γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ

Why it says this is debatable. But in any other case we'd just assume it was the scribe's intention to write what appears on the page. We only want to contradict the written word because Smith read it differently. We know Smith. We "like" the story.

2. Morton Smith transcribed this "nakeds with naked" as "naked man with naked man" (perhaps because of the content of the letter)

γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ agrees with Stromateis 3.

These are the doctrines of our noble Carpocratians. They say that these people and some other zealots for the same vicious practices gather for dinner (I could never call their congregation a Christian love-feast), men and women together, and after they have stuffed themselves (“The Cyprian goddess is there when you are full,” they say), they knock over the lamps, put out the light that would expose their fornicating righteousness,” and couple as they will with any woman they fancy. So in this love-feast they practice commonality. Then by daylight they demand any woman they want in obedience – it would be wrong to say to the Law of God – to the law of Carpocrates.

So now we're stuck. Is it a letter by Clement saying the same thing as he says multiple occasions about the Carpocratians (and which Hegesippus undoubtedly original said before Clement cf. Epiphanius) or is it Morton Smith's conspiracy theory went wrong? Isn't the simplest answer the supposed to be the best answer? Do we really have to drag in all these complex conspiracy theories? Clement writes to Theodore in the same way he wrote to his audience in the Stomateis?

3. Morton Smith doesn't make explicit reference to the homosexual union of Jesus and the disciple as the meaning of the gospel

Smith says something about Jesus and the youth and homosexuality in a footnote somewhere. It's not a part of his conclusions about the letter. Maybe he's privately thinking Jesus is gay. OK. But who hasn't? Every religious Jew has heard the story about Judas sodomizing Jesus. It's hardly a big deal. No one mentions that either in mixed company. It's just something he thought but couldn't say. Like 100% of religious Jewry about the gay yoitzel.

[billd89]

If you say it, it can be discussed, Even in ways that upset you.

Tough luck.

[Secret Alias]

A second reference to group sex and the Carpocratians in Clement Stromateis 3:

We have spoken of the lawless communism in women held by Carpocrates. But when we mentioned Nicolaus’ remark we omitted one point. They say that he had a pretty wife. After the Savior’s resurrection he was accused of jealousy by the apostles. He brought his wife out into their midst and offered her to anyone who wanted her in marriage. They say that his action was consistent with the saying “The flesh is to be treated with contempt.” Those who are members of his sect follow his word and act simply and uncritically, and indulge in unrestrained licence.

The reference here back to the earlier reference clearly implies Hegesippus mentions some sort of group sex between men and women held in common.

[Secret Alias]

The letter most resembles a private correspondence of Clement. If it's a forgery it was surely written by someone who consulted the statements about the Carpocratians in Clement's surviving writings. In either case Clement speaks or implies Carpocratians gathered γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ not naked man with naked man. It all goes back to the same point. γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ is the original reading.

[Secret Alias]

And this thing about Smith not "acknowledging" his sexual habits. So you're trying to tell me that just one guy, the guy that admits he uses prostitutes, is responsible for the 200 massage parlors within 20 miles of my house? I live in one of best neighborhoods in one of the best cities in America. This whole "keeping secrets about sex" line of reasoning is such garbage. Everyone is dishonest about sex. The one legacy about Christianity I'm not happy about is the hypocrisy about sex it introduced to Western civilization. Nobody admits the truth of their sex life. That truth is, not paying, not playing. Unless you're young beautiful, diet, exercise and keep your mouth shut. Even then, money helps grease the wheel.

Like anyone studying religion is "straight." Last I checked to be heterosexual you have to have sex with something other than your hand. The whole thing is laughable. Women don't find God very arousing. Only God himself could visit women and stimulate their wombs (virtually every encounter with God impregnates women in Genesis). Those of us who study religion can only leave women dry, barren and unstimulated. No one gets turned on by a dissertation.

I think the only scholar who women might find attractive once upon a time was James Tabor (that Barry Gibb look he used to have going). And he writes sheer nonsense which attractive women seem to like. Not even the female scholars want to hook up with their male counterparts. That's how repulsive male religious scholars are. Can't even get dates out of this.

Were the Collins's the only married religious scholars? Maybe the Lieu's. Psychology conferences are unbridled bacchanals by contrast.

https://muslimnews.com.ng/2020/03/08/me ... eir-lives/

[Secret Alias]

I saw a Gallup poll today. 25% of women aged 18 - 29 identify as LGBQT (or whatever it is called) https://news.gallup.com/poll/611864/lgb ... ation.aspx. Admittedly a lot of this 25% identify as bisexual. If everything sexual is genetic must have been a lot of closeted lesbians down through the ages. All of which adds to my point. My own opinion of course but there is no such thing as "sexual identity." This is something created by Christianity. Christianity gave us a bad conscience when we wake up from a night of sex. There is just, "people having sex with other people" and "people only having sex with themselves" and the impotent. The three groups, in my estimation, are roughly similar in numbers (though maybe less of the latter). The "good," the "ugly" and the sterile. But really, sex doesn't matter. It's just became a "big deal" because of organized religion. Let people be who they are.

And then you have to ask. Do those 25% of women who admit they have had lesbian experiences INTERPRET movies and texts differently than those who haven't had lesbian experiences? When they read a passage or a book where one older woman becomes a mentor to another younger woman and the latter is said to come up to older woman at night "dressed only in a nightgown" or something like that? I know 100% of men would read the passage sexually. And then they come upon a reference to "nakeds with naked." I think God arranged for this text to be a Rorschach of our civilization (only half joking).

[Secret Alias]

I am working on obtaining the letter cited in the article. The "coming out" letter. So I can publish it here. People will be very surprised when they see it. Yes, he touches on some of the topics raised. He also cites the words Smith wrote on the letter correctly. But when you look at the letter in toto you will see something I noticed from the article as a whole. It is not a fair rendering of the letter. It's literally factual. Yes. This is a very skilled writer and researchers. I've said this many times before and to Sabar himself. But it is not reasonable to conclude that Smith intended to come out as a homosexual from this letter. He's "coming out" in support of the kind of department we take for granted in better centers of learning. The dean said things about homosexuals that wouldn't be tolerated in anything other than a MAGA convention today. Remember 1989 was a long time ago. I remember when "gay marriage" was a wedge issue which won George W Bush the presidency. Sabar is very skilled writer. A better researcher and interviewer than me certainly. But as a researcher he came up with the same problem I did. No gay lover. That's what he was looking for. Couldn't find it. And added an anonymous grad student, this "coming out" letter, and the married (to a woman with kids) Palestinian friend. As a researcher he failed to find the evidence he was seeking even after months if not years of research. It's not there. So as a skillful writer he cobbled together whatever evidence he could bend to serve of his purpose of damaging Smith's reputation. The suicide? He was dying of terminal cancer. Couldn't read, couldn't write and gave a lot of his money to the Hemlock Society. Assisted suicide being a right he supported way more than homosexual rights. Again, I found a female lover. Sabar couldn't find a male lover. He's a better writer. He's a better researcher. That tells you, there are no gay lovers. Who knows how many married people jack off to gay sex videos, tranny videos, bisexual videos. Can't find the gay lover. He's not gay. He came out for the appropriateness of a department which studies homosexuality in society. I will show you.

This sort of thing is taken for granted today wasn't in 1989. https://gender.indiana.edu/activism-res ... grams.html

Sabar is at his best when he fails to produce the evidence he promises. He's a real magician. His father is a real truth seeker. His father was a proper scholar. Sabar is a great writer. He gathered mounds of evidence. Mounds and mounds. Hoping to find evidence that Smith was a gay forger. He must have sifted through the mounds and mounds of evidence and realized he didn't find the "there there." He didn't find the thing he sought after in the very beginning. Instead of uncovering evidence that Smith was a gay forger he resorted to skilled character assassination. Fine. He does it well. But let's be clear. No evidence of forgery. No evidence of homosexuality. And yet he pulls it off. Why? Because he is an amazing writer. The kind of lawyer you want fighting for you in court. Does anyone complain when their lawyer wins an unwinnable case? Great researcher. Even better writer.

[andrewcriddle]

The letter most resembles a private correspondence of Clement. If it's a forgery it was surely written by someone who consulted the statements about the Carpocratians in Clement's surviving writings. In either case Clement speaks or implies Carpocratians gathered γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ not naked man with naked man. It all goes back to the same point. γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ is the original reading.

The General problem is that the Carpocratians are presumably expanding or paraphrasing or commenting on Clement's version of Secret Mark. I.E. They are adapting a pericope about a close male-male relationship. This must provide the context in which naked with naked is to be interpreted.

(I also tentatively suspect that γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ is a mistake for γυμνός γυμνῷ. The phrase γυμνός γυμνῷ is very occasionally found in other ancient texts whereas γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ seems unique to the Mar Saba letter. It should be noted that what makes it clear that the text reads γυμνοὶ not γυμνός is the accenting which IIUC and IMS is occasionally problematic in the Mar Saba letter as a whole.)

Andrew Criddle

EDITED TO ADD

FWIW there are several ancient examples of the reversed phrase γυμνῷ γυμνός and none whatever for γυμνῷ γυμνοὶ.

[StephenGoranson]

The main issue, as I see it, is whether the Letter with putative extra verses of the Gospel of Mark, claimed to be written by Clement, is ancient and authentic.
It, I think, is not.

Matters of sex were raised by the Letter itself.

Ariel Sabar is a fine researcher and writer.
Editors at a respectable publication, such as The Atlantic, typically ask for verification of assertions. If a particular individual was not named, that may be because he is still alive, but whose identity is known to the author and editor.

The question is whether Morton Smith had--for whatever reason (not necessarily owing to sex)--changed from an ordained Christian to a hater of Christianity and, having ability, opportunity, and motive to do so, faked the otherwise unattested pseudo-Clement Letter with its pseudo-Mark verses.