Sabar's New Morton Smith Article

[Secret Alias]

The diary of Quesnell at Smith College. He and Dourvas had a friendly "debate" with Dourvas bringing document after document to demonstrate its similarities to other texts. Tselikas has come to a different conclusion. But Dourvas was the predecessor of Tselikas's "boss" at Jerusalem Father Aristarchos. The position of the Patriarchate has changed of course. But orthodoxies always change.

[Secret Alias]

FWIW Father Aristarchos demanded I believe in the Holy Trinity several times on the phone before slamming the phone down on me. Kallistos was different. More erudite and a friend of Dragas. Talk to Dragas about Dourvas. He's still alive. Dourvas gave the photos to Hedrick. Didn't have to. Aristarchos wouldn't.

[Secret Alias]

There is a religious divide on the authenticity of the document. Doesn't mean everyone bases their opinion on Church doctrine. But it is one of the reasons why court cases move to new venues when the well has been so poisoned with prejudice. The text doesn't say Jesus was gay with another man. And then there is this https://studyfinds.org/americans-facts-opinions/ There could come a day where Americans and Europeans come to completely different conclusions about the text.

[StephenGoranson]

QQ visited Jerusalem, not Mar Saba, and in 1983, not 1980 or earlier.
Also, iirc, Smith did not mention showing those pages to any monk at Mar Saba. Who there mentioned reading it, even, much less giving an opinion on it, before 1980?
Also, Smith did not fully reveal the content in his Mar Saba bibliography article in Nea Sion 52 (1960).

[Secret Alias]

I did not say Q visited the monastery but interestingly the diary does at least suggest that it might have happened. It was being discussed. But he stopped taking notes. The monks resistor giving up the manuscript/book. Odd thing for supposedly a manuscript/book you and others claim didn't belong there. Dourvas clearly thought the manuscript script and the manuscript belonged at Mar Saba. Taken together in previous ages the manuscript and the book were taken to belong in the monastery. https://books.google.com/books?id=G06qE ... ba&f=false

Last I checked Seraphim was a resident at Mar Saba.

[StephenGoranson]

Also, though Smith apparently had the opportunity, he apparently did not try to find any similar text in Jerusalem.
It seems he was not telling all to the Greek Orthodox in either location, nor in Nea Zion, to a somewhat larger Greek Orthodox readership.
The first person he revealed that he showed it to was Scholem.

[Secret Alias]

1. the manuscript doesn't read "naked man with naked man"
2. even if it did as Andrew notes near contemporary Christians use the terminology apparently without Smith's knowledge and without (apparently) overtly homosexual resonance
3. Sabar provides no direct evidence of Smith's homosexuality in any case. He certainly spent months searching for it as did I. I only came up with a heterosexual reference which happened to occur around the time of the visit to Mar Saba which Sabar was apparently aware of (or should have been aware of because he references my research in a private correspondence) which he (deliberately?) failed to make reference to in his article.
4. whether or not the document is a forgery is a separate issue from whether or not Morton Smith is the forger. You cited Andrew's article. If it proves anything it does not point to any particular forger. ANY forger who created a "hyper-Clementine" forgery from collecting words and phrases from Clement's writing would send off similar alarm bells. There is nothing specific to Smith nor modernity. One can cut up words from ANY newspaper and create a ransom note. You don't need a particular concordance or any concordance. Surely such an individual, who painstakingly gleaned words and phrases from the Stromata, would have written nakeds with naked regarding the Carpocratian predilection for orgiastic agapes as this was also Clement's stated opinion about the Carpocratians.

[StephenGoranson]

Whether of x, y, or z personal sexuality, at whatever time(s),
as those who knew him best apparently knew,
Smith changed,
for whatever reason--maybe not sexual; maybe a death; maybe something else--
from very Christian to very anti-Christian,
and that is research-relevant.
nu?

[Secret Alias]

What about him not giving up the priesthood?

[StephenGoranson]

"What about him not giving up the priesthood?"

Fair question. I don't claim to know everything. Possibly being rejected from job applications played a role. Or something I (nor you, gasp) have no knowledge of. Though I don't think he had actually de facto served as an Episcopal priest for many years.
I can say, that he reportedly still retained some respect for the Swedenborgian New Church, too.
Religion can be seen as an attempt.