Was Morton Smith a forger?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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gryan
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Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by gryan »

Today, in his blog, James Tabor wrote:

"Morton Smith was Not a Forger! I was very pleased to see that my friend and colleage James David Audlin is doing a live interview with Youtube host Jacob Berman over at #History Valley. It is live today at 5pm EDT."

https://jamestabor.com/morton-smith-and ... l-of-mark/
Giuseppe
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by Giuseppe »

Thanks for this pretious witness by who knew personally M. Smith.

A question: is there a bibliography of books or scholars who have
  • 1) assumed the authenticity of Secret Mark;
  • 2) who have given an interpretation of it.
I would like to hear new voices about Secret Mark.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by Giuseppe »

I see that Clement himself interpreted as a Carpocratian interpolation the words "naked man with naked man".

Ken has a good resume of the possible implications:

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 8:37 am In this post, I'm going to try to draw together some of the topics discussed in this thread and some of the conclusions I have drawn. (This has been kicking around in my docs file for a while now and I thought I should finish it off and post it).

I'm starting with two assumptions which are themselves conclusions for which I’ve argued earlier in this thread:

1 There is a homosexual reading of the text of Secret Mark acknowledged in the text of the Letter to Theodore. Clement, or the narrator of the Letter, says that “naked man with naked man” is not in the text, but by implication an addition by the Carpocratians:

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopi ... &h#p109688

2 The evidence for the practice of homosexual acts among the Carpocratians is weak and suspect. Perhaps I should say the theory that the Carpocatians as a group both openly advocated and practiced homosexual acts is very weakly supported. (I would imagine the Carpocratians probably had some members who practiced homosexual acts as do Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Pastafarians and everyone else).

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopi ... 0&#p109840

So who is responsible for the words “naked man with naked man” and/or the homosexual reading of Secret Mark?

The Carpocratians (two possibilities):

1 The Carpocratians added the words “naked man with naked man” to Secret Mark and introduced the homosexual reading of the text because they were libertines who practiced homosexual sex themselves in their orgies. This is the most common reading among those who accept the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore, but the idea that the Carpocratians practiced homosexual sex (more than other people) is not well supported. It is attested in antiquity, but only in polemical contexts in Christian anti-Carpocratian texts whose sources are very suspect.

2 The Carpocratians added the words “naked man with naked man” and introduced the homosexual reading of Secret Mark, not because they advocated homosexuality themselves, but in order to polemicize against the Alexandrian Christians who held Secret Mark in high regard. They were accusing the Alexandrians of making Jesus homosexual.

Mark

The fragment of Secret Mark and the Letter to Theodore are authentic, and the homoerotic reading of Secret Mark was intended by its author and accepted by Clement and a select few initiates in the Alexandrian church who took pains to guard the text of Secret Mark and even denied its existence to outsiders. Clement denied that the words “naked man with naked man” were in the text because he did not want to allow the Carpocratians that kind of ammunition for their anti-Alexandrian polemic (similar to the 2nd Carpocratians case above).

Clement

Clement himself came up with the words “naked man with naked man” so he could accuse the Carpocratians of having added it and thus make it sound as though Jesus engaged in homosexual activity. In this case, Clement himself the originator of the homosexual reading of Secret Mark which he invented in order to attribute it to the Carpocratians. He is accusing the Carpocratians of making Jesus sound homosexual when, in fact, he came up with that reading himself.

A Forger

The Letter to Theodore is not by Clement and the author is deliberately introducing the idea of a homosexual Jesus into his readers' minds. This is presumably either to polemicize against orthodox Christianity or to advocate for the tolerance of homosexuality or perhaps both. (This is the theory I laid out in the OP).

Best,

Ken
ADDENDA: A speculative curiosity: what if the young rich, identified with the young naked of Secret Mark, was Josephus himself?

This would support Doudna's view of Jesus ben Saphat and Josephus being in secret league between them.
schillingklaus
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by schillingklaus »

The nudity is to be understiood as allegory and symbol, not to be taken literally as uncritical scholars do.
gryan
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by gryan »

Part 2, live on Friday at #History Valley:

Is Secret Mark Authentic? Part II - Dr. James David Audlin, Dr. Robert M. Price And Stephan Huller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFbXsM3w68A

In "Second Thoughts on the Secret Gospel" Dr. Robert M. Price wrote:

"In 1985 I asked Morton Smith how he responded to charges of forgery, recently renewed in Per Beskow's excellent book Strange Tales About Jesus: a Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Fortress, 1983). He told me the now-familiar story of the custodians of the manuscript secreting it away out of embarrassment at the notoriety Smith's book The Secret Gospel had brought them, henceforth wanting to suppress the evidence. He asked, furthermore, what business Beskow had in condemning all the more recent New Age gospels as spurious: if they embodied someone's faith, weren't they authentic gospels, no matter who wrote them or when? Later I wondered if his words did not apply equally, even especially, to his own Secret Mark!"

"...I cannot help wondering if it [a novel] gave him the idea for a hoax of his own, meant to undermine the Christian faith which he found to be oppressive."

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_secret.htm
Giuseppe
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by Giuseppe »

gryan wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:38 pmLater I wondered if his words did not apply equally, even especially, to his own Secret Mark!"
good point!
StephenGoranson
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by StephenGoranson »

In his recent interview with Jacob Berman, James David Audlin, at about 29:12ff, said he thought that "Secret Mark" was written in Aramaic.
And that Clement of Alexandria translated the Aramaic into Greek.

Did Clement of Alexandria and others in Alexandria, who, it is claimed, read "Secret Mark," know Aramaic?
lsayre
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by lsayre »

I don't believe that Morton Smith was a forger, but this does not ablate the potential that whomever entered the text into the back of a book found at Mar Saba in circa the 1700-1800's was a forger. Personally I think there is a good chance the text was present within a more complete version of Mark's Gospel (the Canonical version of which seems to be incomplete when compared to its sibling Synoptics). There must be a reason why Ireneaus proclaimed the Gospel of Mark to be the preferred Gospel of the various of heretical groups. The Canonized version doesn't seem very heretical. That plus the Gospel of John seems far more likely to have been the preferred Gospel of the 'so called' heretics.
Last edited by lsayre on Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by Secret Alias »

Discussing this with Price will be strange.

1. The Marcionites said that the canonical gospels were spurious/forgeries
2. What would we expect from ANOTHER ancient gospel? What would "authenticity" mean in a universe where everything that survives is in some sense "fake"? To use an analogy if everyone in the world is corrupt how would authenticity be treated? The likely answer: honesty would be viewed as another form of dishonesty.

My wife literally spends every minute of her day taking care of her mother while in Toronto. Her siblings are not there have not been there. They literally accuse her love and devotion as being signs of "brainwashing" or mental weakness. In short there's no objectivity once people are certain they are right that their way is the right way.

I am just going to see what a discussion about forgery looks like with someone who shares my biases about the canonical material. Should be interesting
StephenGoranson
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Re: Was Morton Smith a forger?

Post by StephenGoranson »

That the "Letter" was not written by Clement, imo, is by now rather well established.
The observations by Agamemnon Tselikas on anomalies and anachronisms in the text in the back of the Voss book, imo, should be taken seriously.
The reported view that M. Smith regarded all gospels as more or less fake, if so, would seem to lower the bar for one holding such a view to make another fake.
Any so-called argument that (a) people were mean to M. Smith, therefore (b) accept what M. Smith claimed, is unworthy.
Last edited by StephenGoranson on Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
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