A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm And... why is a software developer like me the one who needs to ask this question? Why is the profession so lazy about the basics?
That's the million dollar question, but don't sell yourself short, you've been promoted to scholar

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm
rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:33 pm
Because a forger "could have had assistance," that means, according to you, that the script itself isn't a strong argument.
I think that paleography is still a significant argument, but it's not as strong as it might seem because of Smith's prior detailed studies and many photographs of 18th. c. Greek manuscripts, along with potential assistance, as you said.
No, I didn’t say that the claim of “potential assistance” was a reasonable counter-argument. I was referring to what you said.
Sure, that's what I meant, although I can see that there could be ambiguity. My meaning would have been clearer had I written more clunkily: "along with the potential assistance that you quoted me as mentioning" or something like that.
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm One of the things that makes me extremely uncomfortable with the forgery argument is how little time is spent on the most important and salient characteristics of the find
- that it was discovered in situ (by their own account)
by a recognized, accomplished scholar of the field,
that the physical text exists and not only reproductions of it (as proven by the follow up by another scholar who got access to photograph it), and
that the hand belongs to a different era and a different language in a fluid cursive script that was only ever used by a limited number of people and that we would otherwise assume to have gone completely out of use, [if not (of course) for the gratuitous hypothesis of forgery].
I think that the bold are significant arguments.


Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm One of the things that makes me very uncomfortable is that people are willing to appeal to arguments based on supposed general principles that they neglect to study in their own right, when these general principles are at least as interesting as the text itself.

For example, is there ONE known example of someone in the 1950s who ACTUALLY produced a text in the cursive script of the 18th century Greek as used by the Greek monks, which successfully passes inspection by experts as being such a hand?

Not even asking if it were common. Is there a single example?

Can we find such a person in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s? Are there any other examples of similarly-successful imitations of the eighteenth century Greek script?

And... why is a software developer like me the one who needs to ask this question? Why is the profession so lazy about the basics?
That's a good question, but my guess is that the answer is Yes, and that usually if a professional studies a handwriting style enough, they can mimic it well enough to fool handwriting experts. Just as there are handwriting and paleography experts, there are probably those of them who can mimic what they are portraying.

I also remember the skeptics like Carlson claiming that there are signs in the handwriting of the Letter that point to a modern forgery (and IIRC using experts to back him up), and then supporters of the Letter's authenticity having experts say that the handwriting was a perfect match to writing from the time.
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm There are a lot of anomalies about this text if it is a forgery, for those who bother to look at cases of forgery in general. If you think it’s weird as authentic, it’s very odd as a modern forgery. The modus operandi has no parallel - a one-off successful construction of an original manuscript in a different language and a different paleographical hand that is allegedly produced under the supervision of a genuine and credible PhD’d scholar, who doesn’t use it as a teachable moment by revealing the hoax but who also never gives in to the temptation to do it again.
I agree, that it's very odd as a modern forgery. But then, I think it's pretty odd that Smith used the Adi Da cult, headed by Da Free John, who was accused of sexual abuse by his victims, to publish his book on the Letter. The Mar Saba letter and its story has plenty of major oddities regardless of whether one accepts it as authenticity.
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm If you could change one fact, maybe this would be more like our known forgery cases. For example, if there were a 20th century individual who was honing a craft and producing better and better forgeries. Or if Smith were duped by another party.

Or if Smith always intended to reveal the hoax to teach the academy a lesson.

Or if they made the text less technically difficult to pull off the first time as a fake by, for example, destroying the original instead of leaving it behind where others could find it and examine it.
All of those MOs would fit into a known pattern. (It’s understandable if what I am saying about known patterns for forgers doesn’t sound impressive, but if you study the production of forgeries in a general way, you’ll understand very clearly what I am saying.)
Sure, and perhaps something like one of those circumstances is applicable here. If it's M.Smith's forgery, maybe he did intend the possibility for academia to be able to figure out the forgery eventually, and this explains what some readers find to be clues or signatures like the Mar Saba Mystery or Anglo Saxon Attitudes literary analogies. Likewise, maybe the forger did destroy the original attempts of his work, and it was only after numerous tries that the forger made his final attempt, putting it directly into the Vossius book.

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:49 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:01 pm One of the things that makes me very uncomfortable is that people are willing to appeal to arguments based on supposed general principles that they neglect to study in their own right, when these general principles are at least as interesting as the text itself.

For example, is there ONE known example of someone in the 1950s who ACTUALLY produced a text in the cursive script of the 18th century Greek as used by the Greek monks, which successfully passes inspection by experts as being such a hand?

Not even asking if it were common. Is there a single example?

Can we find such a person in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s? Are there any other examples of similarly-successful imitations of the eighteenth century Greek script?

And... why is a software developer like me the one who needs to ask this question? Why is the profession so lazy about the basics?
That's a good question, but my guess is that the answer is Yes, and that usually if a professional studies a handwriting style enough, they can mimic it well enough to fool handwriting experts. Just as there are handwriting and paleography experts, there are probably those of them who can mimic what they are portraying.
This is exactly my problem. The professionals do the same thing you do - they make a comfortable "guess" - on the most important crux of the entire investigation. It's utter nonsense. This is a question that is amenable to empirical investigation. There's no need to guess. Nobody needs to make assumptions. If we're making assumptions like this, it's either because we're (a) too lazy to bother finding empirical answers or (b) not willing to upset our pet theories by submitting to the vicissitudes of empirical evidence.

You're wrong - you cannot truthfully claim that there are "probably" these or those - to get to "probably," you need evidence.
rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:49 pm I also remember the skeptics like Carlson claiming that there are signs in the handwriting of the Letter that point to a modern forgery (and IIRC using experts to back him up), and then supporters of the Letter's authenticity having experts say that the handwriting was a perfect match to writing from the time.
This would be a reasonable approach, but it's not good enough for the pro-forgery crowd, who need the security of having the backup option of making other claims (e.g. Smith's helper-of-the-gaps), in case their attempts at providing actual evidence don't pan out.
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:49 pm If it's M.Smith's forgery, maybe he did intend the possibility for academia to be able to figure out the forgery eventually, and this explains what some readers find to be clues or signatures like the Mar Saba Mystery or Anglo Saxon Attitudes literary analogies.
We're not talking about the same things; I'm drawing on lessons from other forgeries, not the little echo chamber of the Secret Mark text. Academic hoaxers are a phenomenon, which fit into a couple patterns. One of those patterns is the academic hoaxer who wants to prove something about the low standards of the field. In that case, the hoaxer doesn't simply wait for someone to "figure out the forgery eventually" and especially doesn't build any of their own academic work on the hoax. The conceit of the hoaxer is that they are better than their academic peers. You don't get to the "I told you so" without actually being better than your peers and actually exemplifying better academic praxis and actually making sure that the lesson holds that you put work into, for the purpose of elevating the standards of the field, by showing how others were fooled. It doesn't fit this pattern.
rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:49 pm Likewise, maybe the forger did destroy the original attempts of his work, and it was only after numerous tries that the forger made his final attempt, putting it directly into the Vossius book.
Again, we're talking about different things. You're talking about the Secret Mark academic ghetto of study, where apparently to be a serial forger means to attempt to make a successful Mar Saba letter over and over until you perfect it. We're going to talk past each other, unless I spend some serious time building up a portrait of the patterns of modern forgers that communicates all of this (or others look into this themselves). In any case, no, this is not the same thing as a serial forger. That's when you make more than one artifact. Simple as that, really, and it'd be more obvious as a pattern if we weren't in this little world of talking about Morton Smith forging Secret Mark, which will make simple patterns that are true of forgeries in general hard to see because the expert on Secret Mark's forgery is an expert on explaining a forgery that isn't like other forgeries. It's like being an expert on unicorns.
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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Peter,

Sure, you are making a good point here:
One of those patterns is the academic hoaxer who wants to prove something about the low standards of the field. In that case, the hoaxer doesn't simply wait for someone to "figure out the forgery eventually" and especially doesn't build any of their own academic work on the hoax. The conceit of the hoaxer is that they are better than their academic peers. You don't get to the "I told you so" without actually being better than your peers and actually exemplifying better academic praxis. It doesn't fit this pattern.
So one cannot ascribe a forger's motives purely to proving that academia is gullible. M.Smith answered Robert Price's question about the Letter's authenticity by saying that what made New Age forgeries authentic was that they matched people's "faith". And M.Smith himself got a New Age-type publisher (The Adi Da cult) for his book. So it could also share the motive that other such New Age forgers have, that is, he wanted people to consider the beliefs reflected in the Letter to be authentic. In this case, it would be analogous to how Oscar Wilde encouraged a concept of the seven veils dance leading to the subconscious and a deeper "truth".

Sure, I understand what you mean here:
You're talking about the Secret Mark academic ghetto of study, where apparently to be a serial forger means to attempt to make a successful Mar Saba letter over and over until you perfect it. We're going to talk past each other, unless I spend some serious time building up a portrait of the patterns of modern forgers that communicates all of this (or others look into this themselves). In any case, no, this is not the same thing as a serial forger. That's when you make more than one artifact. Simple as that, really, and it'd be more obvious as a pattern if we weren't in this little world of talking about Morton Smith forging Secret Mark, which will make simple patterns that are true of forgeries in general hard to see because the expert on Secret Mark's forgery is an expert on explaining a forgery that isn't like other forgeries.
I take you as saying that M.Smith wouldn't match the normal pattern of forgers, because they commit more than one, whereas if M.Smith forged the Letter, it would be his only forgery.

I like writing with you - I think you have a great page with your list on early Christian writings and the description for each one. I liked reading your personal story on your site and it reminds me of my own issues, challenges, etc. Sometimes I get sucked into internet debates as they can be mentally stimulating. But everyone has their own views. That's a good thing. I don't want it to be taken the wrong way. People's views change anyway on plenty of things. I am glad that you have found angles in looking at early theology that you like.

I think that the Church has "mysteries" and saving "knowledge" as part of their themes in ways that overlap with the gnostics, and I can see this thesis being worth exploring. Imagine being in the first few centuries AD when the catechumens were given instruction but only after baptism were they allowed to view and participate in all the "mysteries". In a way, this reminds me of the mystery school concept. But after many centuries, the rituals are so widely known to the public that in the modern age they don't feel as "mystery like" as they once did.

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:36 pmSo one cannot ascribe a forger's motives purely to proving that academia is gullible.
Neither purely nor partially. We either admit that the experts-on-Secret-Mark-forgery were wrong on this, or we're not making progress and proceeding on one of the most abundantly clear facts of the case.
rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:36 pm I take you as saying that M.Smith wouldn't match the normal pattern of forgers, because they commit more than one, whereas if M.Smith forged the Letter, it would be his only forgery.
There are cases of academic forgers who pulled off very successful forgeries, such as Dr. Mellaart.

https://www.livescience.com/61989-famed ... fakes.html

I've been looking for examples of a genuine academic doing a successful one-off like this, as a forgery meant to succeed and not an academic hoax, and then simply going back to boring academic work for decades after that... or any other examples that more closely resemble what's claimed about the Mar Saba letter, as an attempt to get a better sense of how we could understand and situate the alleged forgery in the context of forgery generally and the psychology and habits of forgers. I'll keep looking.
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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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I've been looking for examples of a genuine academic doing a successful one-off like this, as a forgery meant to succeed and not an academic hoax, and then simply going back to boring academic work for decades after that...
Good example with Melaart.

This one has some analogy:
“An Amusing Agraphon”, about a verse in the Gospel of Matthew. Fabricated by Paul Coleman-Norton in 1950. Debunked by Bruce Metzger... Known as the "denture joke", this is one of my favorite hoaxes, in which Jesus assures people that in the afterlife God will provide teeth to the toothless, so that everyone will be able to weep and gnash their teeth.
... not only did Bruce Metzger deduce the hoax before it was published, he didn't go public with it until 1971, after Coleman-Norton's death.
http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005/10 ... oaxes.html
Ehrman tells the story on page 69 in the link below as a way to introduce his views on Secret Mark:
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
By Bart D. Ehrman
https://books.google.com/books?id=URdAC ... 0.&f=false

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:49 pm I also remember the skeptics like Carlson claiming that there are signs in the handwriting of the Letter that point to a modern forgery (and IIRC using experts to back him up), and then supporters of the Letter's authenticity having experts say that the handwriting was a perfect match to writing from the time.
Are they expert forensic analysts? If so does their experience include tested verification using older writing material and methods?
I agree, that it's very odd as a modern forgery. But then, I think it's pretty odd that Smith used the Adi Da cult, headed by Da Free John, who was accused of sexual abuse by his victims, to publish his book on the Letter. The Mar Saba letter and its story has plenty of major oddities regardless of whether one accepts it as authenticity.
Can you explain what the abuse allegations have to do with anything else? If you stick with that oddity then I'll take it as your tacit admission of bias in publishing and that Smith wouldnt not be able to publish your admitted controversies in any venue headed by nominal confessional scholars.
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:58 pm
rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:49 pm I also remember the skeptics like Carlson claiming that there are signs in the handwriting of the Letter that point to a modern forgery (and IIRC using experts to back him up), and then supporters of the Letter's authenticity having experts say that the handwriting was a perfect match to writing from the time.
Are they expert forensic analysts? If so does their experience include tested verification using older writing material and methods?
IIRC, Yes.
Sorry, I would have to research it to doublecheck, and besides that, IIRC Carlson's opponents disagree with his side's handwriting analysis. So even if he used experts, I can be sure that they weren't good enough for the other side. Secret Mark research sometimes feels like a rabbit hole to me.
perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:58 pm
I agree, that it's very odd as a modern forgery. But then, I think it's pretty odd that Smith used the Adi Da cult, headed by Da Free John, who was accused of sexual abuse by his victims, to publish his book on the Letter. The Mar Saba letter and its story has plenty of major oddities regardless of whether one accepts it as authenticity.
Can you explain what the abuse allegations have to do with anything else?
Yeah, the Mar Saba Letter and "Secret Mark" were interpreted by M. Smith to be about Jesus having secret occult sex rituals.
And coincidentally, the Adi Da cult was based on secret rituals and involved sex. It's weird that it's the publisher, although it makes more sense if one accepts the theory that M.Smith was deliberately trying to cryptically connect the story of the Mar Saba Letter to forbidden sex and occult rituals.
perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:58 pm If you stick with that oddity then I'll take it as your tacit admission of bias in publishing and that Smith wouldnt not be able to publish your admitted controversies in any venue headed by nominal confessional scholars.
My best guess is that M.Smith chose the publisher because, as he knew, it was involved in occult New Age rituals and this fit with the theme that he saw in the Letter, not because he couldn't find a more mundane publisher.

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Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark

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rakovsky wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 6:32 pm
perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:58 pm
I agree, that it's very odd as a modern forgery. But then, I think it's pretty odd that Smith used the Adi Da cult, headed by Da Free John, who was accused of sexual abuse by his victims, to publish his book on the Letter. The Mar Saba letter and its story has plenty of major oddities regardless of whether one accepts it as authenticity.
Can you explain what the abuse allegations have to do with anything else?
Yeah, the Mar Saba Letter and "Secret Mark" were interpreted by M. Smith to be about Jesus having secret occult sex rituals.
And coincidentally, the Adi Da cult was based on secret rituals and involved sex. It's weird that it's the publisher, although it makes more sense if one accepts the theory that M.Smith was deliberately trying to cryptically connect the story of the Mar Saba Letter to forbidden sex and occult rituals.
perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:58 pm If you stick with that oddity then I'll take it as your tacit admission of bias in publishing and that Smith wouldnt not be able to publish your admitted controversies in any venue headed by nominal confessional scholars.
My best guess is that M.Smith chose the publisher because, as he knew, it was involved in occult New Age rituals and this fit with the theme that he saw in the Letter, not because he couldn't find a more mundane publisher.
Again, we're having a hard time keeping the facts straight - again, this is due to the influence of the pro-forgery crowd, who have a habit of reframing and rephrasing things so that they sound much more sinister and meaningful than they are.

Smith used perfectly ordinary academic publishers for the editio princeps.

Smith Morton. The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark . New York: Harper and Row. 1973. Pp. ix, 148. $5.95.

Smith Morton. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1973. Pp. x, 452. $30.00.

Source. Unless you have a problem with Harvard University Press? With Harper and Row?

When Smith's contract was up with the first publisher, there was another edition with a new forward, with a publisher that apparently was part of a cult enthusiastic about using it as a text for spiritual guidance. If this is considered suspicious or in any way meaningful, then just declare it a forgery no matter what and call it a day, as that's the inevitable conclusion of that kind of wookie logic.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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