a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
rakovsky
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2015 8:07 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by rakovsky »

Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:23 pm The discussion does seem to circle back to the question of homosexuality.

Is that the strongest argument for Secret Mark being modern, or is there another that is stronger?
For me, the number 1 issue is the accumulation and combination of unlikelihoods. The more that they stack up, the more skeptical I am.

The number 2 issue in my mind is how his research interests before and after his "discovery" line up with it. His 1949 and 1950's pre-discovery articles on: A. secret rites, B. homosexuality, C. secret exclusive sexual knowledge as part of the rites, D. debates on whether Clement had instructed his followers to lie for the church, E. Clement, Mark's gospel, secret rites, and the mystery of the Kingdom of God; and his post-discovery publishing on Jesus the Magician, wherein Jesus is part of secret mystery rites. His supporters argue back that these are normal, decent topics for research. Still, some of them look to me like specialized or niche topics and his discovery lines up with his special perspective and "take" on Jesus.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
User avatar
Peter Kirby
Site Admin
Posts: 8024
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
Location: Santa Clara
Contact:

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Peter Kirby »

rakovsky wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:12 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:23 pm The discussion does seem to circle back to the question of homosexuality.

Is that the strongest argument for Secret Mark being modern, or is there another that is stronger?
For me, the number 1 issue is the accumulation and combination of unlikelihoods. The more that they stack up, the more skeptical I am.

The number 2 issue in my mind is how his research interests before and after his "discovery" line up with it. His 1949 and 1950's pre-discovery articles on: A. secret rites, B. homosexuality, C. secret exclusive sexual knowledge as part of the rites, D. debates on whether Clement had instructed his followers to lie for the church, E. Clement, Mark's gospel, secret rites, and the mystery of the Kingdom of God; and his post-discovery publishing on Jesus the Magician, wherein Jesus is part of secret mystery rites. His supporters argue back that these are normal, decent topics for research. Still, some of them look to me like specialized or niche topics and his discovery lines up with his special perspective and "take" on Jesus.
These are both attempting a death by many little cuts (the first clearly so, the second one arguably).

Is there a number 3 and number 4 issue in your mind?
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
User avatar
rakovsky
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2015 8:07 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by rakovsky »

Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:32 pm
rakovsky wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:07 pmLikewise, the portrayal of Clement as someone who himself engages in mystery cult rituals unknown in Church history is much different than what we know of him, as he typically was opposed to the gnostics' secretive knowledge rituals.
I'm not ignoring this point, but arguments specifically about whether Clement is the author belong in their own category, as they lead into many other alternatives, not just the modern forgery hypothesis. On this forum (in this thread...), I've also argued that Clement isn't the author (although I don't regard it as a closed question). It's regarding the modern forgery hypothesis that I'm most interested in knowing what the arguments are for it, as there appears to be a certain irrational exuberance among people who promote it.
One of the arguments made in favor of its authenticity is that it lines up so closely with Clement's vocabularly and style that it could only have been written by the real Clement, not a forger. And one of the responses from those who consider it a forgery is that in the late 1930's Otto Stahlin came out with a compendium of Clement's phrases, which Morton Smith owned and notated, so that finally in the mid-20th century and since, it's been possible for someone to construct a forgery that does closely match Clement's phraseology like the Mar Saba Letter. (And why was he making all those notations in it? ;) )

Some of the energy put into the Mar Saba Letter discussions has been a reaction by skeptics to the Letter's promotion as authentic by respected scholars. This was Peter Jeffrey's explanation of how he got into it:
I had always had my doubts about the Secret Gospel of Mark, but it was only in 2003, when the Journal of Early Christian Studies
published a forum of three articles about it, that I realized how seriously this other Marcan gospel was being taken in some quarters. At that point I expanded my footnote into an independent article, which the Journal accepted on the condition that I enlarge the section on ancient homosexuality. That article was never published, however; before long it had grown into two articles, then into this book.
https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Fr ... veiled.pdf
Anyway, thanks for having a respectful discussion with me about it. I like that.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
User avatar
rakovsky
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2015 8:07 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by rakovsky »

Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:19 pm
rakovsky wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:12 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:23 pm The discussion does seem to circle back to the question of homosexuality.

Is that the strongest argument for Secret Mark being modern, or is there another that is stronger?
For me, the number 1 issue is the accumulation and combination of unlikelihoods. The more that they stack up, the more skeptical I am.

The number 2 issue in my mind is how his research interests before and after his "discovery" line up with it. His 1949 and 1950's pre-discovery articles on: A. secret rites, B. homosexuality, C. secret exclusive sexual knowledge as part of the rites, D. debates on whether Clement had instructed his followers to lie for the church, E. Clement, Mark's gospel, secret rites, and the mystery of the Kingdom of God; and his post-discovery publishing on Jesus the Magician, wherein Jesus is part of secret mystery rites. His supporters argue back that these are normal, decent topics for research. Still, some of them look to me like specialized or niche topics and his discovery lines up with his special perspective and "take" on Jesus.
These are both attempting a death by many little cuts (the first clearly so, the second one arguably).

Is there a number 3 and number 4 issue in your mind?
#3 is how it lines up with literature like Mystery of Mar Saba, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, and Oscar Wilde's Salome. eg. as Jeffrey notes: the Mar Saba letter references the "seven veils" and the Salome at the cross, but gay writer Oscar WIlde used the seven veils to refer to Herodias' Salome.

#4 is how the more I research it, the more it looks like a forgery:
(A) Stuart just brought up a new point for me that there are "no other examples of (sectarian) mystery cult material (quoted in full placed inside an existing canonical gospel." Marcion was a gnostic, but his version of the NT wasn't visionary or mystery cult material, AFAIK.
(B) Roger Viklund got Robert Price to admit in 2009 that he was mistaken about Secret Mark, so then I tried to see if Price's views had changed, and it turns out in 2011 Price's book repeated his earlier rejection. On top of that, I found Price's discussion with Morton Smith, where Smith analogizes the Mar Saba letter to New Age forgeries of ancient documents, complains about a scholar who - like the Orthodox monastery - opposes the New Age forgeries, and concludes that the New Age documents are authentic because they represent faith. ie. by inference the Mar Saba letter hinting at secret rituals is analogously modern yet authentic because it represents someone's faith.
(C) Secret Alias had made the argument that Irenaeus knew of Secret Mark and was denying the true metaphorical meaning of Mark 10:45 on Jesus', James', and John's "baptism". But then when I went to check Irenaeus' words, it turns out that Stephen both misread Irenaeus and was unaware that the concept of a second, metaphorical or "spiritual" baptism is a well known part of mainstream Orthodox tradition and theology, rather than being a Biblical teaching hidden by the Church. (I responded to Secret Alias here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2981&start=50#p95277)
(D) I thought that chiasms were a good argument for Secret Mark's authenticity, but I researched it, and it isn't after all. J. Krantz and John Dart both make chiasms for all of Mark and use Secret Mark, yet they use Secret Mark contradictorily. Krantz lines up Secret Mark (Mark 10:34 etc.) with the raising of Jairus' daughter (Mark 5), whereas Dart lines up Secret Mark with Mark 13 (the instructions of Jesus on preaching to the world and on the apocalyptic events of families betraying each other. Meanwhile, a Japanese writer, Murai, made a much more detailed chiasm chart than Krantz's, outlining Mark's gospel, one that looks more precise because he uses word quotes, and he doesn't include Secret Mark at all. He lines up Jairus' daughter's raising and the woman with blood's healing with the story of the widow who gave all her money to the Temple. For Krantz, the central chiasm passage in the gospel is Jesus' first Passion Prediction, whereas for Murai, the central chiasm is the second of the three predictions, which is more symmetrical because it is the middle of the threesome. And this is better because chiasms are about symmetry.
Last edited by rakovsky on Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
Stuart
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:24 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Stuart »

Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:54 pm
Stuart wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:33 amThe emphasis on mystery cult ritual strikes me as more a 20th century fad among NT scholars than anything from antiquity.
Can this comment be elaborated into a sound argument for 20th century authorship? (Or is it not intended as one?)
It was half rhetorical. But sure I can elaborate if you really want me to have about three pages of posts. Where to start? Perhaps even before 1900 with GRS Mead and Pistis Sophia, or early twentieth century with Jung. Of course everyone in the field knew of the Nag Hammadi library which was discovered in 1945 and made it's way into schools after 1951 (not yet translated for the wider public until 1970). Secret Mark is "discovered" in Summer 1958. A widow and a whiff of lavender, such was 1957-58 for an unpromising career that became Summer 1958.

The concept that Jesus preached mystical teachings, held onto by various Christian cults (sects) is not something that new. It had been percolating in scholarship since the Victorian era. Do you really need me to catalog everything out there which could have been in Smith's view?
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Stuart
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:24 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Stuart »

Peter,

Smith's homosexuality only speaks to possible motive for the content. You get into a vague debate about a possible lavender affair with a widow the year just prior to finding this document. But it really is neither here nor there which side of the bed Smith slept on. I do not much care when looking at a Rock Hudson movie or watching Jane Lynch, Neil Patrick Harris or Kevin Spacey on TV or screen. (Well Spacey is a bit uncomfortable now, given his history). To claim my opposition is based on that would be incorrect. It's a mere side piece.

I should note that Smith was “was not a good form-critical scholar” in the words of Helmut Koester. He used those word to defend Smith. Perhaps a good argument that Smith was too much a weak scholar to have invented this. However I see this as support for my primary argument, that Smith did not understand the theological point of Mark 14:51-52 and neither did the writer of the text contained in the supposed letter of Clement. (At the very least this precludes the material from being from the same author as Mark 14:51-52)

In short you attack the wrong target.

The real concern comes with the form of the letter from Clement and it's believably -- or perhaps I should say it's un-Clement like structure.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Stuart
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:24 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Stuart »

Peter,

I'd also advise focusing on the content of the material, which in the letter Clement supposedly says was from Carpocrates himself and placed in Mark. This contrasts to the Stromata, where Carpocrates has left the scene, and the practices of the sect are said to be held by his son Epiphanes (not at all certain this is a biological son or metaphorical in the sense of Church succession, but it seems Clement thinks it's biological)" "This fellow Epiphanes, whose writings I have at hand, was a son of Carpocrates and his mother was named Alexandria." At this point even if Epiphanes is a mere young leader of say his mid thirties or so (probably older since Clement has his writings in view) would make Carpocrates likely well deceased if not extremely aged in an era when fifty was an ancient. Yet in this letter he has knowledge of Carpocrates himself, unlike Stromata which is through his son.

Secret Mark's content, such as reported, is a pastiche from all the gospels. We have a parallel to Lazarus being raised in John, but now using the laying of hands (Mark 10:16 and //s), crossing to the "other side" of the Jordan (several synoptic "other side" + John 10:40 "across the Jordan"), and Jesus loving the disciple (John 13:23, 25, 19:26-27, 20:2, 21:7, 20, 24), Jesus rolling away the stone at the tomb is a nice enhancement of Jesus ordering Lazarus' stone be rolled. It is a curious twist that the young man is rich, as that is the opposite of the Lazarus and the Rich man story.

When you look at the material it's pretty clear the Secret Mark material came from a writer who knew John's gospel in Canonical form. This of course fits Clement's argument that it came from the Carpocrates. But does what is being described come anywhere close to the description of the sects rituals reported by Clement in the Stromata book 3? Not at all.

Clement's objection is the equality of women "These, so they say, and certain other enthusiasts for the same wickednesses, gather together for feasts (I would not call their meeting an Agape), men and women together." (3.2.9) This he says after speaking of the points in their doctrine he holds as excellent. Essentially he is accusing the Carpocrateans of not respecting marriage because "woman can belong to all like animals", but it seems this is a slam at their agape meal for having Men and Women together. He makes the ridiculous charge that after this sacred meal "After they have sated their appetites, then they overturn the lamps and so extinguish the light that the shame of their adulterous "righteousness" is hidden, and they have intercourse where they will and with whom they will." I guess most of us Christians today are as guilty as the heretics Clement slams. Clement wants separate tables like Muslims have. Clement come back later and describes this meal as 'immoral communion.' (3.5.54)

Hum, where are those secret rituals? What I read from Clement and his saying that men and women eating the holy meal together will lead to wife sharing like animals, sounds like something coming from a crazed Salafist Imam about western women showing their hair in mixed company are whore who will sleep with anyone. The Imam is being blatantly propagandistic, and so is Clement.

What comes much closer to the secret Mark passage is his description in 3.4.27 of some unnamed sect where "they have impiously called by the name of communion any common sexual intercourse" to their interpretation of the kingdom of God. But this is not the Carpocrateans, it's some worse than the Nicolatians sect in his mind (again probably a gross exaggeration like out present day Salafist Imam).

We get another fantastic claim in the letter
"But since the foul demons are always devising destruction for the race of men, Carpocrates, instructed by them and using deceitful arts, so enslaved a certain presbyter of the church in Alexandria that he got from him a copy of the secret Gospel, which he both interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine and, moreover, polluted, mixing with the spotless and holy words utterly shameless lies. From this mixture is withdrawn off the teaching of the Carpocratians."
This is very strange. Our letter Clement is saying that Carpocrates doesn't have a copy of Mark of his own, or that his sect had to go to extraordinary extreme measures to obtain one "to pollute." To say this doesn't sound plausible is an understatement. It implies that the sect had no access to regular Christian scripture. What other sect had this problem?

Additionally we get a comment unique to Clement about Peter being martyred in Rome and Mark going to Alexandria. Eusubius, an unreliable source to be sure, only reports that Clement says "Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome," nothing of his martyrdom. This is a new element. It expands upon prior traditions we have from Clement. This is suspicious as well. Why mention it? What purpose would it have outside an encyclical letter? In short the letter seems all the more absurd, in that it follows the formula of pseudonymous letters of the church, encyclical, yet pretending to be for a single addressee.

There are just way too many suspicious elements and unanswered questions to accept Clement's letter as legitimate, and even more problems with the content called the Secret Mark. (Note nothing here has anything to do with Smith's take.)

You want to convince me, start with explaining the Pastiches.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Secret Alias »

Start explaining the pastiches? Have you ever glanced at a gospel harmony? Have you ever seen the manner in which the Diatessaron takes a line from Mark followed by a word from Luke and a word from Matthew - and that's OUR POV as people who prefer the canon of four? So Justin's 'pastiche' gospel references are modern fakes? So the Diatessaron is a modern fake too? So Irenaeus's and Tertullian's references to the Homeric Centos being employed by the heretics to make gospels or read the gospels is another modern forgery? It's really frustrating dealing with people with limited understanding and/or limited intelligence.

There is simply no evidence for forgery. It might be true. I guess if you stare at anything long enough you can start having doubts. My son gets scared when he notices a strange noise in the house. But there's nothing going on in our house. This whole business all comes down to titillation, gossip, innuendo, closeted gay-bashing, conspiracy theory masked as scholarship. Could the document be a forgery? Sure. Is it modern forgery? I don't think so. Is Matthew an ancient forgery of Mark? Yeah pretty much. Is there textual manipulation, forgery and the like in other ancient texts of the Church Fathers - it's rampant. But we use the Instructor by Clement which was obviously massively interpolated in antiquity. We can use this text.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Roger Viklund
Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2016 1:03 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Roger Viklund »

Stuart wrote: Wed Jan 16, 2019 1:03 am You want to convince me, start with explaining the Pastiches.
The easiest way to explain them is to say that there is none. The parallels between Secret Mark on the one hand and Matthew, Luke and John on the other, are formalistic and generic. The (almost) only close parallels are to Mark, but then why would that be a sign of forgery? In other cases, such as the question of the authenticity of Testimonium Flavianum, the fact that there are close similarities to other passages in Josephus is used as an argument for authenticity, that Josephus also wrote the TF. But when Secret Mark has close parallels to Mark, then that is used as an argument for forgery; that someone cut and pasted from Mark to create a pastiche forgery.

When Watson published his article I wrote a blog post The pastiche forgery of Secret Mark, as presented by Francis Watson where I took all the examples presented by Watson and expanded them by including the Greek text. Underneath each example I searched for more parallels from the Gospel of Mark; then in the first place not meant to be parallels to the sentences from Secret Mark, but parallels to the parallels presented by Watson. I managed to find parallels to almost all of Watson’s parallels (i.e. parallels between Mark and Mark), whereas he only found parallels to the Secret Mark passage at a rate of 42% [66/157] or if I am being generous 53% [66/(157 – 32)]. I think the pastiche theory is a non-argument.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: a possibility so remote that it deserves a little reflection

Post by Secret Alias »

I read your argument. You claim that Mark repeating himself is a sign that Mark wrote the Secret Gospel. But how do we really know that people repeat phrases and words over and over again when they write things? Did you demonstrate that other ancient writers - like Josephus - do the same thing? Until then we have to hold judgment on your proposition that people repeat certain phrases and words in their writings.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Post Reply