Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

From the specific comments on particular passages made by named scholars quoted in CA and a SGM it seems clear that Morton Smith did show the whole text of the Mar Saba letter to other scholars for comment as part of his preparation for writing his book on Secret Mark. Morton Smith made a formal pub...

This thread has caused me to reread Tselikas' report. Everything that follows is IMVHO. The report does seem to establish that although the handwriting is in one sense an 18th century Greek cursive, the scribe is not writing cursive because this is how they learnt to write rapidly and legibly. Inste...

Why would either reading greatly change the overall facts? In other words, has the significance been, somewhere, exaggerated? I don't know where Peter was going with the plural reading, but it *could* be taken as referring to the Carpocratian love feast described by Clement in Stromateis 3.2.9: The...

SaosSidirountios, you declared that much of the widely-accepted text of Clement is, in fact, not by Clement. Without an example, your claim can not be assessed. Dear Stephen, what I am trying to say is that there is a massive corpus of works which suppose to have been written by Clement, but not en...

I agree that 'Clement' does not expressly claim that the text of the Carpocratian version of Secret Mark was explicitly sexual. However it seems clear that that is how the Carpocratians are represented as interpreting it.

Andrew Criddle

Could you translate the full sentence and then explain it? Τὸ δὲ γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ καὶ τἆλλα περὶ ὧν ἔγραψας οὐκ εὑρίσκεται. I would understand it as: 'But the naked men with naked man and the other things about which you wrote are not found.' I take the two words γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ to be what Theodore wrote ...

I'm not entirely sure why γυμνοί is being taken to imply a heterosexual reference, it is a masculine plural, γυμναί would be the feminine plural. Obviously it might have a heterosexual reference but not necessarily.

Andrew Criddle

The letter most resembles a private correspondence of Clement. If it's a forgery it was surely written by someone who consulted the statements about the Carpocratians in Clement's surviving writings. In either case Clement speaks or implies Carpocratians gathered γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ not naked man with nak...

I made a blog post on this hippolytus-on-marcion-and-mark I'm not sure if it's right but it may be of interest.

Andrew Criddle

Contra Celsum Celsus, in adopting the character of a Jew, could not discover any objections to be urged against the Gospel which might not be retorted on him as liable to be brought also against the law and the prophets. For he censures Jesus in such words as the following: He makes use of threats,...