A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

,
but they don't do that naked and they aren't sex teachings like Smith was trying to analogize
You keep doing this over and over again. Where does Smith say this? Where does he say that ALL Christians were homosexual? Where is this the cornerstone of " his teachings"? You make it sound as if he was Harvey Milk.
Secret Alias
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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On an entirely separate note here is an acount of a gay marriage ceremony described by Michel de Montaigne, the French essayist.

"
On my return from Saint Peter's I met a man who informed me ... that on this same day [March 18, 1581] the [Holy Week] station was at San Giovanni Porta Latina, in which church a few years before certain Portuguese had entered into a strange brotherhood. They married one another, male to male, at Mass, with the same ceremonies with which we perform our marriages, read the same
marriage gospel service, and then went to bed and lived together. The Roman wits said that because in the other conjunction, of male and female, this circumstance of marriage alone makes it legitimate, it had seemed to these sharp folk that this other action would become equally legitimate if they authorized it with ceremonies and mysteries of the Church. Eight or nine Portuguese of this fine sect were burned."
-- Travel Journals of Montaigne Donald M. Frame, trans., Montaigne. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1948, pp. 954-55.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:56 am, edited 3 times in total.
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rakovsky
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Secret Alias wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:25 pm Have I left out other shining examples of 'productivity' in the humanities?
He had a compendium of Clement's phrases that he had annotated and he had published on his peculiar Theory about early Christian sex rites and his mistaken claim that Clement had taught lying for the faith in the 1950s up until 1958, and then later in 1958 he supposedly found the letter from Clement that seemingly refers to secret sex rites and says to lie for the faith.

If you make an analogy where you replace Morton Smith with an anti Lutheran scholar and replace Christian with Lutheran and replace Clement with Luther, it helps to show the unlikeliness.
Secret Alias
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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You are insane. You've never read anything Smith wrote. If Smith was trying to undermine Christianity it would have been/must have been more subtle, subtlety not being one of your strengths
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rakovsky
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Secret Alias wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:48 am ,
but they don't do that naked and they aren't sex teachings like Smith was trying to analogize
You keep doing this over and over again. Where does Smith say this? Where does he say that ALL Christians were homosexual? Where is this the cornerstone of " his teachings"? You make it sound as if he was Harvey Milk.
He wrote it in his 1950s writing as Craig Evans described in his critical analysis. I quoted Evans under G in the first message of this thread.
Secret Alias
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Please read the primary sources in context. Do you know what primary sources are?
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rakovsky
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Secret Alias wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:57 am You are insane. You've never read anything Smith wrote.
I read over his book Jesus the Magician before I knew that he was the same person involved in the Secret Mark saga. I thought his book was from okay to good.
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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So let me get this straight. You've pontificated about Greek anomalies in the text without having any understanding of Greek AND made pronouncements about "what Smith was upto with Secret Mark" without having read anything Smith ever wrote on Secret Mark. Color me surprised. Hey can you give me some tips on where to stay in Barcelona? Or maybe your pick of the best summer reading choosing from a number of titles you've also never read?
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Peter Kirby
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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rakovsky wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:10 amprivate gnostic-style instruction
Why do you call it "gnostic-style" if you also claim it is unknown? Is it gnostic style, or is it unknown? It can't be both.
rakovsky wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:10 ammore secretive or occultic rituals
rakovsky wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:10 ammore secretive rituals
I think I have erred by allowing an assumption that the text refers to "rituals." I get the word "secretive" in this context but not necessarily "rituals."
rakovsky wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:16 pmMorton Smith, a professor whose research had already linked topics also found in the Letter, eg. "the Kingdom of God", Mark's gospel, secretive early Christian rituals
rakovsky wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:16 pmthe seeming secretive sexual practices in Secret Mark
rakovsky wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:16 pmSmith later claimed to have discovered the Mar Saba letter that in the view of many readers would tend to be unsettling for its description of alleged homosexual occult early Christian rituals
Okay, now I see where you're getting the word "rituals." It's closely connected to your idea that the text describes sex as a ritual.
rakovsky wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:16 pm"Secret Mark" seems to present a motif where the young man is raised from the dead out of a tomb and then learns secret mysteries from Jesus
This is a more accurate description of the text, and this description doesn't include any rituals (or sex).
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Peter Kirby wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:35 pm
rakovsky wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:10 amprivate gnostic-style instruction
Why do you call it "gnostic-style" if you also claim it is unknown? Is it gnostic style, or is it unknown? It can't be both.
One of the signs of Gnostic mystery school teaching was its secretive style. The salvific contents were given to the initiates only.

In the canonical gospels, Jesus generally gives his teachings to the apostles as a group or to big groups gathered like at the Sermon on the Mount, one possible exception that comes to mind being his discussion with Nicodemus unless other apostles were there too. John 18:20 has:
"I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus answered. "I always taught in the synagogues and at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret.
In Secret Mark on the other hand, Jesus gives private instruction to the youth on the "mystery of the kingdom of God." Then in describing the Evangelist Mark beyond what he quotes from Secret Mark, the letter has Clement of Alexandria write:
Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain [traditions]4 of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of the truth hidden by seven veils.
...he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is [preserved with utmost discretion],5 being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.
This manner of describing the contents is more in the vein of the Gnostic mystery school style of secret saving teachings.
And then he follows it by saying:
To them, therefore, as I said above, one must never give way; nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that [it is Mark’s mystical gospel],7 but should even deny it on oath. For, “Not all true things are to be said to all men.”
This is saying to lie to avoid conceding that such things are from Secret Mark, which means that keeping the information a secret is so important that you should dishonestly deny it.

So portraying a gnostic style of teaching both in the way it paints it, "mystagogues" getting teachings hidden by 7 veils, and by its extreme secretiveness for initiates only, dishonestly denying its existence under oath.
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