Page 3 of 3

Re: Secret Mark, GRS Mead and Morton Smith

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 11:35 am
by Ben C. Smith
Secret Alias wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:29 am When you have a moment Ben do be a dear and attempt to summarize the relevant arguments I overlooked which point to Smith specifically as the forger.
What good would that do? When I name an argument which has been used which does not appear on your list, you have three options: either (A) say, "Yep, that is an argument which people use which I did not make it onto my exhaustive list," (B) attack the argument as so extremely lame that it does not count for some reason, even though the strength or weakness of the argument was not part of your original criteria, or (C) suggest that nobody has (or, at least, too few to count have) made that argument.

If you choose A, then you are effectively agreeing with what I have already stated, and nothing has been accomplished. If you choose B, then you are effectively drawing me into a debate on the merits, which is, first, not relevant to what you presented your list to be and also, second, exactly what I told you I would not be getting involved in. So the only option which would stand a chance of advancing things is C, in which case you would be telling me that no one has made the argument I am suggesting. In the abstract, that would be great. But this matter is concrete, not abstract, because I have personally witnessed you responding to a good many of the arguments which I would be listing. So you know they exist. They just did not make your list.

Re: Secret Mark, GRS Mead and Morton Smith

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:50 pm
by Secret Alias
I am saying that if you ask 'people' - what's this I hear about a fake gospel discovered by Morton Smith? - my summary is the thumbnail (albeit not as explicit). By explicit I mean people don't say 'nothing extraordinary ever happens.' They say 'doesn't it sound too good to be true?' (But what's too good to be true other than a sophisticated way of say 'everyone's life is a boring as mine.' And, as a point of fairness on my part, I put 'seemed to be homosexual' - the sense is inevitably 'a gay professor' like it's common knowledge he was caught with one of his male students or he did a spread in Out Magazine. The truth is I should added somewhere 'too smart for his peers so they ganged up and brought him down.' Morton Smith was brilliant and in scholarship that's unforgivable if you're brilliant and acerbic.