Agamemnon Tselikas’ Handwriting Analysis Report Did Morton Smith Forge "Secret Mark"?

[Secret Alias]

Even when Sabar couldn't demonstrate Morton Smith ever had one homosexual lover, ever engaged in one homosexual act, we hold on to this faith, the faith of Morton Smith's "dangerous" homosexuality. Even when it is plain that Morton Smith never gave up the priesthood - he lost his faith. It's like the facts get in the way. Time and time again. So you guys just ignore them.

Morton Smith was a homosexual without any evidence of him being a homosexual.
Morton Smith lost his faith without any evidence of him having lost his faith.
Morton Smith forged the document because it says that Jesus is a homosexual when the document doesn't say Jesus was a homosexual.

In order to make it say that Jesus was a homosexual you literally have to:

(a) choose the less likely reading of "naked man and naked man"
(b) interpret those words as a reference to homosexuality when other possibilities exist

Tselikas argues on behalf of the document being fake on the basis of another set of observations. Some of those have been debunked but others have not. I am just saying, the idea that Morton Smith was an angry gay man who took revenge on Christianity because of some personal vendetta is not a good argument. It ignores for instance that he had a girlfriend at the time he was at Mar Saba alongside the text not mentioning homosexuality.

[Secret Alias]

If we trust the published (by BAR) words of Agamemnon Tselikas, rather than hearsay, he stated that the writing in the 1646 Voss book was a modern imitation of older writing, probably done by Morton Smith or an accomplice of Smith, and Smith brought the Voss book (presumably already inscribed) to Mar Saba.

What's trust have to do with it? Tselikas is sophisticated expert who makes many arguments some of which have disproved. Some have not been disproved. I am merely saying the Duke conspiracy theory is dead. We can move on to other arguments and discuss those. The idea that the text is a forgery because Morton Smith was an angry homosexual at the time of the discovery is patently false and unlikely to be productive. Anything else is worth discussing.

[Secret Alias]

And I think it is worth saying that many or most Jews like myself (I don't know young people today) grew up thinking Jesus was a homosexual and a bastard (sodomized by Judas, the offspring of Pandera). It's not beyond the realm of possibilities that as Celsus witnessed knowledge of one part of that Jewish heritage about Jesus that the gay thing was also developed in antiquity. Evangelicals make it like "it's impossible that people in antiquity thought Jesus was gay." If we think that Morton Smith was gay because he wasn't married ...

[Secret Alias]

Tselikas is a REALLY interesting guy. Really smart. Really erudite. Speaks fluent Italian as well as Greek. He likes food and life. I like him. I like Andrew. I am starting to like Goranson. People are people. Arguments are arguments. But do I think that Tselikas is the greatest expert on handwriting from this period. Yes. Do I think he could make a mistake in his transcriptions. I am sure of it. But probability is probability. He's more likely to be right over the course of many transcriptions than a novice.

[Ken Olson]

Even when Sabar couldn't demonstrate Morton Smith ever had one homosexual lover, ever engaged in one homosexual act, we hold on to this faith, the faith of Morton Smith's "dangerous" homosexuality. Even when it is plain that Morton Smith never gave up the priesthood - he lost his faith. It's like the facts get in the way. Time and time again. So you guys just ignore them.

I have said that I found the claims that Morton Smith was homosexual to be without foundation. (I will, of course, be prepared to change my mind if new evidence of it comes up). I corrected you when you stated my position on that incorrectly on that. But correcting you doesn't do any good. You are much too taken with the stuff you make up in your head to take notice of what is true in the world outside it.

I must convince in the same way as I see you and others obsessing about Morton Smith's homosexual forging effort,

I am not the one obsessed with the theory that Morton Smith was a homosexual or a forger. That's you.

In the Quesnell thread I said I found the claims that Morton Smith was homosexual to be without foundation. I have not said that I thought Morton Smith forged The Letter To Theodore in either this thread or the Quesnell thread. I don't believe I've ever said it on this forum. Go back and look.

I'm not saying I have concluded he was completely uninvolved either. I don't know if he was involved, or duped, or even if maybe The Letter to Theodore is ancient. What I've said was I think I have good reason to be suspicious of the text's self-representation and that is what I've been discussing.

The person who keeps bringing up the theory that Morton Smith was a homosexual forger is you.

[Snip]

Take out the word "too" there. You have a lot of prejudices, including the one that anyone who presents an argument that there is good reason to believe that the The Letter To Theodore is a forgery, and perhaps more likely than not a modern one, is saying Morton Smith was a homosexual forger. You are too narrow minded to consider other possibilities. You invent motives for other people and then you deal with those instead of the arguments they have actually made.

[Snip]

One additional point - I am not making the assumption that people who talk about homosexuality are homosexual. Jeremy Bentham was a utilitarian philosopher who was very concerned about the issue of crime, punishment, and the treatment of prisoners. He wrote about Jesus being gay because he wanted to abolish or lessen the punishment for sodomy. Thomas Jefferson also wanted to lessen the punishment for sodomy. Bentham was sort of a loner and Jefferson had a wife and a slave mistress. I suppose it's not impossible they had gay sex - I don't know and I don't think it matters.

[Secret Alias]

I was obviously referring to myself as the one obsessed with the letter in that mock dialogue.

[Secret Alias]

My last preserved correspondence with Tselikas was January 17, 2024 (I think he was getting sick of me TBH).

Hi Stephan,
Am relaying to Memos; expect to hear from him.
Best,
Harry

There was another one after that. Where he said basically "of course" to my observations regarding the file we had been looking over. 8 correspondences in January. 8 in November 2023. 7 in October 2023 and so one. This discussion is what led to my change of mind. Some of the documents we produced of all the iotas and sigmas like this:



It was a long process. But I gave in. I feel lucky to have access to his expertise. Maybe some could argue that I am a little guilty of exaggerating the expertise "my" Greek paleographer. But in this case I don't think so. He really is a towering figure in the field. I have demonstrated to him places he made mistakes in his transcription and he still talks to me. It took me 3 months to come around to his way of thinking.

[Ken Olson]

I wonder if Stephan Huller remembers these posts from the Jesus Naked in the Gospel Thread. It probably doesn't matter to him. He constantly alleges dishonesty in other people, but when his own lack of even-handedness or dishonesty is pointed out, that is and ad hominem or making it about him.

In this case Stephan and I were discussing whether poor people or beggars or Jesus wore more than one layer of clothing in Antiquity. Stephen contended that they had only one layer of clothing. I concede that might have been the case in some cases, but poor people did often wear both an overtunic and and undergarment (I'll skip the Greek here). The point is that Stephan quoted Joan Taylor, What did Jesus Look Like? (2018) in support of his position:

There seems to be only one layer of clothing on these people. In Joan Taylor's study -

it is also said that Jesus puts aside his himatia before he washes the feet of his disciples and wraps a lention around himself (John 13:4, 12). The word lention is a little-attested Greek word rendering Latin linteum, which is specifically a linen cloth, of no fixed size. Was Jesus only clad in this, which he also uses as a towel, or did he still have his tunic on? Afterwards, it is said he takes his himatia and reclines at the table again. The ambiguity allows for us to imagine a completely naked Jesus with a linen cloth wrapped around his waist, using his only clothing to wash his disciples' feet, but also a at the table again. The ambiguity allows for us to imagine a completely naked Jesus with a linen cloth wrapped around his waist, using his only clothing to wash his disciples' feet, but also a Jesus more decently clad with a linen cloth wrapped around him instead of two mantles, keeping his tunic on ... seen, in the other Gospels when Jesus asks the Twelve to go out in his stead around Galilee, he specifically stated, ‘Don’t put on two tunics’ (Mark 6:8; Matt. 9:10; Luke 9:3). This would imply that they would want to do so, but in this case they should not, as his representatives. In other words, Jesus did not wear a second tunic, but only one. It may or may not have had clavi. Therefore, it is likely that the four soldiers were indeed prepared to cut two woollen mantles equally (despite their loss of value), but not to tear the tunic. If this Gospel also imagines a tallith, it would be thought the soldiers also received a cut off tsitsith each. But Jesus’ tunic itself was really already the kind of garment worn as an undergarment by (elite) adults in Egyptian mummy portraits, evidenced as children’s clothes in Khirbet Qazone, and probably only worth something whole. The memory of Jesus looking dishonourable or shameful would then cohere with his clothing, quite specifically. This is not at all to say Jesus went around in what we would consider as underwear (our concepts do not map onto ancient ones), but that the Gospel of John presents Jesus as wearing very simple, basic clothing that readers would have recognized as being usually covered up with something better. It should be remembered that some philosophers would wear nothing under their himation. Jesus eschews nakedness while embracing the same ideals. There was another type of fine (often linen) mantle/wrap that could be worn, called a sindo¯n (Mark 14:51–52).73 Jesus himself is said to have been wrapped in such a cloth in death (Mark 15:46; Matt. 27:59; Luke 23:53), but not in life. In short, the clues we have concerning Jesus in the Gospel of John show him to have worn clothing that would not have been esteemed: a one-piece, undyed woollen tunic that some others might wear underneath their better tunics made of two pieces. In the ancient world it was simply expected that people would adopt behaviours that led to honour and eschew behaviours that led to shame, unless they were certain philosophers. To maintain a certain decent standard of dress led to honour not only for you but your family; the greater the magnificence of your dress, the more honour you and your family obtained.74 Wearing the right clothing at the right time was honourable, and transgressing the dress code was shameful, even if you were an emperor.75 Wearing the kind of clothing associated with a child, or an undergarment of the wealthy, was to show oneself as absolutely careless about social status.

I have highlighted the point where Stephan used ellipsis marks to remove the part where Taylor says she think it more probable that Jesus kept his tunic. Hence she favors the idea that Jesus had (at least) two layers of clothing and kept one one. Stephan suppressed the part of the passage where sTaylor expressed the opinion that contradicted his opinion and presented the manipulated quotation under the heading: There seems to be only one layer of clothing on these people. In Joan Taylor's study.

Joan Taylor - What Did Jesus Look Like_ (2018) p. 188.jpg .jpg (195.92 KiB) Viewed 206 times

He did the same thing again slightly later:

Wendy Cotter, CSJ, PhD - Loyola University Chicago The Christ of the Miracle Stories: Portrait Through Encounter - Page 70

Beggars' clothes are described, conventionally, as filthy rags and disgusting.61 The imagination of the listeners would supply the image of a man presenting himself to Jesus γυμνός, in nothing

Sounds like another crazy.

Wendy Cotter - Christ of the Miracle Stories - GYMNOJ - p. 71.jpg (183.42 KiB) Viewed 206 times

Stephan cut off the rest of Cotter's sentence to make it sound like she was agreeing with his position, when in fact she was contradicting it.

Stephan intentionally manipulated what scholars had said to make it seem like they agreed with him when they did not. Stephan's representations of scholarly opinion are unreliable.

[Secret Alias]

I have investigated. I have theorized. I have postulated. That's what science is about. I have said Tertullian had Marcion's gospel in his hand from 1990 to about 2008 and then I started changing my mind. I have written things that were pro-mythicist and pro-historicity. I am always swayable by the evidence or new lines of reasoning.

What's this fucking obsession with past opinions? I am saying you should adjust your personal evaluation of the value of Morton Smith having repressed homosexuality as the motive behind his falsification of the document. You won't for some fucking bizarre reasoning. And you know it is making you look bad so you are just trying to demonstrate "inconsistency" on my part. To be honest I wish there were a little more inconsistency on your part. You can be wrong. This idea that you are never wrong or anything you've said in the past HAS TO BE right is ridiculous. You can be right. You can be wrong. Not every thought that comes out of your head is always right. In this case, you oversimplified the situation with respect to the Duke University conspiracy.

It's not good enough to simply postulate "Morton Smith was gay" and "the letter to Theodore references Jesus as gay" like there is a straight line from the one to the other.

There are many, many other possibilities. But as it is not certain that Morton Smith was a homosexual after a 4 year muckraking operation by Ariel Sabar, a muckraking operation where he was certainly ACTIVELY LOOKING for evidence Morton Smith was a homosexual and given the fact that Tselikas has provided a more authoritative rendering of "nakeds with naked" i.e. a statement more in keeping with what Clement himself says on the subject of the Carpocratians this Duke University conspiracy is hobbled and unlikely to be a good explanative tool.

Morton Smith could be the forger.

Morton Smith could be the forger because he meant to write "naked man with naked man" and it ended up looking like "nakeds with naked."
Morton Smith could have commissioned an assistant to write "naked man with naked man" and it ended up looking like "nakeds with naked."
Morton Smith could have had secret gay fantasies while being in a relationship with Ethne Chesterman while he was at Mar Saba. https://medium.com/sexstories/a-revenge ... e7cd21ad53
Morton Smith could have forged the document without having a gay motivation.

All of these are possibilities. I just don't think they are more likely possibilities than Morton Smith wasn't the forger.

[Secret Alias]

And if the only way you can proceed in this debate is by making reference to my "inconsistency" go ahead. There are people that are going to be swayed by that. But it's stupid. It's about the arguments. It took me twenty years to figure out how to make money at what I do. From 1997 - 2017 I was fucking loser. I had to watch checks clear. I got by. But I didn't figure it out. Eventually people get it right. You know the saying, if at first you don't succeed try, try again.

Here is some more embarrassing personal information. I wrote a moronic book. Like one of the stupidest book ever written. I confess my sins here https://www.youtube.com/live/8K74fv03Ho ... UaaLH-I0mc. The stupidest part of the book is where I argue for like twenty pages that Josephus was wrong about there being two Marcus Agrippas. I will keep adding to this list of stupid things that I have said about the Bible but they voluminous. When I first started pontificating about Marcion in my twenties I knew nothing about Greek. My Hebrew and Aramaic is rather limited and whenever I don't something I go to my notes from my professor Rory Boid and basically copy what he says.

What other sins can I confess?

I sometimes wish I had gone on to graduate school rather than started a business. My primary motivation for coming to this forum is to demonstrate to myself that everyone is horrible. It's true. I have this theory that people are selfish and self-important and refuse to change their minds even when faced with powerful evidence to the contrary (that's why I am warming up to Goranson, I see his as doing a better job of it than me, not getting heated). In a sense I can jump on what appears to be confirmation of these tendencies, when in fact it could also be argued that I am demonstrating the very infallibility complex that I accuse others of. Are there any other sins? I am sure there are.

I let my son sleep in every day. I just don't know what to do. I put too much of an emphasis on his football and too little emphasis on his academic progress. I think my wife is better than me. I think she's more perfect. When my brother got cancer the first two times I look back and I think I didn't do enough. This time I think I am better. But the first two times I wasn't stellar. There you go. I am a work in progress. Somewhere between good and wretched like most people.

What does it matter if I am good person? I really, really don't get this reasoning. Tselikas says X. He's an expert. Stephan advocates Tselikas's position. He's a piece of shit. So you Ken say, "Don't believe in this piece of shit named Stephan." But what does Stephan have to do with Tselikas being the only expert whose ever weighed in on this issue? What does this have to do with whether the iota is a sigma or the sigma is the iota. Let's take for granted that I deserve death. What does this have to do with Tselikas's expertise or whether the iota is an iota or a sigma.

I will address your other points about what I said in another thread. Call me cynical, but I think you want to change topics from Tselikas to me. Just like you guys always wanted to make it about Morton Smith rather than the document. היהפך כושי עורו ונמר חברבורתיו