I regret that I haven’t had time to make many posts recently, as I’ve come across plenty of information circulating in the blogosphere during the past month and a half that is quite relevant to this blog. Some of the major highlights include:

• The NT Blog. The ever-industrious Mark Goodacre has posted some great stuff on the Gospel of Thomas recently. He has shared some reflections about whether the existence of a sayings gospel, such as Thomas, provides a legitimate argument for the existence of the hypothetical synoptic sayings source Q (full post), called attention to the (often overlooked) beginning of the modern study of the Gospel of Thomas with the discovery of the Greek fragments at Oxyrhynchus around the end of the twentieth century (post 1; post 2; podcast), and discussed various details of and contradictions in accounts about the discovery of a full copy of the text at Nag Hammadi in 1945 (post 1; post 2; post 3; post 4; post 5; post 6). He has also shared a few comments (and dug up an intriguing youtube clip) about Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark (post).
  
• The Forbidden Gospels Blog. April DeConick has announced that an important new publication about the Gospel of Judas will be out by the end of the year (post). Edited by Dr. DeConick, the new, more than 600-page book, The Codex Judas Papers: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Tchacos Codex Held at Rice University, Houston Texas, March 13-16, 2008 is now listed on Brill’s website. I look forward to seeing the table of contents, as this volume promises to be a fascinating and informative resource about the ongoing debate about the significance of the Gospel of Judas.
• Apocryphicity. At the start of November, Tony Burke resumed his useful blog with notes about some of his recent activities (post). Most notably, he announced that his long-awaited critical edition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas will be published in 2010. I’m not exactly sure what to make of his remark that he spent the summer translating a “well-known text from the OT pseudepigrapha from Syriac into English for a top-secret publication that should appear in the Spring or Summer of 2010,” but I suppose I’ll find out next summer. Regardless, Dr. Burke has also called attention to a new blog on Secret Mark entitled Salainen evankelista by Timo S. Paananen (a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki), and he has also begun a weekly feature of different websites of interest (part 1, part 2)
• Peje Iesous. Christopher Skinner has launched his new blog well this fall, sharing not only his own thoughts about various gospel-related topics but also presenting interviews with different scholars studying the Gospel of Thomas: Nicholas Perrin (part 1, part 2) and Stevan Davies (part 1, part 2, part 3).
• BAR on Secret Mark. As noted on several blogs, the most recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review is dedicated to The Secret Gospel of Mark. It contains four articles on the topic: “An Amazing Discovery” by Charles Hedrick, “Morton Smith – Forger” by Hershal Shanks, “Was Morton Smith a Great Thespian and I a Complete Fool” by Helmut Koester, and “Restoring a Dead Scholar’s Reputation” by Hershel Shanks. I must confess that I find it a little odd that the folks at BAR were able to solicit articles from Charles Hedrick and Helmut Koester, but none of the scholars who have questioned the authenticity of the text (editor Hersal Shanks ended up merely summarizing the arguments that the text is a forgery). I suppose there could be various explanations for this.

Hedrick, Charles W. “The Secret Gospel of Mark: Stalemate in the Academy.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003): 133-45.

Hedrick provides a summary of the discovery and contents of the Clement letter describing Secret Mark. He then addresses the very sensitive issue of why Smith’s publications about the letter might have caused such a “firestorm of criticism,” namely because Smith suggested in a single sentence in his scholarly book, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, that Jesus might have instituted a homosexual baptismal rite [page 251: "In this baptism the disciple was united with Jesus. The union may have been physical (see above, commentary on III.13 and pp. 185f - there is no telling how far symbolism went in Jesus' rite), but the essential thing was that the disciple was possessed by Jesus' spirit"].  Hedrick comments,

I have been asked in public gatherings, after presenting papers on Secret Mark, whether the negative reaction in the academy was due to homophobia. I cannot answer that question-I seriously doubt that anyone can. But the question is natural enough, in light of the strong response to Smith’s one line about homosexuality in both his books. On the other hand, homophobia may well have contributed to the disappearance of Clement’s letter. A homophobe who was also deeply religious would, not surprisingly, be greatly upset at the disrespect Smith’s suggestion accords Jesus. In addition, the “endorsement” of homosexuality by Jesus, which Smith’s suggestion implies, creates a practical problem for religious institutions rejecting homosexuality as a sin, but promoting communal monasteries and convents. It is understandable that some people might feel it would be better had the document never been discovered.”

He goes on to lament the situation surrounding the Secret Gospel of Mark:

In the case of Clement’s letter and Secret Mark, however, now thirty years after the publication of the editio principes, Smith’s discovery and its significance for reconstructing Christian origins, has never generally been taken up as a part of the raw data of New Testament scholarship. We have spent more time debating a hypothetical text (Q) than we have assessing the significance and implications of an extant text (Secret Mark).

Hedrick’s summary of the situation in 2003 is as follows:

1. “The letter of Clement definitely exists (or existed at one time).”
2. “The current whereabouts of the manuscript are unknown.”
3. “Morton Smith did not forge the manuscript. If it is a forgery, it is an ancient forgery, earlier than the eighteenth century.” (Certainly, some would disagree with Hedrick on this particular point.)
4. “The manuscript leaves containing Clement’s letter were definitely the two bound in the final leaves of the Voss volume.”
5. “Clementine scholars have, in the main, accepted the authenticity of Clement’s letter (it is included among the standard texts of Clement’s writings in a 1980 German publication). If it is a forgery, it at least does not appear to be a modern forgery perpetrated by Morton Smith.” (On the question of whether Morton Smith forged the letter, see my comment on point 3; as for whether “Clementine scholars” have generally accepted its authenticity, I must confess that I am not sure. I usually see the topic addressed by New Testament rather than Clementine scholars.)

Hedrick’s final section in the article deals with the question, “Does Secret Mark have a future?” His answer is that, although an authenticated letter might provide us with valuable information about Secret Mark,

The early reactions to the letter of Clement and Secret Mark, published shortly after Smith’s books, in effect, have discredited Smith in the eyes of many of his colleagues, and stopped the discussion. Some think that the manuscript does not even exist, while others think Smith invented Secret Mark, and personally forged Clement’s letter. Others think the text reflects a genuine second-century tradition. Unless the academy can reach a closer agreement on Secret Mark’s past, the secret gospel has no real future.

Stroumsa, Guy G. “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11, no. 2 (2003): 147-53.

For those who remained suspicious that a physical manuscript containing a copy of a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria had ever been housed at the Greek Orthodox monastery at Mar Saba, it turned out that there was another corroborating witness. As Guy Stroumsa reported in his article, he himself had viewed the manuscript at Mar Saba during a visit to the monastery in 1976. With the assistance of Archimandrite Melito, Stroumsa and the late David Flusser and Shlomo Pines (professors from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) had obtained access to the manuscript.

After examining the Voss edition of Ignatius’ letters with the Clement letter scrawled in the back, Stroumsa recalled:

It was obvious to all of us that the precious book should not be left in place, but rather be deposited in the library of the Patriarchate. So we took the book back to Jerusalem, and Father Meliton brought it to the library. We hoped to analyze the manuscript seriously and contemplated an ink analysis. At the National and University Library, however, we were told that only at the police headquarters were people equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools for such an analysis. Father Meliton made it clear that he had no intention of putting the Vossius book in the hands of Israeli police. We gave up, I went back to Harvard, and when I came back to Jerusalem to teach, more than two years later, I had other commitments.

Thus, the book was transferred from Mar Saba to Jerusalem.

“It was only recently,” Stroumsa continued, “more than a quarter-century later, in talking to American colleagues, that I realized that I am the ‘last living Western scholar’ to have seen the Clement manuscript, and that I had a duty to testify in front of a skeptical scholarly world.”

- – - – -

One of the America scholars with whom Stroumsa evidently discussed the manuscript was Bart Ehrman, who recounts the following epsiode in his book Lost Christianities,

I was at my colleague Elizabeth Clark’s house for a social event. Also there was a scholar named Guy Stroumsa, a professor of comparative religions at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a respected expert in early Christianity. Stroumsa happened to be in town to visit his daughter, who was just starting her Ph.D. program in classics at Duke University. The event was organized around Stroumsa’s visit. He gave a brief talk – about Clement of Alexandria, as it turned out – and then we had a light dinner and social, academic conversation. He and I had never met before, but we knew each other’s work. I told him I was writing a book on lost Christianities, and told him I had just completed a draft of my chapter on the Secret Gospel of Mark. To my astonishment – and everyone else’s – Stroumsa told me that years ago he had tracked down the book and seen it with his own eyes. He could confirm that the letter was in the final pages (which, of course, no one doubted). But he suspects that no one will ever see the letter again. I immediately stopped drinking and started listening . . .

Charles Hedrick became involved in the search for the manuscript around 1990, and he summarized what he was able to ascertain about its fate in an article published a decade later:

Hedrick, Charles W., and Nikolaos Olympiou. “Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses.” The Fourth R 13, no. 5 (2000): 3-16.

In this article, Hedrick reports:

• In 1977, Archimandrite (an honorary title for a priest in the hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox church) Melito tranfered the 1646 Voss edition of the letters of Ignatius (still containing the letter of Clement) from the monastery at Mar Saba to the Patriarchate Library in Jerusalem.
• Later in 1977, Father Kallistos Dourvas (the Patriarchate librarian at the time) removed the Clement manuscript from the Voss book to photograph it. However, he did not separate the Clement manuscript from the Voss book. He insists that the two were kept together at least until the end of his tenure as librarian in 1990.
• In 1980, Professor Thomas Talley of General Theological Seminary in New York was informed about the transfer by both Melito (the deliverer) and Kallistos (the receiver). However, he was told the manuscript was not available for viewing.
• In 1990, Charles Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Athens, visited the monastery at Mar Saba and were told the same thing Talley had been: the manuscript had been moved to the Patriarchate library.
• In 1992, Hedrick and Olympiou visited the Patriarchate Library and were told that the manuscript could not be located.
• In December 1998 and June 2000, Olympiou viewed the 1646 Voss edition of the letters of Ignatius, but the letter of Clement was no longer in the book.

Between 1990 and 2000, Olympiou obtained new color photographs of the Clement manuscript (published with this article) from Kallistos and photographs of the Voss book from Bishop Aristarchos, the librarian of the Patriarchate.

Hedrick concludes, with justification, that “the letter of Clement was indeed at one time included in the back of the Voss edition.” A small discoloration of the pages visible in the photos of both the Voss book and the Clement manuscript indicate clearly that the Clement manuscript was once a part of the Voss book, and there is no reason to doubt the corroborating testimonies of Melito and Kallistos.

The controversial letter attributed to Clement definitely did exist, and it was once located where Smith said it was.

But there remain many unanswered questions? Did Smith write the write the letter on the blank pages in the Voss book himself? Who separated the Voss book from the Clement manuscript? Why did that person do so?

And, most importantly, WHERE IS THE CLEMENT MANUSCRIPT NOW?!

Certainly the Secret Gospel of Mark publicized by the late Morton Smith has generated its share of controversy. At this juncture, has that controversy settled into a basic consensus regarding its authenticity?

The simple answer, as far as I can tell, is: no.

There are still scholars who believe the Secret Gospel of Mark is an authentic ancient document known to Clement of Alexandria in the late second century, and there are those who believe it to be a modern forgery. Of course, both sides claim to represent the majority opinion.

Since I know that this controversial text continues to be of significant interest to many, I have decided to add a few more entries to the list of publications dealing with it in the Other Early Christian Gospels Resource Center. I had originally intended to deal with the whole matter in a single post, but there is too much background information that needs to be provided and there are too many publications to list. I will have to address the issue of Secret Mark in series of posts.

The background of the situation is as follows. A scholar named Morton Smith claimed that he discovered a long-lost letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria (late second century) at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Hagios Sabbas (Arabic, “Mar Saba”) near Jerusalem during the summer of 1958. The text of the letter had been handwritten on three blank pages at the back of a 1646 edition of Isaac Voss’s Epistulae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris (a notable published edition of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, which were originally written during the first decade of the second century).

The letter, which is addressed to an otherwise unknown Theodore, describes and quotes two passages from a “Secret Gospel of Mark.” According to the letter, The Secret Gospel of Mark was an expanded version of the New Testament Gospel of Mark. Peter’s disciple Mark wrote the well-known Gospel of Mark primarily for new converts to the Christian faith during his time in Rome. After Peter was martyred there, Mark departed for Alexandria where he wrote “a more spiritual gospel.” This Secret Gospel was intended for use only by those who had already attained significant spiritual growth. Mark, the letter says, “left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.”

Sensing the controversial nature of the letter, Smith spent 15 years preparing to publish about it. In 1973, he released two books simultaneously. One was written for a scholarly audience:

Smith, Morton. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark. Cambridge, Mass.,: Harvard University Press, 1973.

The other was of a more popular nature:

Smith, Morton. The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

The publication of Smith’s books did indeed cause quite an uproar. It wasn’t long before charges that the letter providing information about the Secret Gospel of Mark was a modern forgery began to circulate. At the time, Smith quipped to the New York Times, “Thank God I have tenure.” Until his death in 1991, he defended the authenticity of the letter and maintained that he had discovered it just as described in his books.

A very helpful article that succinctly describes Smith’s discovery and summarizes the often heated debate over Secret Mark between 1973 and 1995 is:

Eyer, Shawn. “The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark.” Alexandria: The Journal for Western Cosmological Traditions 3 (1995): 103-29.