Peter Jeffery's Response to Scott Brown

In working through the email mountain, I have now reached mid-April, with thanks to Peter Jeffery for alerting me to his response to Scott Brown's review of his book, which has already been mentioned by a good number of bloggers over the last few weeks:

The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Reply to Scott G. Brown (PDF)

It is a very interesting read, though it does not include one of my favourite parts from the earlier draft which is still available on his website, the example of "extended double entendre" quoted from Alan Dundes and Carl Pagter's Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire, the supposed speech by a feminist to a woman's organization that is in fact not that.

The response is to a very lengthy review of Jeffery's book by Scott Brown that was published in the Review of Biblical Literature last September. At the time, I commented:

As someone who has written more extensive RBL reviews myself, I must say that I like the fact that this electronic journal is using its lack of print restrictions to do things like this, a good use of the flexibility electronic publication provides.

Having praised RBL on that occasion, I will offer my criticism on this occasion: I would have thought that the flexibility that electronic publication provides would make it an obvious option for them to have published Jeffery's response, especially as the original review was so lengthy. I can't think of a good reason for them to avoid publishing Jeffery's response, and there are some strongly worded comments to the same effect at the end of his piece.

Jeffery is charting reactions to his book on his website.