I am grateful to Stephen Goranson for this guest post, and I must apologise that it has taken me so long to post it. I get so busy during term time that I end up neglecting the blog.
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1915, May, 28: Robert Morton Smith born. Died July 11, 1991. His father was Rupert Morton Smith.
1936: His Harvard senior honors paper, "[John] Arbuthnot's Influence upon [Jonathan] Swift," showcases his lifelong appreciation of mordant humor.
1941: Mar Saba visit, including participation in the liturgy.
1944: A sketchbook depicting Mar Saba demonstrates his graphic artistic ability.
1945ff: In letters to Gershom Scholem (edited by Guy G. Stroumsa, 2008), Smith makes clear that, before 1958, he intensely studied both Mark and Clement of Alexandria.
1949: In Journal of Pastoral Care 3, "Psychiatric Practice and Christian Dogma," 12-20 (here 16-17), Smith wrote, "He must be told that homosexuality is a sin far worse than fornication, and that unwillingness to repent of it automatically debars the sinner from the sacraments." Though Smith nominally retained his Episcopal priest status, he had lost his faith, and mocked Christian faith, before and after 1958. Whether denial of tenure at Brown (1955) was a factor is speculative. (Harvard U president Nathan Pusey vetoed hiring Smith, despite having two PhDs, in 1963.)
1958: He said he found the text at Mar Saba -- or he brought the 1646 Voss ed. Ignatius letters book with him, pre-inscribed. It was missing the front cover and spine and title page, where ownership marks usually appear. There is no record of that book being at Mar Saba before 1958.
1958: He showed Scholem the text and presented it as a parallel to Sabbatai Sevi's antinomianism. Scholem was not persuaded.
1958: In neat handwriting, neater than his book annotation marginal notes, Smith copied it as "Manuscript Material from the Monastery of Mar Saba, discovered, transcribed and translated by Morton Smith, copyright 1958, All rights Reserved, Manufactured in the United States."
1958-1959?: He showed Arthur Darby Nock the text, who, on sight reading, declared it not by Clement, but an imitation.
1960 December: SBL conference presentation. New York Times was invited, and reported, twice, Dec. 30 & 31, the second time with doubts by Pierson Parker.
1960: Nea Sion 52, 110-125, 245-256. Greek translation of St. Saba catalog. Not fully forthcoming about the text, number 65.
1973: Published The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (Harper & Row). It is curious in tone, suggesting memory may be unreliable.
1973: Published Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Harvard UP). In Score, 1982, 456, he called it "a dreadfully complex book." Dedicated to Arthur Darby Nock, perhaps the first person who told Smith the Letter was not by Clement!
1975: Quentin Quesnell, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37, 48-67, "The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence," and following exchange in CBQ, 1976. Noted that Tübingen Prof. Johann Christoph Pfaff in 1715 wrote a 647 page defense of his Irenaeus forgeries, showing that such a case is not unprecedented.
1979: Published Jesus the Magician (Harper & Row), with scant scant mention of Secret Mark, so the book's arguments could stand on their own without any link. A review and exchange with Frank Kermode in New York Review of Books followed.
1982: HTR 75, 449-61, "Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade." "Score" sounds like a sporting term. Contra Murgia, Musurillo, Munck and others.
c.1984f: Jewish Theological Seminary archive has another defense of the Letter, typed, corrected and, marked up for publishing but unpublished: "The Letter of Clement and Secret Mark: Evidence and Arguments."
1985: Eric Osborn, "Clement of Alexandria: A Review of Research, 1958-1982," Second Century 3, 219-244. Argues that Clement would not have written the letter.
1985: Postscript to the British republication of the Harper 1973 ed. of Secret Mark, Wellingborough: Aquarius, pages 149-54. Mentions a favorable review by Hugh Trevor-Roper in the Sunday Times (London), June 30, 1974; Trevor-Roper was later (in April, 1983) fooled by the Hitler Diaries fraud.
1991, July 13: Obituary by Glenn Fowler, New York Times, section 1, p. 9.
1991, Oct.: Obituary by Levon Avdoyan pages 4-5 in https://associationofancienthistorians. ... _2Fall.pdf
1992: Obituary by William M. Calder III, Gnomon 64, 383-384.
2000: Charles W. Hedrick, with Nicolaos Olympiou, "Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses," The Fourth R., vol. 13, no. 5 (2000), 3-16.
2005: Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark (Baylor UP), makes a quite strong case for Smith having the means, motive, and opportunity. Before the Mar Saba sketchbook became available, underestimates the artistic copying ability of Smith. A self-identification as "Madiotēs" is doubtful according to Allan Pantuck and Scott Brown.
2005: Scott G. Brown, Mark's Other Gospel (Wilfrid Laurier UP). A defense of ancientness.
2007: Peter Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery. Strong on matters of misleading humor and history of liturgy. Recommended by the editor of the Hermeneia Commentary on Mark, Adela Yarbro Collins: "Peter Jeffery's book proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Morton Smith forged the discovered text."
2009, October: Biblical Archaeology Review. Agamemnon Tselikas, expert historical paleographer, presents the handwriting as an attempt to copy 18th-century handwriting in the 20th century: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dai ... is-report/
2010: Albert I. Baumgarten, Columbia PhD under Smith, 1972, in Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews, has a section on Smith, 205-210. On 209 he quotes Columbia colleague, Theodor Gaster, "Morton Smith is like a little boy whose goal in life is to write curse words all over the altar in church, and then get caught."
2013: Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate: Proceedings from the 2011 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium. Edited by Tony Burke (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books).
2022: Jonathan Klawans, "Nastiness, Nonsense, Antinomianism, and Abuse: Morton Smith versus Morton Smith on Jesus, Secret Mark, and the Letter to Theodore," Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting 9 (2022): 43-71; http://www.jjmjs.org/issues.html.
2023: Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau, The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over its Authenticity (Yale UP). Makes a good case that the Letter to Theodore was not by Clement of Alexandria, but by someone later than Eusebius. But it dismisses with disdain the possibility of Morton Smith, rather than engaging the possibility; used the dismissive word "breadcrumbs" thirty times.
2024 April: The Atlantic, Ariel Sabar on a case more skilled than Gospel of Jesus' Wife, "The 'Secret' Gospel and a Scandalous New Episode in the Life of Jesus." Well researched and well written.
2024: Roy D. Kotansky. "Back to the Garden (of Gethsemane). Restoring the Text and Meaning of Secret Mark." Early Christianity 15.4, 478-513. One of the examples of the argument that Smith found a genuine text, but that he misunderstood it.
2025: Clare K. Rothschild, "Secret Mark in the Circle of Dutch Humanists." Journal of Religion [Chicago] 105/2, 176-201.
This is a selective, incomplete list. For additional bibliography, see, especially:
Shaye J. D. Cohen ed., "Writings of Morton Smith, including PhD dissertations as main advisor, and In Memoriam Morton Smith," pages 257-285 in vol. 2, 1996, of The Cult of Yahweh (Brill).
and
Michael J. Kok, Secret Gospel of Mark bibliography, https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christ ... l-of-mark/
and
Jewish Theological Seminary Archive, Morton Smith Papers, https://archives.jtsa.edu/repositories/2/resources/118
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25 comments:
This timeline, given what I have read elsewhere, seems very selective and aimed at conveying a particular impression of the text and of Smith. It may be correct, but a great deal of what I have read on this topic suggests a different scenario. With only vague references and assertions about Smith's personal life and motives that are not supported by specific evidence, I find this disappointing.
In 2013, Craig Evans presented a paper entitled "Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark: Exploring the Grounds for Doubt." On pp 8-16, Evans finds five unique aspects about the perspective of Secret Gospel of Mark that are also found in three of Smith's publications *prior* to the alleged discovery of the Mar Saba letter in 1958. If true, that would seem to be conclusive evidence that Smith's Mar Saba letter was a hoax. But I'm not well acquainted with all aspects of this debate to know if there were counter-responses to Evans' claims by the non-hoax side.
The 2013 paper I referenced is chap 4 in the 2013 collection of essays by Tony Burke... with response by Scott Brown and Alan Pantuck in chap 5.
If the 'letter" was not written by Clement of Alexandria (a self-identified gnostic), and Orthodox monks tend not to write extra gospels, and the handwriting is a twentieth-century imitation of an older writing, then who did?
According to Albert Baumgarten (2010, page 206), "The key to understanding Smith's life, as well as his work as a scholar, concerns his loss of faith."
In 1958 Smith went to Mar Saba, though he knew most manuscripts had been moved to Jerusalem.
Smith then showed his mentor Gershom Scholem a text he claimed paralleled Jesus with antinomian Sabbatai Sevi.
Scholem was not persuaded. In “Der Nihilismus als religiöses Phänomen,” in
Norms in a Changing World [=Eranos-Jahrbuch 43 (1974)], (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 1–50, esp. 12–13. Scholem wrote, on page 13, of Smith's proposal:
"...nicht überzeugend scheint."
The question that I would ask (as others have) in response to Evans is whether the text does indeed "just happen to" confirm things that Morton Smith proposed previously, or whether what Evans is referring to is better explained in terms of what often happens, namely that scholars who work in a particular area make finds in those areas and interpret their finds in light of the views they have already developed.
If I find a previously unknown Mandaean text, the fact that I already work in this area wouldn't be a cause for suspicion, it would be the reason why I made the find. I'm on the lookout for such things, and if someone else knew of something, they'd draw it to my attention. I'd likely interpret the new text in a manner that is congruent with conclusions I've already drawn. That wouldn't make the find suspicious, but other scholars should definitely evaluate whether I've read my own views into the text, or whether the new text confirms my views because my views were shaped by the other relevant texts we have.
See Tony Burke's post on the conference where Evans presented his paper: https://www.apocryphicity.ca/2011/05/10/reflections-on-the-secret-mark-symposium-part-2/
Let me add that I am not an adamant defender of the authenticity of the text. I merely think that too often people interested in this topic are impressed by the arguments made by Carlson, Evans, and others yet fail to read the challenges to them by other scholars.
To be clear, James, though not all are listed here, I have read challenges. And consulted archived documents, and had email exchanges with several others, including Dr. Allan J. Pantuck, so, though you are free to disagree, presumed lack of reading would be a weak basis.
Indeed. As you can see, I was responding to Jeff Cate and his reference to Evans.
It's nice to see the comments, especially as my blog has been dormant for a while, so thanks to Stephen and everyone else! I added one or two things, with Stephen's go-ahead, to this timeline, having mentioned that I thought it skewed in the direction of non-authenticity. If anyone has suggestions of what to add, by all means put them in the comments here. Of course the bibliography cited by Stephen is already pretty comprehensive, but the interesting thing about a timeline like this is that it can draw attention to particular things of interest.
Some of you may remember that Stephen put together a similar timeline for the Gospel of Jesus's Wife, and he revised it multiple times. And of course, that was a more straightforward timeline to compose, from 2012 to the recent past, compared with Secret Mark, which spans 1958 to the present.
When Smith interrupted an SBL speech by Jacob Neusner by handing out photocopies of Saul Lieberman's JAOS review of Neusner's attempt at translating a Jerusalem Talmud tractate, Smith showed he was not too shy to be provocative.
Smith threatened lawsuits (of Per Beskow and WD Davies) and received such threats, according to the obit by Calder.
Shaye JD Cohen wrote (1996 2.285) "Smith never tired of discomfiting the faithful."
Albert Baumgarten (2010 208-209) reported that Smith considered writing a handbook to be called Religions, Their Causes and Cures. "Throughout, Smith enjoyed confounding people of faith...."
I met Smith. He kindly penciled comments via snail mail on two of my draft papers. On one with my proposed etymology of "Essenes" from a Hebrew self-designation, 'osey hatorah, observers of torah, he wrote that it was "less absurd than many proposals." Coming from him, I took that as a compliment.
Thank you for the timeline. I have been following this for about 15 years. Mostly as an interested observer and when I subscribed to BAR, where it would come up occasionally.
Strange Goranson gives such prominence to Smith's comments about homosexuality. Fortunately, in a world full of liberal professors, we can beq uite certain that the literally unbelievable attacks Smith aren't motivated by prejudice against homosexuality, can't we?
Sex is not primary in this timeline. What Smith in 1958 thought would "discomfit" is.
In other words, whatever Smith's orientation or experience, this timeline highlights his change from a hyper-orthodox priest to a "cultured despiser" (borrowing from a translation of Schliermacher) of Christianity.
AFAIK, there is no evidence that Smith presented the text to Scholem as a parallel to Sabbatai Sevi's antinomianism in 1958.
As already mentioned, there are additional sources. Also, Smith wrote to Scholem that he intended to study paleography. A correction: Smith did not have "two PhDs, " but one PhD and one ThD.
A shared comment might be noted. A grad student, years ago, signed up for a Columbia U readings course with Smith on a Greek author, a one-on-one tutorial, but dropped it because Smith "scared the shit out of me."
What scared him?
Hi, James. I reported what I was informed. If there are further specifics, and if I have permission, then later.
Further on the 1958 entry that begins "In neat handwriting...." let me observe two things.
First, the handwriting there is remarkably quite different from his usual note-taking, marginal comment, Greek style. It is a contrasting and careful document presentation. It demonstrates that he could write in a quite different manner than his usual practice. Two varieties of Greek. Why not a third? This document is kept at the JTS archive. It really should be used in any handwriting analysis.
Second, that Smith chose to describe this text as "Manufactured in the United States" is curious and could be interpreted as an accurate statement of where the text was composed. If so, consonant with his type of humor.
This comment is from Allan Pantuck via email:
"HI Stephen,
thanks for sending me the link to your timeline. I agree with you that it might be a bit biased.
Where to begin? I've got time for one quick one:
Regarding your item from 1958:
• 1958: In neat handwriting, neater than his book annotation marginal notes, Smith copied it as "Manuscript Material from the Monastery of Mar Saba, discovered, transcribed and translated by Morton Smith, copyright 1958, All rights Reserved, Manufactured in the United States."
I think it is pretty plain and clear that Smith is here claiming protection of the intellectual property he generated in transcribing and translating manuscript material that he discovered "from the Monastery of Mar Saba."
He is not seeking protection for the original Greek composition. He is protecting his transcription and translation of the material he discovered.
He discovered manuscript material at the Monastery of Mar Saba. He transcribed it. He translated it. He sought copyright protection for that work.
Smith submitted this handwritten document to the US copyright office in 1958, a few months after he returned to NYC from Mar Saba, and the copyright was granted to him the same year if I recall correctly .
Moreover, the "All rights reserved" is a traditional copyright claim indicating that the creator reserves all legal rights to their creative work, and preventing others from copying, distributing, or adapting it without permission.
Why did Smith do this? Why did he say that he did it?
Isn't this exactly what Smith had claimed he was doing? According to what he wrote, he sought immediate copyright protection for the transcription and translation of his discovery since he planned to share its contents with other scholars in requesting their opinion on its authenticity and its dating, and he wanted to protect it from unwanted distribution or premature publication by others.
Note, a copyright notice indicates the year the item was first published and establishes the date from which time the intellectual property is protected. It does not indicate when that specific physical copy of the product (the actual written copy of his transcription and translation) was produced, which is indicated by the date of manufacture.
I tried to add this as a comment to your blog, but didn't seem to get added. Feel free to do so."
Yes, Allan Pantuck, copyright by itself, without context, is not odd, but "Manufactured in the United States" is/was applied to cars, widgets, physical stuff, not transcriptions and translations. Funny? And the Greek ductus was different than his usual.
Anthony Grafton, The Nation, Jan. 8, 2009: "Smith was the kind of critic who makes grown scholars tear off their own heads for fear of reading his reviews."
Compare the "gospel of Jesus' wife." Few hesitate to say that Walter Fritz of Florida was involved, but say the like in this case of Smith, and get some how-dare-you reactions.
Thank you for compiling this timeline, Stephen. I would add also Timo Paananen's 2019 thesis as a worthwhile read (“A Study in Authenticity : Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries—A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, and the Longer Gospel of Mark.” PhD Thesis. University of Helsinki). Some comments I made about the thesis at Timo's defence:
Timo has immersed himself in the study of literary hoaxes—a particular kind of hoax called a mystification—in an effort to construct strict criteria for determining whether or not a text is authentic—or better, in Timo’s words, whether or not a text is indistinguishable from an authentic document: if it is not, then there is no reason to make the argument. He addresses one of the less quantifiable aspects of the forgery argument—concealed indicators of authority—but one that many people find convincing. These are intuitive arguments—such as similarities between Smith’s discovery of the manuscript in the Mar Saba monastery and the plot of James Hogg Hunter’s 1940 novel The Mystery of Mar Saba. At first glance, the parallels are undeniable, but Timo demonstrates that they are illusory. This example illustrates that if left unchecked, the evidence for hoax multiplies: everything can be considered an indicator of authorship. Timo wants to introduce control. To some extent, his threefold schema reads as much like a “how-to” for creating a hoax as a way to determine whether a text is likely to be a hoax. What it asks for though, is scholarly rigour, something which Timo’s work (the articles and the thesis) display in great measure. This is evident when, confronted with vague statements like one work is “strikingly similar” to another or two works show “amazing” correspondence, Timo asks what do these comparators mean? Similarly, his discussions of deliberate clues and the volume of clues as measures of authenticity illustrate the faultiness of some of the more common theories of forgery for Secret Mark. And he is right to call for scholars to be consistent in their examination of literary parallels—if the same phenomena elicit no concern in one context, then they should elicit no concern in other contexts.
Thank you, Tony, for the addition and the comment. Given that we (or I) don't even know whether Smith read that 1940 James H. Hunter novel, notice that I did not include it on the timeline.
In addition to the copy of ""Manuscript Material from the Monastery of Mar Saba, discovered, transcribed and translated by Morton Smith" now in the JTS archive, another copy is listed in WorldCat in Harvard University. Another copy, I was informed, may have been sent by Smith to the Allen bookshop in Philadelphia, presumably that of William H. Allen and his son George.
As far as I know, it is not probable that the Letter was written by Clement, nor by an Orthodox monk, nor in the eighteenth century.
Several who knew him attest that Smith had the ability.
The acceptance as ancient by Helmut Koester was refuted by his own student, the late Birger Pearson--not a move taken lightly:
Pearson, Birger A. “The Secret Gospel of Mark: A 20th Century Forgery.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 4 (2008). Article 6. Pages 1–14. Online: http://www.religjournal.com
One could cite C. Murgia doubting Smith knew Greek well enough:
Murgia, Charles E. “Secret Mark: Real or Fake?” Pages 35–40 in Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition? Protocol of the Eighteenth Colloquy: 7 December 1975. Edited by Wilhelm H. Wuellner. Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1976.
But is it rare for a classicist to doubt the Greek skill of one who studies history of Judaism and history of Christianity?
Would Smith have been assigned Isidore of Pelusium were his Greek deficient?
Be that as it may, who besides Smith might possibly be more probable?
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