New Article on Secret Mark by Viklund and Paananen

[dimbear]

http://www.tonyburke.ca/apocryphicity/

In sum: all the signs of forgery Carlson unearthed in his analysis of the handwriting in Clement’s Letter to Theodore disappear once we replace the printed images Carlson used with the original photographs. Looking at the artefacts, Carlson concluded that the “apparently hurried cursive was executed more slowly than it purports to be” and that the “writer had not fully mastered the style of handwriting”. An opposite conclusion has recently been reached (independently of us) by Venetia Anastasopoulou, who had access to the high-quality images of the manuscript, and possesses professional training, degrees, and experience in the field of forensic document examination.

********************* Oh Secret Mark. You never stop giving!

[rug]

1. So, in 2005 it was discovered that someone named Morton Smith created a forgery in the 20th century.

In 2005 Stephen C. Carlson came out with The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s invention of Secret Mark. As the title says, Carlson argued that Morton Smith in fact invented Clement's letter to Theodoros containing extracts from a so-called Secret Gospel of Mark. Among the several indications for this presented by Carlson, he also pointed to the actual writing. We only have photographs of a now lost copy of the letter. This shows a text that appears to be written in a hurried cursive eighteenth century Greek handwriting. Carlson thinks that “it should be possible to tell if the hurried handwriting of Theodore is natural or simulated.” (Carlson p. 27) He suspects that if Morton Smith forged that handwriting in the twentieth century, imitating a hurried cursive eighteenth century handwriting, he would have had to write much more slowly in order to form the letters in a way which was not typical for his own way of writing. This careful imitation where the letters are almost drawn would, according to Carlson, lead to a number of characteristics which could reveal the counterfeiter (and according to Carlson, this counterfeiter, or hoaxer, was Morton Smith).

http://www.jesusgranskad.se/theodore2.htm

Is that correct?

What does this academic hoax have to do with Scripture or religion?

[dimbear]

2. Not everybody is on top of this rather fascinating story.

Whether or not the thing is a hoax is still up for grabs, as the link shows. I suppose it is, especially since Stephen Carlson did such an extensive job on Smith. Carlson naturally is a gifted adversary, due to his legal training. Nevertheless, there is a minority view that Smith is dismissed to easily.

In either case, it's a valuable example of how scripture comes to be scripture, at least to those of us who agree with Bart Ehrman that all scripture is (eventually) forgery.

[rug]

3. Well, to be fair, he only claims that 11 of the books are forgeries.

[dimbear]

4. If we're going to be fair, we also ought to give Morton Smith

some slack. It has always struck me as a low blow that the theological world saved its meanest attacks against him until after he was dead.

It makes it so much harder to come up with witty retorts. Something he was adept at in life. Of course there are those who say that's exactly what 'Secret Mark' is........

[rug]

5. It was your post that established that he was a 20th century forger.

[dimbear]

6. I'm just reminding folks that nothing is established, which is the point.

There was a conference recently held to discuss Secret Mark, accompanied by the publication of a volume of the papers presented, which concluded exactly nothing. Is this a modern forgery? Is this a medieval forgery? Is is (gasp) a forgery by the hand of Clement himself?

Inquiring minds want to know. But..........they don't know. For Dan Brown fans, Secret Mark has all sorts of intrigue: sexual politics, the sixties, feuds. For scholars, the magnetic influence of a gap in the record. The gaps in Mark-- just like the 'Letter of Paul to the Lacedemonians' draw new scriptures 'out of the vasty deep.'

Secret Mark conference discussed: http://www.tonyburke.ca/yorkchristianpocrypha/

[rug]

7. Sounds woo-ish to me.