Greek Monks Who Thought the Letter to Theodore was in the Mar Saba Monastery Before Morton Smith Arrives

[Secret Alias]

And, SA, as for your shotgun proposal, above Tue Apr 16, 2024 9:57 am, that WASPs
ganged up on Smith, wasn't Smith, um, a WASP?

Please remind me what I said. It makes me feel important.

[Secret Alias]

Here is what I said:

The idea that we should listen only to WASP scholars who speculate that Morton Smith planted the document and ignore the guy who ran the Mar Saba monastery when Morton Smith discovered the document when he assumed the document was always a part of the monastic library is the height of racism. If this were a WASP library and the librarian said or acted in a way which assumed the book was a part of the collection this would be evidence for authenticity. But if its an African library or a Greek library or Jewish library or whatever library - one of the inferior races - then its not evidence. Then it can be ignored. Then its not a real testimony because "what do they know." Only trust white people. That's the message. This is a debate for and by WASPs. It's not just Stephen. When Tony Burke was organizing the Secret Conference I said the same thing. Why do you English speaking scholars not pay for Agamemnon Tselikas to bring new evidence to discuss? When you look at how stupid these papers were. Pulp fiction novels. Aleister Crowley. Complete garbage. Forgettable worthless garbage. And not to fly the guy who could find the manuscript. Scandalous.

My point was I offered to pay for Tselikas's flight to the York Symposium conference way back when. At the time though, it was all "Carslon vs Brown." That was the dynamic. There was like an unspoken gentleman's agreement that Morton Smith's transcription was right and that Carlson and Brown just battled over the implications of the discovery alongside a bunch of other WASP scholars. When I would engage with authenticity people it would be like "Scott Brown says ..." "Scott Brown says ..." and on the other side "I believe Stephen Carlson." Well Carlson is no longer relevant to this debate because the book was stupid and Brown is a typical boring deadpan Canadian. Both are good scholars. That's not the point. They don't say anything that has any relevance to the debate in 2024.

I told Burke "hey you know it's nice writing these Morton Smith as Puff the Magic Dragon humanities papers, but this guy is about the only expert on handwriting from this period, he's got an office in the Jerusalem Patriarchate, he just walks around all the libraries everywhere and pulls shit off the shelves. Why don't we engage him in the debate, make him feel like he's important and then he can find the document and we can test it." That was my logic. There used to be this old saying about peyote. The white man goes to his church and talks about Jesus, when the Native American Church member goes into his teepee he talks to Jesus." That was the logic. Like why spend all this time talking about peripheral nonsense. Not going to prove anything at least when compared to throwing rose petals on the ground in front of Tselikas. I mean he's the only hope to end the debate. But do they want to end the debate? It's like what Nogbri says about the owners of ancient manuscript not wanting to carbon date their manuscripts because they might lose their value. You get the feeling that everyone wants to outdo everyone else in terms of creativity, cleverness etc. I say just pool our money together pay Tselikas like 1 M Euros take it to the Patriarchate find the damn thing and then test it. Not so sure everyone has the same interest.

[Secret Alias]

I actually tried to get David Trobisch when he was at the Hobby Lobby Bible Museum (not sure if he is still there) to buy the manuscript. He was interested but nothing came of it.

[RandyHelzerman]

These photographs are not evidence that the Letter to Theodore nor the (unlisted) Voss book were at Mar Saba before Smith's stay in 1958.

Come on!! Anybody sporting a beard like those has *got* to be authoritative..... lol

Not a trace of the "Letter" before 1958, anywhere in the world.

Yeah, I kinda touched on this in another thread, but if there *were* such a trace, surely somebody would have chased down the book and discovered the letter *before* Smith did? Even if it were just mentioned as a letter from Clement, some assistant professor of Clementology would have wanted to get tenure by describing it. Somebody has got to be the first.

[StephenGoranson]

fwiw, Smith does not say he was looking for this particular "Letter" and claimed he was surprised to find it.
He claimed to go to catalog books, not manuscripts.

[Secret Alias]

Do you accept that Morton Smith was looking for texts of Isidore of Pelusium in 1952 or was this also part of a wider plot?

[StephenGoranson]

Yes, Smith had been advised to look for texts of Isidore of Pelusium, in MANUSCRIPTS.
Smith later claimed to go to Mar Saba to catalog BOOKS.
Notice the difference?
Even though he knew the most rare and interesting books had already been moved to Jerusalem for safe-keeping.
Why the change?
Smith was not a librarian...
And he claimed he happened on a book with a MANUSCRIPT.

[Secret Alias]

But the manuscripts of the Patriarchate had all been photographed in 1949.

[StephenGoranson]

You again miss the point.
You brought up Isidore of Pelusium.
I said manuscripts, not books--did you read it?
So, are you now suggesting that Smith went to Mar Saba to find an unknown BOOK edition of Isidore of Pelusium?
Again, Smith was not a bibliographer for such supposed silly task.
Or is this just aggressively-sloppy pseudo-pilpul deflection, again?

[Secret Alias]

I am suggesting to take Morton Smith at his word that he knew there were often handwritten notes in the blank pages of notes. He did find other manuscripts as well as the Letter to Theodore.