Distinguishing some questions about the "Letter to Theodore"

[RandyHelzerman]

I'm a bit unclear about one thing: Did Tselikas examine the actual manuscript, or did he work from photos?

[RandyHelzerman]

There's a point on June 8th I believe in his letter to his wife, the last day of the journal where, he's obviously feeling "this ain't happening." The day before in the journal he's talking about detective stories and its all positive. By the 8th it's like not sure what to do.

Thanks so much for posting this, Herr Doctor Secret Alias. I stand corrected on several claims I made earlier:
1. Apparently, looking at the ms with a magnifying glass wouldn't let you determine whether or not the ink was centuries old, and
2. Apparently the exemplars of genuine 18th century writing *did* come from Mar Saba, or at least some of them did.

That business about the sheets being stored in plastic bindings is quite disturbing. When I was in high school (about a half a century ago) I used to put papers I wanted to preserve for all time into plastic binders. By the time I was in grad school, alas, the ink had begun to leave the paper and adhere to the plastic covers. And after 30 years or so the plastic had a chemical reaction with the paper and ink which rendered them unreadable. My sister the chemist informs me that most varieties of transparent, flexible, plastic slowly outages chlorine gas, which is nasty stuff, and will bleach out most pigments. I'm very much afraid that even if the leaves of the manuscript were "found" again, they may very well have been so decomposed that they will keep their secrets forever.

P.S. *chuckle* @ how Quesnell starts out all "Nancy Drew and the Case of the Queer Carpocratians" and it then it slowly dawns on him that he's way out of his depth here.

How is it even possible to have the privilege of seeing the ms and not brag to the world about it in publications? If I were one of the like 10 people who had seen it I would be an insufferable boor.

And why didn't he publish that proving it *wasn't* written in the 18th century is going to take more than reading a few Raymond Chandler novels? What's the big secret? What was his goal, and how did his actions possibly help him achieve them???

[Peter Kirby]

A few comments on handwriting analysis and on the Mar Saba fragment that I have written are here:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12019

Where there's an expectation that comments made are based on mutual respect.

[Secret Alias]

I'm a bit unclear about one thing: Did Tselikas examine the actual manuscript, or did he work from photos?

Scott Brown sent him a CD with the highest resolution Hedrick images (which are from the many photos commissioned by Quesnell). Tselikas wrote his study at the Patriarchate though. He had the book. Did he have the actual manuscript. He says and they say they can't find it. If they did know would they tell us.

[Peter Kirby]

I doubt Tselikas saw the now-separated manuscript, but I do know that he had access to the Voss volume (like SA said).

He has offered some of the only photos of it, particularly of some other pages:

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

[Secret Alias]

Quesnell saw the scribbles on pg 11 that Tselikas saw:

On page 11, there was about twenty squiggles across the top & down the right margin. They turn out to be Greek letters. The last five are clearly identifiable. They are the 18th c. way of writing [Greek letter pi] namely [ligature] repeated about 5 times. On the top there are a couple of different B ‘s and a couple of others, each one repeated with variations. Of course you know how I take it. It’s like Rosie practicing Philly’s signature. The book itself contains mostly Greek texts & the Greek text style is in many ways like the 18th century hand of the ms. It’s as if a modern – M.S. for instance, were reading the book, tried to see if he could imitate the type, so different from the Greek we’re used to, and … But though the ink of those efforts looks much like the ink of the ms. I don’t think the same person wrote both. His efforts on p. 11 are too amateurish. Still, if he went off & practiced for a long time – perhaps. But more probably he would have hired a Greek.

Here's an example of Tselikas likely grasping at straws.

[JoeWallack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_RwIt3a8xs&t=2s

JW:
Secret Agent Man is having some trouble trying to articulate concisely a Smithian defense so he is now threatening to write a book on the subject.
But this could cost hundreds of pages and thousands of careers and reputations. So let me provide some related crypt notes:

1) AT, generally considered the foremost relevant paleographer here, has concluded that Smith is the forger without any paleographic evidence. Equally ironic is that AT concludes that the forger was not fluent in the language and communicates that conclusion to us in a language he is not fluent in. Beyond ironic is that AT claims that for this forgery issue an examination of his guilty pleasures party's handwriting "can not give significant evidence".

2) AT's conclusion:

My conclusion is that the letter is product of a forgery and all the evidences suggest that the forger can not be other person than Morton Smith or some other person under his orders.

Note that the conclusion is conditional. He first has to demonstrate that the letter is likely a forgery. This isn't a murder mystery where someone was pushed, beaten and then sloganed to death at a Columbia courtyard. AT claims it impossible that St. Clement made grammatical errors. "Impossible"? "St."? What might AT's motivation be?


Joseph

FEAST, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.

The New Porphyry

[StephenGoranson]

He gave paleographic evidence, though.

[JoeWallack]

He gave paleographic evidence, though.

JW:
He did. On a serious note Stephen, as you have noted there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to Smith. Ehrman thinks it was Smith (and so does the Goddess here, KK). Your presentation of the circumstantial evidence is always interesting and much appreciated. It's just that for a Skeptic there is a long d i s t a n c e between proof and thinking/suspecting.


Joseph

The New Porphyry

[StephenGoranson]

Hiya, Joe. Thanks. I did wonder if anyone would get a chuckle from my writing that Morton Smith was interested in the bitter humor of J. [Jonathan] Swift, not to be confused with T. [Taylor] Swift.
Three bitters!
Oh well, tough crowd.

("The Influence of Arbuthnot upon Swift," by R. Morton Smith, class of '36, senior Harvard thesis.)