Secret Alias wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 4:07 pm
The question is whether they would have remembered a coverless Latin book with 18th century Greek handwriting in the blank back pages. Or better yet could Seraphim have accepted that such a distinctive text which was never there before suddenly appeared there almost 20 years after he arrived at Mar Saba and not noticed.
Shouldn't we look for a statement about how they came to form their 'thoughts' on the history of the book?
Just speculating is not very convincing.
The only statement I've seen so far is that someone was convinced of the handwriting's age, which did not raise suspicion for him.
We can speculate further, but it wouldn't be persuasive one way or another. For example, nobody could testify if the book was there before, but they all trusted Morton Smith implicitly. That's also a speculation. Speculating about how they formed their 'thoughts' does not produce evidence.
Maybe there's a more explicit statement. That's what you would need.
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 4:26 pm
Smith and Landau add something to the story:
Flusser remembers that they did encounter one bump in the road. When the team of scholars attempted to leave with the book, “Abbot Seraphim,” an old friend of Smith who presided over Mar Saba, “raised hell,” demanding that “they would have to request it, and he would send it.”5 But the abbot’s request stemmed less from a desire to prevent the team from taking the book than from a concern for due process—because in the end, Flusser recalls, they requested the book and he allowed them to take it.6 Stroumsa and the others did discuss the possibility of subjecting the manuscript to scientific analysis—the kinds of tests that can help determine the age of a manuscript (that is, the age of the writing surface and its ink)—but Father Meliton did not want the manuscript to leave the Patriarchal Library and enter into the custody of the Israeli police. Soon after the manuscript arrived in Jerusalem, sometime in 1976, Kallistos Dourvas, librarian at the Patriarchal Library from 1975 to 1990, received the new volume and added it to the collection of manuscripts from Mar Saba. A receipt from the transfer, signed by Dourvas among others, has recently surfaced.7 The paleographer Agamemnon Tselikas discovered it in the archives of the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem. The document describes the letter of Clement as “unpublished and without any doubts about its authenticity.” It remains unclear whether “authenticity” means that they regarded it as a genuine letter of Clement or that they did not believe it to be a modern forgery. (p. 132) https://books.google.com/books?id=G06qE ... 22&f=false
I think that show you why you should read the published literature before you start writing. In the end, I have proved the document was regarded as authentic by the monks. Told yah.
Are you ribbing SG here?
I already accepted that 'the document was regarded as authentic [pre-20th century...] by the monks'.
But not just that it was regarded as authentic. Seraphim was there when Smith discovered the text. How did Smith and Landau know that Smith knew Seraphim? He must have been the one getting the books. I bet.
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 4:31 pm
But not just that it was regarded as authentic. Seraphim was there when Smith discovered the text. How did Smith and Landau know that Smith knew Seraphim? He must have been the one getting the books. I bet.
That's speculation, though. And Smith had access to the library, right.
I've asked a number of people what's the connection between Seraphim and Smith. Where is the documentation? This is the letter where Smith and Landau have determined that the monastery regarded the text as authentic:
Three pieces of evidence for the Mar Saba monastery viewing the text as authentic (a) Kallistos Dourvas (b) Flusser's inference about Seraphim's behavior and (c) the letter from 1976.
And so he began his survey of the collection. Smith got to work and soon settled into a routine. With a monk by his side—chaperones are often required when looking at manuscripts at Greek Orthodox libraries—each morning except Sunday Smith would ascend a series of stairs that led from his quarters to the old tower. His escort would unlock the door, then wait patiently as he sifted through stacks of books packed onto bookshelves and strewn across the floor. Smith was not primarily looking for ancient manuscripts—these had been destroyed or removed from the monastery years earlier. Instead, he spent most of his time leafing through modern printed editions in search of “manuscript material”—that is, notes, passages, or annotations written in margins and on flyleaves by monks studying these volumes. When Smith found an inscribed book, he would set it aside. After he had located three or four of these, the monk would lock the door, they would descend the stairs, and Smith would retreat to his quarters to examine the manuscripts he had found. Smith located a surprising number of handwritten passages in printed books, particularly in books from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, leading him to speculate that paper may not have been abundant at the monastery during that period.49 In total, Smith was able to conduct a detailed inspection of approximately seventy manuscripts. Still, he did not have time to study an additional twenty manuscripts nor examine two large folders of fragments. Smith’s notes on the collection were published, in modern Greek translation, in 1960.50 Most of Smith’s discoveries were unsurprising. He reports finding “prayer books and hymns and sermons and lives of saints and anthologies from the Church fathers”—in other words, “the proper and predictable reading of a monastic community.”51 Occasionally he’d find bits and pieces of older manuscripts that had been recycled, used to stiffen the covers and bindings of newer books. But Smith chose not to investigate further, since his “permission to study the volumes did not include permission to take them apart.”52 Yet one manuscript was unlike the rest—it was remarkable, perhaps even revolutionary.
