"Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
StephenGoranson
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"Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by StephenGoranson »

A slightly different subtitle (via twitter) for a forthcoming book:
The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over Its Authenticity
Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau
Yale U Press
I have not yet seen a publication date.
The previously mentioned subtitle included "...A Rogue Scholar, A Controversial Gospel...."
Secret Alias
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by Secret Alias »

The difficult thing about making an argument based on inuendo have the final word on a subject is that innuendo isn't productive. It's more like a fire cracker. It explodes and then fades away. So the case against Morton Smith.
StephenGoranson
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by StephenGoranson »

The book is not yet published; I have not read it.
A broken-record warning against innuendo seems here inapt, if not itself innuendo.
Though I can't say what the book will say, previously (as secondarily reported here), one of the authors, GSS, added to the strong case that whoever wrote the "Letter to Theodore," it was not Clement of Alexandria.
Secret Alias
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by Secret Alias »

There's almost nothing but suggestive innuendo. You may laugh at mountainman's Constantine conspiracy theory. Look in the mirror.
Secret Alias
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by Secret Alias »

That's the problem with academics. Everyone has eccentricities/quirks/blind spots. Unless EVERY academic is put under the microscope like Morton Smith it's hard to say that he's weirder than average. I remember following the trail of Theodore Gaster's daughter and thinking what was Theodore Gaster doing living in an apartment with a male student in Philadelphia? His daughter was a mess. She was claiming her mom was having an affair with Morton Smith. Who gets to decide what gossip and innuendo 'makes the cut'? Am I exaggerating or wrongly emphasizing or placing too much emphasis on this piece of trash story or you the whole 'closeted gay mental case' angle? I think we just put all this shit to the side and deal with arguments from manuscript, the story of how the document was discovered, whether the handwriting shows signs of forgery, whether it is typical of handwriting from the 17th and 18th centuries. But you always want to make it about psychology and innuendo. I remember reading somewhere that you were connected with Jungian psychology. I mean let's be honest. No one takes Jungian psychology that seriously any more. I happened to have had studied psychology as an undergraduate in Canada and it was generally laughed as a subjective approach to the mind with little value. Kind of like the argument against the Letter to Theodore. Like if you believe in 'the collective unconscious' why is it surprising that you buy into a lot of crap about Morton Smith that gets put forward as evidence.
StephenGoranson
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by StephenGoranson »

More than one person has my first and last name. Inaccurate. Irrelevant. Innuendo. Bogus.
Gaster spelled Theodor.
The manuscript has been questioned, as noted before, including by Agamemnon Tselikas.
The authorship has been questioned, by several, as noted before.
I don't know what the fc book will say, but I guess, perhaps, that it may say it may have been written some time after Eusebius, so by pseudo-Clement. Maybe, we may see, and how argued.
Secret Alias
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by Secret Alias »

Yes 'questioning' something is different than pinning on a particular person for reasons which develop from gossip and innuendo. The document is not a homosexual plot to destroy or subvert Christianity. It's not a development of Aleister Crowley's doctrines. There's no evidence he was 'insane' as the infamous SBL conference claimed. It's a lot of throwing garbage and hoping something sticks. And nothing has. When you pass on there will be one less devote conspiracy theorist to debate. I have a lot of practice here between you, the mountainman and the rest.
Secret Alias
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by Secret Alias »

There's like (a) the arguments that there is something wrong with the document. None of that has been conclusive. If you want to see it you see it if you don't you don't. Much like a debate about what's the best hamburger place, what's the best series on Netflix etc.
Then there's (b) Morton Smith is the forger because he was gay, he was angry about being gay, he was angry about being angry about being gay etc. This is lowest kind of argument which has even less weight that 'what's the best hamburger joint in NYC' and the like. I can take arguments like it's too Clementine for Clement (even though I don't quite get it). The bottom feeder arguments are humorous and that's about it.
StephenGoranson
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by StephenGoranson »

In case it is of interest to some here, if I may pass along information, amazon.com lists the book as forthcoming. (Curiously, before Yale U Press website or WorldCat list it.)

The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over Its Authenticity.
Hardcover – March 21, 2023
by Geoffrey S. Smith (Author), Brent C. Landau (Author)
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (March 21, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300254938
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300254938
StephenGoranson
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Re: "Secret Gospel of Mark" book fc

Post by StephenGoranson »

Here is a book description, blurb, according to Yale Univ. Press:

"A groundbreaking account of the Secret Gospel of Mark, one of the most hotly debated documents in Christian history

In 1958, at the ancient Christian monastery of Mar Saba just outside Jerusalem, Columbia University scholar Morton Smith claimed to have unearthed a letter written by the Christian philosopher Clement of Alexandria and containing an excerpt from a previously unknown version of the canonical Gospel of Mark. This excerpt recounts a story of Jesus’s apparent sexual encounter with a young resurrected disciple. In recent years, an influential group of researchers have alleged that no Secret Gospel or letter of Clement existed in antiquity, and that the manuscript that Morton Smith “found” was a modern forgery—created by none other than Smith himself.

In this book, Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau enter into the controversy surrounding this document and argue that the Secret Gospel of Mark is neither a first-century alternative gospel nor a twentieth-century forgery by the scholar who announced its discovery to the world. Instead, this account of Jesus and a young disciple is intimately bound up with the history of Mar Saba, one of the oldest monasteries in the Christian world. In this groundbreaking work, Smith and Landau present the realities and misconceptions surrounding not only the now-lost manuscript but also its brilliant, enigmatic, and acerbic discoverer, Morton Smith."
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