StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 5:47 am
Ironically, the book by Stephen C. Carlson, often vilified in this forum, though it remains largely pertinent, actually introduced views of "Julie C. Edison, a professional forensic document examiner." Admittedly with less than ideal photographs.
Scott G. Brown and Allan J. Pantuck bring up some absolutely fundamental points here:
https://rogerviklund.files.wordpress.co ... k-2010.pdf
Hershel Shanks’ announcement that Biblical Archaeology Review had arranged for an expert in Greek paleography and a Greek forensic document examiner to analyze the handwriting of the sole manuscript of Clement of Alexandria’s Letter to Theodore (Mar Saba 65) brought us back to a question that has received surprisingly little attention over the past five years: how capable was the handwriting analysis made by Stephen Carlson? Then a patent attorney, Carlson had no training or prior experience in questioned document examination yet applied its principles to argue that the handwriting of this manuscript was forged by its discoverer, Morton Smith. This autodidactic approach is frowned on by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners (ABFDE), which asserts that competency in distinguishing between authentic and inauthentic documents is acquired, not from textbooks or correspondence courses, but from “a legitimate structured training program” and at least two years of mentoring in “a recognized forensic laboratory or with an examiner in private practice who has previously received proper training,” followed by comprehensive written, practical, and oral examinations that are based on a wide range of problems frequently encountered in document examination.
As J. F. McCarthy put it, “the judgments of those dabbling in the field are quite apt to be wrong.” Given the unlikelihood that Carlson attained the necessary competence without any training or experience, and the fact that he misapplied these same methods when he incorrectly identified some semiliterate scribbling in Mar Saba 22 not only as a forgery but also as a forgery in the same handwriting, it is surprising that his ability to detect forgery has gone unquestioned by so many readers of his book The Gospel Hoax. The most likely reason for this is Carlson’s appeals to a professional document examiner named Julie C. Edison, who advised him and wrote a letter assessing his methods.
The question of what images Edison used was therefore of primary interest. But we also wanted to learn the details of her expertise, the amount of time she devoted to the study of the handwriting, and her entire professional opinion regarding the authenticity of the manuscript. The information she provided us will leave both Carlson’s supporters and critics feeling deceived.
When first contacted, Edison responded, “Regretfully, I do not recall offering a professional opinion regarding Morton Smith’s Letter of Clement.” With further prompting, she recalled having spent a single afternoon in 2005 with Carlson looking, we presume, at the blackand-white halftone reproduction of the letter in Smith’s book: “We only looked at a book containing writings attributed to Clement; and possibly a sheet containing symbols of the 18th century Greek alphabet.” She recalled that “Mr. Carlson spent a great deal of time regarding who may have written Clement’s letter; he was considering writing a book.” She was quick to add, “However, please be advised, no professional evaluation of mine was put into writing. Mr. Carlson paid me for my consulting time, but we did not communicate after than [sic].” We discussed the possibility of retaining her as an expert to generate a written report, but after some consideration she rejected the offer, and without our requesting it she forwarded the full text of the letter that she had previously sent to Carlson with the explanation, “There is nothing further for me to add on this subject, as it is not my area of expertise beyond what is written in the report.”
Although my undergraduate degree is in history, my knowledge of ancient Greece, Rome, and early Christianity is basic at best. And I have a limited knowledge of the Greek alphabet. ...
All of this information is at odds with Carlson’s description of what he left out. Edison made two vital points here. She plainly indicated that she herself cannot read the manuscript, and she identified the absence of known standards for comparison as a fundamental problem with his approach to questioned document examination. We will offer our thoughts on these two matters later. Here we note that Carlson’s suppression of this portion of Edison’s letter under the rubric of unnecessary background misled all interested parties to believe that she was properly qualified to render an opinion on this text and unequivocally endorsed his work.
Edison is aware of her limitations and made the proper acknowledgement, both in her letter to Carlson and in her discussion with us. Whether she should have commented at all on this document is an individual judgment call. Her acknowledgement that she does not have the expertise to conduct her own investigation and render a professional opinion about this document and the fact that she met only briefly with Carlson raise the question, Is she really in a position to attest to the competence of Carlson’s analysis? Carlson implied that she can and did do this by stating that he hired her in order to find out whether his analysis was competent and by hiding her inability to work in Greek and her criticisms of his method. Edison herself, however, more realistically stated that Carlson “asked me . . . to help verify his methods for uncovering the truth.” In other words, she was writing about the validity of his methods, not certifying that he applied them competently, which is something she cannot do without acquiring the necessary expertise and conducting a study of her own using standards of authentic writing. What she does venture to certify is his “research into the questioned document field,” which she believes “has been exemplary.” She is impressed that he “carefully studied” Albert S. Osborn’s 1929 book of 1028 pages. How she is in a position to verify this is not explained.
The people who read Edison’s letter on the internet would have been far less impressed had they known that Carlson’s consultant is unable to read Greek, that she met with him for only a few hours, that they looked exclusively at halftone reproductions of Smith’s photographs, that she disavows having expressed an opinion on the manuscript’s authenticity, and that her positive comments were prefaced by the “most important” observation that the absence of “known standards” in Carlson’s analysis violates one of the “fundamentals” of forgery detection. Clearly he hoped that this letter would discourage concerns about the objectivity, validity, and competence of his handwriting analysis, but now that we know the omitted contents and the manner in which he suppressed them, he has ultimately made us more dubious about these things than ever.
It is not hard to imagine that a handwriting analysis by a properly qualified questioned document examiner would look very different from what we see in The Gospel Hoax.
