Apocryphicity

The papers presented at last Spring's Symposium on Secret Mark—Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate—have been accepted for publication by Cascade Books. I am currently editing the papers and hope to have the manuscript to the publisher in February.

There are plans also for another York Christian Apocrypha Symposium, but not until 2013. It was unlikely that we would receive funding without some "outcome" from the first symposium, and there was some delay in securing a contract in time for funding proposal season. We do not know yet what the topic will be for 2013, but I will post information when it becomes available.

Craig Evans has a post on Secret Mark at the Bible and Interpretation. He mentions his involvement in the York Christian Apocrypha Symposium and summarizes several of the points of his paper (via Paleojudaica).

[With apologies for taking so long; a short vacation and a nasty cold kept me from work].

The afternoon session began with Marvin Meyer’s paper, “The Young Streaker in Secret and Canonical Mark.” Meyer holds a position on Secret Mark similar to that of Helmut Koester—that canonical Mark is an abridgement of a longer version of Mark that included the two Secret Mark passages. This longer Mark helps to clear up the confusion over the neaniskos (young man) who shows up at the end of canonical Mark, a character so mysterious that Matthew and Luke ignore him when composing their texts. In the course of his paper, Meyer echoes the views of some of the scholars from the morning session regarding indicting Smith: “I myself find it rather distasteful to see in these exposés what seem to be inappropriate attacks upon one of our late colleagues, Morton Smith, and my perception that some scholars are inclined to ‘pile on’ concerns me…Some of the charges seem almost libelous.” Meyer provides several examples of other neaniskoi in ancient literature, some of whom flee and abandon their robes, just as in canonical Mark. One example in particular, the fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, provides the closest parallel to Mark’s figure: “As his expression indicates, the youth is excited and surprised by what he is discovering from the women. Like the youth in Mark, he is discovering the mysteries, and he is amazed.” Meyer finishes the paper by looking at all possible references to the youth in longer Mark and pieces together a complete narrative in which the youth becomes a paradigm of discipleship. I have always been attracted to the Meyer/Koester theory; Mark does read better with the Secret Mark material included. But Meyer (nor anyone else who holds to the theory, as far as I remember) does not provide a compelling argument for why longer Mark became canonical Mark—i.e., if the Secret Mark material is so innocuous and central to Mark’s story, why remove it? Or better, why remove only some of it, leaving the naked youth and thus confusing readers?

Pierluigi Piovanelli’s paper, “Halfway Between Sabbatai Tzevi and Aleister Crowley: Morton Smith’s ‘Own Concept of What Jesus “Must” Have Been’ and, Once Again, the Question of Evidence,” was not distributed before the conference. In its stead, Piovanelli offered a Powerpoint presentation outlining his argument. Piovanelli raises some of the standard reservations about the authenticity of Secret Mark—e.g., the unlikelihood of finding a lost, major work from an ancient author, particularly in such an odd source (the Voss book); and the disconnect between what we read in the To Theodore with what we know of Alexandrian Christianity from other sources. Piovanelli then examines the correspondence between Smith and Gershom Scholem for evidence of motive for Smith to forge the text; he focuses specifically here on Carlson’s theory that Smith created the text out of disillusionment with the academy after his dismissal from Brown University. He also makes much of Smith’s interest in Scholem’s work on Jewish mysticism and his fascination with Alistair Crowley. His conclusion is that Smith created Secret Mark to strengthen his argument that Jesus was a mystical Jewish messiah in the style of Sabbatai Tzevi. More time should be spent looking at Smith’s innovative ideas, Piovanelli argues, than on Secret Mark itself.

Another scholar who has worked extensively with the Smith-Scholem correspondence is Allan Pantuck. This and other private materials form the basis of his paper, “What did he know and when did he know it? Further Excavations from the Morton Smith Archives.” I particularly enjoy Allan’s work on Secret Mark because he is able to use concrete, empirical evidence to refute speculation about Smith’s abilities and motives. Like Piovanelli, Pantuck provided a Powerpoint presentation rather than a draft of his paper; but this worked well for Pantuck as he was able to show the audience images from the Smith archives that helped to establish his argument. This argument challenges the notion that Smith had the abilities to create the To Theodore. To do so he would need: “An intimate knowledge of the writings of Clement of Alexandria sufficient to compose a de novo, original composition that would successfully imitate Clement’s complex thought, vocabulary, and poetic/rhythmic; ability to compose complex ideas flawlessly in Patristic Greek; expertise on the Gospel of Mark; ancient epistolography; expertise in 18th-century Greek paleography; and physical ability to write in a native 18th-century cursive Greek hand.” Pantuck then uses Smith’s correspondence to show that his skills in Greek were not particularly strong; he concludes his point with some remarks made by Roy Kotansky in 2006 that Smith did not read such texts as the Greek Magical Papyri very well and, “he certainly could not have produced either the Greek cursive script of the Mar Saba Ms., nor its grammatical text, as we have it.” But the most compelling section of Pantuck’s presentation is that titled “What did he do and when did he do it.” Here he provides a timeline for Smith’s work on the text, showing, among other things, that Smith took a considerable amount of time (six years) transcribing and translating the manuscript and developing his interpretation of the text. The rough notes illustrating this work—notes from Smith’s private archive and not meant to be seen by the public—indicate that either Smith did not forge the text (otherwise he would not need to decipher it) or that he meticulously created these notes in the event that, after his death, scholars would go through his materials looking for proof of the forgery. The latter is more ridiculous given that Smith wanted all of this material destroyed after his death. Consider also Scott Brown’s point (made in his paper and also his monograph) that Smith translated the phrase “for Jesus was teaching him” as “for he gave him the mystery” so that he could make the mystery of the kingdom of God into a rite. If Smith created the text and wanted it to read “for he gave him the mystery,” why not make the Greek explicitly say so?

As far as I am concerned, Pantuck’s and Brown’s (and also Hedrick’s) work on Secret Mark prove (as much as is possible) that Smith did not forge the text. However, I am not convinced that the To Theodore is an authentic letter of Clement; indeed it could be an eighteenth-century forgery, though I am inclined to think it more ancient. I look forward to seeing the reaction to Pantuck’s paper when it appears in the proceedings.

The final two papers of the day tackled situating the To Theodore in the thought of Clement of Alexandria. Peter Jeffery began with his lengthy paper, “Clement’s Mysteries and Morton Smith’s Magic.” The paper is the latest volley in an exchange between Jeffery and Brown that began with Brown’s review of Jeffery’s The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled (2007). It seeks to show that To Theodore does not fit with Clement’s views on initiation, but it does cohere with Smith’s “idiosyncratic hypotheses” about magic. Jeffery has little regard for Smith’s scholarly abilities; he sees in both Smith’s work and To Theodore the cobbling together of bits and pieces of ancient texts, often misinterpreted or deliberately misrepresented, and removed from their historical contexts, in order to promote his theory of magic. In his presentation, Jeffery gave the audience the “Jeffery Challenge”: read through Smith’s books and articles, check his sources, and if you do not see the shortcomings in his scholarship, then he will write you a reference to the business school of your choice on Princeton letterhead. Scott Brown finished the session with “Behind the Seven Veils, I: The Gnostic Life-Setting of the Mystic Gospel of Mark.” Brown’s argument is that Jeffery (and others) are wrong to place To Theodore and Secret Mark in a baptismal setting. Instead, it should be interpreted as reflecting entry into a higher level of involvement within the church, one reserved for the “true Gnostic.” After a lengthy discussion of the meaning of the lesser and great mysteries in Clement’s corpus, Brown shows how To Theodore fits Clement’s view on the allegorical reading of scripture as an aid for obtaining “the visionary experience of noetic and more pneumatic realities,” and experience “reserved for the Gnostic.” Thus, a longer, “mystical” Mark “simply would not be read to neophytes, hence in the connection with the rites of initiation into the church.” Both Brown’s and Jeffery’s papers work extensively with Clement of Alexandria’s corpus of work. It would be valuable to us for a scholar of Clement to interact with their arguments. We did make some attempts to include feedback from Clement scholars in the symposium and/or in the published proceedings, but we were not successful.

The evening session featured four of the scholars—Evans, Brown, Meyer, and Jeffery—answering a set of prepared questions and also taking questions from the audience. The questions were:

1. This event is the first in a series of symposium on apocryphal Christian literature. What do you see as the value of studying such material?

2. What brought you to work on Secret Mark?

3. Many scholars avoid the text because of the debate over its authenticity. Secret Mark is not the only text in our discipline which suffers from this problem—Q comes to mind. Do you feel some trepidation in integrating the text into reconstructions of early Christian history?

4. What do you need to convince you that the text is authentic/inauthentic?

5. Is it difficult for scholars to admit defeat and embrace positions that are contrary to their own?

6. Part of the resistance to this text is due to its somewhat homoerotic features (Jesus "spends the night" with a young man). Is this homoeroticism intended by the author? If not, could the text get a fairer hearing among more conservative scholars if this interpretation was dispensed with?

I enjoyed hearing the responses from the panel and other questions from the audience. The published proceedings will feature a summary of this session.

And thus closes the first annual York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium. Despite some minor bumps along the way, I am quite pleased with what we accomplished and will build on these experiences in future years. Going into the symposium I hoped to see some consensus emerge on the strengths and weaknesses of the current arguments for the origins of Secret Mark. While there were no explicit statements made reflecting such consensus, it does seem that scholars are moving away from many of the arguments advanced by Stephen Carlson, are embracing the views of the handwriting experts that Smith did not (indeed, could not) have forged the text by his own hand, and perhaps are beginning to re-evaluate the apparent homoeroticism of the story of Jesus and the young man. Of course, caution is still recommended when using this text to reconstruct early Christian history and to establish the relationships between the gospels.

Stay tuned for more information on the proceedings and next year’s symposium.

As I said in my previous post, much of the contents of the symposium (i.e., the presentations and discussions) are a bit of blur to me. But I can, and wish to, make some comments about the papers and attempt some reflections on their contributions to the study of the text.

First, I should state that, going into the symposium, I had no firm view about Secret Mark’s authenticity. I was conversant with the scholarship but had not been forced to come to a decision on the issue. My only contribution to discussions of its origins prior to this event had been on my frustrations over conservative scholars’ rush to embrace the arguments advanced by Stephen Carlson (The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark, 2005). It seemed to me that they were motivated by a distaste for the text’s contents—perceiving something homoerotic in the relationship between Jesus and the “young man”—and this was interfering with their obligations as scholars to consider carefully the evidence. Now that the symposium has concluded, I am convinced Smith did not create the text; rather, he found it at Mar Saba exactly as he claimed. I do not yet know whether it is an authentic letter of Clement, an ancient forgery, or a medieval forgery. But scholars should move to determining which of these options is correct rather than continuing to spin their wheels attempting to prove it was forged by Smith.

The first of the papers was “Secret Mark: Moving on from Stalemate” by Charles Hedrick. Hedrick was charged with presenting an argument for the authenticity of the text. As part of his paper, Hedrick discusses the statement on the text issued by paleographer Agamemnon Tselikas and some reflections on an interview Hedrick conducted with Tselikas. What is striking about Tselikas’ comments is that they seem at variance with even the evidence he cites—i.e., the text was written in an 18th-century Greek hand, which could not be executed by Smith himself, yet Smith is identified as the forger, having brought the manuscript from another monastery during his travels in Greece as a secret agent working for the US and/or Britain (!). Hedrick also dismisses Stephen Carlson’s arguments as “less-than-circumstantial evidence”—indeed, very little of Carlson’s evidence, which has been effectively countered by Scott Brown, Allan Pantuck, and Roger Viklund, was discussed during the day, and it seems to have been abandoned even by those who argue against the text’s authenticity. In the end, Hedrick advocates “begin[ning] with the evidence on the table” and accepting the legitimacy of the manuscript. He also (rightly) defends Smith, stating “the standard of proof for convicting a distinguished colleague of forgery should be higher than what has been offered by the modern forgery theorists.”

Hedrick compares the debate over Secret Mark with that over the Donation of Constantine, an 8th-century text purporting to be composed in the 4th century. This text was proven a forgery due to “historical anachronisms, inconsistencies, and misunderstandings” not “imaginative ‘clues’ to support a forgery.” If, after fifty years, similar data cannot be advanced to prove Secret Mark’s inauthenticity, then perhaps it is time to move on. One noteworthy argument that Hedrick advances based on comparison with the Donation is that this text was shown to be a forgery in part because the language does not fit a 4th-century time-frame; Secret Mark, on the other hand, has been declared “too-Markan” or the Letter to Theodore “too-Clementine.” Ultimately, Hedrick concludes that Secret Mark should be considered an example of ancient imitation—i.e., its author was trying to expand Mark by imitating Markan style, similar to the endings of Mark that come after Mark 16:8 in some manuscripts. Mind you, he adds, these endings are not particularly “Markan” in style, so perhaps “Mark later emended his own text—just as Clement said!”

Hedrick’s paper was followed by a response from Bruce Chilton. Chilton did not respond specifically to Hedrick’s arguments but instead made some cautionary remarks about “provenience”—i.e., the necessity of establishing where and when a text is from before using it in a scholarly argument. He concludes that, “[claims about the text’s origins] amount to categorical assertions of provenience that are untested and far from proven. We can begin by finding out where the book in which the letter was written came from. Until we can do that, we are not dealing with evidence, or even with a stalemate about evidence. We are dealing with an unverified claim, which may remain so for as long as some of the other cases briefly indicated here.” I agree with Chilton that we have to be very careful about using unprovenanced evidence; the same argument has been made in archeology, most recently in connection to the artifacts associated with Oded Golan, the owner of the James ossuary. But with manuscripts, this may be asking too much. Both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, as well as numerous other manuscript finds, are “unprovenanced”—i.e., they came to scholars through middlemen, not from archeological sites. Even with manuscripts from monastery libraries, such as Secret Mark, we rely on the scholars who catalogued or acquired them to be truthful about their origins. Why can we not trust Morton Smith’s word? He found the manuscript, catalogued it, photographed it, and left it at the library for others to consult. There is nothing questionable or unusual about his actions.

The case for forgery was made by Criag Evans in his paper, “Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark: Exploring the Grounds for Doubt.” Essentially, Evans’ point is that he sees elements of Secret Mark—the “mystery of the kingdom of God” in Mark 4:11, secrecy and initiation, (sexual) union with a god, and Clement of Alexandria—present in Smith’s work prior to his discovery of the text. He thus makes a comparison between Smith’s Secret Mark and Paul Coleman-Norton’s “amusing agraphon”—a lost saying of Jesus that, apparently, was a joke told by Coleman-Norton before he discovered the saying. Of course, there are some marked differences between the two cases. Coleman-Norton claimed that he happened upon the saying in a book in a North African mosque; there is no manuscript evidence. Were it not for the Mar Saba library and the Greek Patriarchate in Jerusalem losing the manuscript, scholars would be able to consult it. There was no subterfuge on Smith’s part when it comes to the evidence. Evans also restates Francis Watson’s arguments about the suspicious commonalities between Smith’s discovery in Mar Saba and the discovery of the “Shred of Nicodemus” in the same monastery by the fictional archeologist in James Hunter’s The Mystery of Mar Saba, a novel published 18 years before Smith visited the monastery. Noting a few other mysteries about the text (e.g., what is the significance of it being copied into the back of the Voss book?), Evans concludes, “in my view the evidence that Smith possessed knowledge of distinctive elements of the Mar Saba find, prior to his finding it, is more than sufficient for viewing the find with grave suspicion.”

Evans seems to be the writer most troubled by Secret Mark’s supposed homoeroticism (though Jeffery, too, makes much of it). Evans, however, tends to misrepresent the text’s contents in this regard. He writes that in the gospel “Jesus teaches a naked young man” (but the youth is not naked) and later “Jesus in the nude instructs a young convert” (nor is Jesus nude). Such flustering over a “gay Jesus” is reminiscent of the controversy over Tinky-winky, the gay Teletubbie, and the unsavoury relationship between Spongebob and Patrick. These all seem to reflect the anxieties of the viewer/reader and have little basis in reality. Evans also notes along the way some other dubious arguments for forgery: the presence of mildew and mold spots on the manuscript (all we have are photographs; the nature of these “spots” cannot be determined), the forger’s tremor (which is not apparent in the better photographs), and Carlson’s report from a professional handwriting expert (which has been shown to have been edited to strengthen his position).

Allan Pantuck’s response to Evans passed over these issues to focus on his argument about themes from Secret Mark in Smith’s prior work and on the similarities between the discovery and Hunter’s novel. Pantuck effectively demonstrated the weaknesses of Evans’ main argument—Smith’s early work does not link forbidden sex to Mark 4:11, the mystery that Jesus teaches his disciples instead relates to his messiahship and eschatology (a fairly standard position in the academy), and nowhere do we see an example in Smith’s work where all four of Evans’ themes are present. As for the similarities with Hunter’s novel, these arise simply because Hunter’s protagonist and Smith were both manuscript hunters performing the same task in the same place. Indeed, these coincidences were dispelled by Pantuck before the symposium in an article for BAR (available HERE).

The discussion that followed Pantuck’s response illustrated a number of misconceptions that people have regarding manuscript studies. In his paper, Evans wondered why Smith would write his name in the book (he wrote “Smith 65”), but this is standard practice for cataloging manuscripts—i.e., placing an identifier in the manuscript linking it to the catalogue entry and also adding page numbers if necessary. Someone asked why Smith did not safeguard the book. Why did he simply put it back on the shelf of the monastery library and leave? But that is precisely what he should have done (it belonged to the library after all), and there is no reason for him to think it would not be safe there.

The final paper in the morning session came from Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. We invited Shanks to speak because of his magazine’s efforts to authenticate the Secret Mark manuscript. He commissioned two examinations of the text: one by Venetia Anastasopoulou, a Greek handwriting expert, and one by Agamemnon Tselikas, a Greek philologist. Anastasopolou concluded that the scribe of the manuscript was a native Greek writer, while Smith’s own Greek handwriting was like that of “a student learning how to write the language.” Her conclusions seem to be universally accepted; no-one at the symposium seems to claim now that Smith personally wrote the text. Even Tselikas agrees with this assessment, believing that Smith had someone from another monastery write it for him. Shanks provided everyone with a new summary of Tselikas’ report; his views are mentioned above in my overview of Hedrick’s paper, but contained in this summary is Tselikas’ charge that Smith forged the text “to prove how important he was, to become ‘known and significant.’” And here was the main argument of Shanks’ presentation, which was a spirited defense of Smith, the would-be “Bernie Madoff of the academy.” “To me,” Shanks writes, “it is just not believable that Morton Smith would forge this letter. He may have been crazy, but not that crazy. A joke that would ruin his entire life? But it is more than this. It is a matter of character. Is there any hint that Morton Smith was of a character that would allow him to do this horrendous thing? I think not.” To bolster his defense, Shanks quotes a letter sent to him by Jeffrey Tigay of the University of Pennsylvania, which summarizes Robert Kraft’s view that, “practically the only people accusing Morton of fraud are people who didn’t know him.” In the discussion following Shanks’ talk, it was mentioned that some scholars who knew Smith do think he forged the text and, though it may seem crazy to us for him to do so, stranger things have happened in other forgery cases.

By the end of the morning, the argument for forgery seemed to be convincing many of the audience members at the symposium. The coincidences that were unsettling Evans were unsettling others also. But the afternoon session included a paper that swung opinion toward authenticity, and convinced me once and for all that Smith did not, indeed could not, have forged the text.

Now that a week or so has gone by since the Secret Mark Symposium, I think I’m ready to gather my thoughts about the event. Admittedly, much of it is a blur as I had to focus so much on the mechanics of the symposium, that I found it difficult to concentrate on the presentations and discussions. But I will begin with some comments on the planning and execution of the event.

The process began over a year ago with a series of e-mail exchanges between me and scholars Peter Jeffery and Allan Pantuck. We worked together to determine who would be the best scholars to contribute papers to the event. We tried to achieve a balance of perspectives, with a morning session aimed at presenting arguments for and against Secret Mark’s authenticity, and an afternoon session with other perspectives on the text (e.g., where it fits in, or not, with the works of Clement of Alexandria). The plan also was to invite only North American scholars—both due to budgetary restraints and to my long-term goal to support North American CA scholarship—and, ideally, those who had published a monograph or substantial article on the text. We had some prospective participants decline our invitations, some simply because of scheduling conflicts, some for no stated reason. In the end, we were happy with the group we assembled, and pleased that they had faith in us to accept our invitations to participate. Nevertheless, people have noted particularly the glaring absence of Stephen Carlson from the event; rest assured, he was invited.

Throughout September to December my colleague Phil Harland and I worked on securing funding for the event. Government arts funding was not an option for us, as they do not fund conferences by first-time conveners; so, we were restricted to internal funding. We ended up obtaining around $9000 from various university departments and grants. By January we knew the conference was a go, but we would have to be careful in our spending.

We scheduled the symposium for a date between the end of exams and the start of Spring session, primarily so that the participants would be finished with classes and grading and not yet heading off to other conferences and for vacations. The only problem with that decision is that many of York’s restaurant facilities were either completely closed for the week or on reduced hours. That made it difficult for finding a venue for a small reception the night before the symposium, a dinner for the presenters the next day, and a location for a celebratory drink at the end of the event. We also failed to order enough coffee and snacks for the day. We dealt with the problems as best we could, and certainly have learned some lessons for next time. I hope these didn’t colour everyone’s perceptions of the event too much—is it like a wedding, where all anyone remembers is the music and the food?

Another wrinkle occurred in the scheduling of the day. The goal was to have a day-long event with two sessions of papers and a more-casual evening event at which a few participants could answer some prepared questions and field questions from a wider audience—i.e., not just scholars and students. Unfortunately, we did not attract a large number of “outsiders” to the evening discussion; and those who did attend had been with us all day (such troopers!). Who would have thought 12 hours of Secret Mark could be too much for some people?   We were extremely pleased with the turnout for the day sessions, but if we want to mount an evening session again, we will need to work further on promotion, and also spread the sessions out over more than one day—which was the plan if we secured more funding in future years.

The next stage in the planning of the symposium is to publish the papers. We are considering some options for this and will pass on word when we have firm plans. We need also to think about next year’s symposium and would like to hear what suggestions you may have for a topic and other feedback you may have to help us mount future symposia.

I have been holding off on writing my own assessment of the Secret Mark Symposium because I thought a participant's view would be more valuable. Calogero A. Miceli, a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University in Montreal, offered a report of the event at a forum a few days ago and graciously offered to pass along this summary for Apocryphicity.

On April 29^th, 2011 a symposium was held at York University (Toronto, Ontario) where scholars from across North America gathered to present their opinions and understandings of the Secret Gospel of Mark (as found in the Mar Saba Letter) and of Morton Smith. The event was organized by Tony Burke (York University) and Phil Harland (York University) and since I recently presented a report of the symposium at the following: GRECAT Université Laval-Concordia University 2^nd Annual Workshop on May 4^th, 2011 held at Laval University (Quebec City, Quebec), I was kindly asked by Tony Burke to offer my account of the symposium as a guest-post on his blog ‘Apocryphicity’. I was present for the entire day of the symposium and here I offer a short overview of what happened and what came out of the conference. I will focus very little on the particular presentations and arguments of the scholars present mainly because these will be able to speak for themselves upon the publication of the papers of the symposium in an upcoming monograph edited by Tony Burke and Phil Harland – which I look forward to! It is also important to note that in such short time several other accounts of the symposium have already made their way to the web, see the posts on X, Y and Zen and Synoptic Solutions. Though my report here is not as thorough as some of these, a collective reading of all of these accounts of the conference seems to me a very good and comprehensive overview of the entire symposium. 

The event featured scholars from across North America whom have published on Secret Mark as Burke and Harland tried very hard to find a balance of scholars to argue for the various positions concerning the apocryphal text, namely the two sides – those who agree with Morton’s Smith’s account and accept Secret Mark as it is & those who disagree with Morton Smith’s account and believe that Secret Mark is a forgery perpetrated by Smith himself. The following scholars were invited and asked to present: Scott Brown (Independent Scholar), Craig Evans (Acadia Divinity College), Charles Hedrick (Missouri State University), Peter Jeffery (University of Notre Dame), Marvin Meyer (Chapman University), Allan J. Pantuck (University of California), Pierluigi Piovanelli (University of Ottawa), and Hershel Shanks (Editor, Biblical Archaeology Review).

The symposium was opened with a few words by Tony Burke. In his introduction, Burke spoke of how the symposium came into fruition, most notably the 2008 SBL session on Secret Mark where many scholars (some of whom were again present at York University) discussed the Secret Gospel of Mark. A good report on the happenings of this 2008 SBL session can still be found in earlier blog posts by Tony Burke on ‘Apocryphicity’. In light of the debate in 2008, Burke got together with several others and organized this symposium specifically dealing with Secret Mark. He mentioned in the opening remarks that the hope was to have some sort of consensus amongst the scholars present.  

Most of the papers were handed out to the participants in advance of the conference which made it that much easier to follow a particular argument and it helped in bringing people into the world of Secret Mark in today’s debate. (Hedrick, Evans, Meyer, Piovanelli (in French), and Brown’s papers were sent to the participants prior to the event). The presentations all went very smoothly and I particularly enjoyed the responses of Chilton and Pantuck as this allowed for an interesting way for scholars to discuss their points and critique one other. However, as the response papers were given, it was clear to me that there could easily have been a response to the response. The back and forth may never have ended.

During the sessions, of particular interest was the ‘Report on Handwriting Analyses’ by Hershel Shanks. The first handwriting expert Venetia Anastasopoulou stated that Smith did not forge the document (as was revealed in an article on the BAR website) whereas the second handwriting expert, Agamemnon Tselikas concluded – as was revealed by Shanks at the symposium – that the letter is a forged document perhaps by Morton Smith. Therefore, the two handwriting experts commissioned by Shanks have both made public their opinions and these are of opposing opinions.

The conflicting positions of the two handwriting analyses mirror the conflict between scholars regarding Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark. Throughout the conference, both sides stuck to their arguments and did not let up. Some of the arguments were rehashings of the same old arguments for or against Secret Mark and not much was said in way of innovating evidence. The thing that often came up throughout the day was the notion that a new discovery may help to clarify things or that a new text might help to resolve this issue. The hope or need for a new discovery may be the only thing that might move the conversation forward; however, as of right now we do not have anything ‘new’. 

The scheduling was tight throughout the day (presenters were only given 15 minutes to speak and they easily went over time limit). Much of the planned discussions between papers were sacrificed in order to keep with the schedule. The best discussions, in my mind, came during the public forum at the end of the conference (though it was said to me that during the dinner where all of the presenters went to eat, that this was the best discussion that took place). During the public forum, many of the scholars seemed loosened up from the process of having to present their papers and instead engaged in a more open discussion of the text at hand and they took questions from Phil Harland who presided over the forum and then from the audience present. One of the questions asked, by me, was what the future of the study of Secret Mark might be and how scholars intend to move forward with the text at hand. This garnered different yet interesting responses from the panel. Craig Evans noted that scholars have a lot of other works and things to consider while restating his skepticism concerning Secret Mark; he noted that the warning flags are there and that he will move on and not use Secret Mark. Marvin Meyer’s response was that the decision to work on or abandon Secret Mark is a decision each individual must decide for themselves. Meyer noted that it is an interesting gospel and that whatever we can do to better understand it we should pursue it and that we should not forget about it entirely. Peter Jeffrey also offered some insights for future scholarship saying that scholars need robust discussions with Clement of Alexandria experts. Jeffrey also stated that there is as of yet no solid examination of Morton Smith’s study of magic and also that everyone could use a good and sympathetic biography of Morton Smith’s life that should be well documented. I must agree with Jeffrey that this would be a great addition to the discussion since a biography of Smith’s life would be extremely helpful in the discussion.

As for the issue of consensus, it was clear during and by the end of the conference that scholars all disagree and will continue to disagree baring some new ‘evidence’ which may or may never come. While some scholars will turn away from Secret Mark and instead focus their energies on texts which are less ‘problematic’ it is clear that there will still be others who will continue to argue for or against this controversial text. By the end of the symposium there was still no consensus concerning whether or not Smith perpetrated the forgery or not, there was no consensus about the handwriting of the document and whether or not this was Smith’s own hand, and there was no consensus on what the future of the document should be. In my opinion, it is clear that both sides agree on only one thing, and that is to disagree.  

I want to thank Tony Burke and Phil Harland for their hard work in organizing such an interesting and well planned symposium as well as give a thank you to all of the presenters for their interesting papers and insights. The symposium, which I hope to see continued in the future, was a great convergence for exploring the Secret Gospel of Mark and while it did not bring harmony to the discussion, in my mind, it has become clear that scholars do not and will not come to an agreement. This realization that scholars can only agree to disagree may be a step in the right direction and may help to shape the future of the study on Secret Mark.

The first York Christian Apocrypha Symposium (featuring the Secret Gospel of Mark) takes place in just a few days. Everything is in place for the event and we hope for it to go off without a hitch. We should have an audience of about 60 people, which is respectable for our first event in the series. I will blog fairly regularly (for a change) over the next few days to let everyone who could not attend know how it is going (or went). To whet your appetites for Friday's papers, visit Timo Paananen's Salainan evankelista blog for a discussion of the symposium and an update on recent on-line scholarship on the text.

Also, we have created a facebook page for the series (search for "York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series"). I hope you will "like" it.

The one-day Secret Mark conference Phil Harland and I are hosting at York University is only weeks away. For those interested, here is the preliminary programme.

The York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series Presents:

Ancient Gospel of Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate

Vanier College, April 29, 2011

9:00-9:15 Introductions: Tony Burke (York University) and Philip Harland (York University)

9:15-12:00 Session 1: The Authenticity Debate

Chair: Tony Burke, York University

The Case for Authenticity

9:15-9:30 “Secret Mark: Moving on from Stalemate,” Charles Hedrick (Missouri State University, Missouri)

This paper will briefly survey the status quo of scholarship on the Letter to Theodore and a Secret Gospel of Mark, and argue that, with the failure of the modern forgery theorists to make their case, research has no choice but to move on to a study the missing manuscript itself by means of the photographs.  The paper, working back from the 18th century, argues that the sudden appearance of a previously unknown 2/3rd century manuscript in 18th century handwriting is not unusual.  During the Renaissance, the classics of Greco-Roman tradition were recovered in versions much later than the time of their original composition—including texts previously unknown.  The Letter to Theodore is taken seriously as deriving from the 2/3rd century, while Ernest Best’s argument that the longer excerpt of Secret Mark is “too much like Mark” to be Mark is found to be unconvincing.  On the other hand, if the excerpts from a Longer Gospel of Mark in the Letter to Theodore are forgeries, they are likely to be early forgeries created in the context of Greco-Roman education, which stressed imitation as an important way of learning. 

9:30-9:45 Response: Bruce Chilton (Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York)

9:45-10:00 Discussion

The Case for Forgery

10:00-10:15 “Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark: Exploring the Grounds for Doubt,” Craig Evans (Acadia Divinity College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia)

Although at one time I accepted Morton Smith’s account of his 1958 discovery of a lost letter of Clement of Alexandria, in which a longer edition of the Gospel of Mark is discussed and quoted, I no longer do so. I have doubts primarily because of a number of coincidences. The most troubling are these: (1) In three publications prior to the claimed discovery at Mar Saba Smith discussed the very elements that came to light in the discovery; and (2) Smith’s visit to Mar Saba, including his description of his frame of mind during the visit, parallels that of a fictional archaeologist in James Hunter’s novel, The Mystery of Mar Saba, published in 1940. The parallels are so close, one suspects influence, even dependence. Because Hunter’s novel predates Smith’s “discovery” by some 18 years, one must wonder if the novel served as Smith’s inspiration. For purposes of comparison Paul Coleman-Norton’s “Amusing Agraphon,” which is almost certainly a hoax, will also be discussed.

10:15-10:30 Response: Allan J. Pantuck (University of California, Los Angeles)

10:30-10:45 Discussion

10:45-11:00 Break

11:00-11:15 Report on Handwriting Analyses, Hershel Shanks (Editor, Biblical Archaeology Review)

11:15-12:00 pm General Discussion

12:00-1:30 pm Lunch

1:30-5:00 Session 2: Contexts and Interpretations

Chair: Phil Harland (York University)

1:30-1:45 “The Young Streaker in Secret and Canonical Mark,” Marvin Meyer (Chapman University, California)

This paper, which assumes the authenticity of the Secret Gospel of Mark, focuses attention upon the several references to the youth, or neaniskos, in Secret and Canonical Mark. Such a youth, sometimes fleeing and often naked, is also to be found in other literary and artistic contexts. In the paper these literary and artistic presentations are surveyed, and their significance is assessed. The references to the youth in Markan literature are then studied, individually and in possible relation to one another, and conclusions are drawn about the neaniskos as a thematic literary element in Secret and Canonical Mark employed to further Mark's message of discipleship in the face of the cross.

1:45-2:00 Discussion

2:00-2:15 “Halfway Between Sabbatai Tzevi and Aleister Crowley: Morton Smith’s ‘Own Concept of What Jesus “Must” Have Been’ and, Once Again, the Question of Evidence,” Pierluigi Piovanelli (University of Ottawa)

The recently published correspondence between Morton Smith and Gershom Scholem (1945-1982) provides new clues and insight into Smith’s intellectual itinerary. Smith claimed that in 1958 at Mar Saba, he discovered a fragment of a lost letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria which contained two quotations taken from a Secret Gospel of Mark. In fact, it seems far more plausible that Smith created the document himself, not in order to ridicule his colleagues, but rather, with the intention of promoting a new approach to the study of the Historical Jesus and Early Christianity.

2:15-2:30 Discussion

2:30-2:45 “What did he know and when did he know it? Further Excavations from the Morton Smith Archives,”Allan J. Pantuck (University of California, Los Angeles)

The theory that Morton Smith forged the Letter to Theodore presupposes both that he possessed all the expertise needed to create it and that he composed it for a specific purpose and with an intended interpretation prior to “discovering” it in 1958. This theory is possible to test. While there is no doubt that Morton Smith was an extremely competent scholar, was proficient in reading various ancient languages, and was acquainted with Greek manuscripts, there is little evidence that Smith, prior to his discovery, possessed an intimate knowledge of the writings of Clement of Alexandria sufficient to compose a de novo, original composition in Patristic Greek that would successfully imitate Clement’s complex thought, vocabulary, and writing style. Further, it has been persuasively established that Smith lacked the paleographic skills to physically write the Letter’s natural, free flowing, native eighteenth-century cursive Greek hand. A global survey of archival Smith papers and correspondence suggests both that Smith lacked the necessary abilities and motives to produce a text such as the Letter to Theodore in the 1950s, and that during the five years between 1958 and the completion of the first draft of Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark in June 1963, he was in fact developing his understanding of the letter’s significance and doing the research that he presented in this book.

2:45-3:00 Discussion

3:00-3:15 Break

3:15-3:30 “Clement's Mysteries and Morton Smith's Magic,” Peter Jeffery (University of Notre Dame, Indiana)

The use by early Christian writers of vocabulary from the ancient mystery cults has been debated since the 17th century, but it is now possible to see that it represents a coalescence of idioms that were originally distinct. This is particularly clear in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, who describes the Christian sacraments, including the public reading of the scriptures, using glossaries from (1) Jewish apocalyptic, reapplied in the New Testament to the Incarnation of Jesus, (2) philosophical writing by Plato, and (3) typological, exegesis derived from Philo. The Mar Saba document, however, seems to follow the Clement of the Protrepticus, who was using mystery vocabulary literally in his disparaging descriptions of actual mystery cults. In this it seems to follow Morton Smith’s idiosyncratic understanding of “magic,” which made no distinctions among phenomena like shamanism, mysticism, divination, sacraments, miraculous healing, and so on—or among ancient Jewish, Greek, Egyptian, Near Eastern, Christian and Gnostic sources. For Smith, all forms of magic were the same, fraudulent attempts to induce paranormal experiences which, though they may be described in language of heavenly ascent, are fundamentally, or at least metaphorically, about (homo)sexual climax. Thus the writings of Smith provide the frame that makes sense out of the Mar Saba letter of “Clement,” just as the letter provides the frame that makes sense out of the “gospel excerpts.”

3:30-3:45 Discussion

3:45-4:00 “Behind the Seven Veils, I: The Gnostic Life Setting of the Mystic Gospel of Mark,” Scott Brown (Independent Scholar, Toronto)

An accurate understanding the life setting of the mystikon Gospel of Mark, as this is described in the Letter to Theodore, is vital to assessing the letter’s authenticity. Previous attempts to define this life setting have focused on the statement that this gospel was read “only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.” Are these persons candidates for baptism, as Morton Smith and most other scholars have reasoned? Or are they instead the most advanced students in Clement’s school (the “true gnostics”), as I have argued? The present paper expands on my previous studies by demonstrating, first, that the great mysteries in Clement’s undisputed writings are esoteric teachings pertaining to the noetic world, and second, that the letter confirms this meaning through its statement that the interpretation of the mystikon gospel “leads the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of the sevenfold veiled truth.” The decisive relevance of this metaphor has previously been overlooked: in Clement’s undisputed works, entering the innermost sanctuary connotes the mystical experience of perceiving the noetic world and rising incrementally through it (Strom. V.6.32.1–40.4; VI.8.68; Exc. 27.1–6). Initiation into the great mysteries and entry into the innermost sanctuary therefore describe the same thing—instruction in, and apprehension of, the unwritten gnostic tradition.

4:00-4:15 Discussion

4:15-5:00 General Discussion

7:00-9:00 pm Public Forum

Introductions: Tony Burke (York University)

Chair: Phil Harland (York University)

Panelists: Scott Brown (Independent Scholar, Toronto), Craig Evans (Acadia Divinity College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia), Peter Jeffery (University of Notre Dame, Indiana), Marvin Meyer (Chapman University)

Phil Harland (also of York University and an avid blogger himself) and I have been working over the past several months to plan a one-day conference on the Secret Gospel of Mark. This is intended in the first of a series of symposia on various apocryphal texts, though highlighting the work of North American scholars. All of the funding is in place so we can now make a formal announcement of the event. For information, see the page on my main site (HERE). Registration is very inexpensive (and free if you're a student) and the evening public debate is also free-of-charge. We hope to see a lot of people come out for the event so that we can continue the series for future years.