The Lastest on the Morton Smith: Secret Mark Discussion
Last year I put up a couple of blog posts dealing with the charges leveled by some scholars and journalists that the late Morton Smith of Columbia University, concocted his entire claim to have found fragments of portions of what he called a “Secret Gospel of Mark” embedded in a letter of Clement of Alexandria and in fact forged the document himself: see “The Latest on the Secret Gospel of Mark” and “Vindicating Morton Smith.” Stephen C. Carlson, in particular, in his 2005 book titled The Gospel Hoax: Morton’s Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark, placed a lot of weight on his analysis the handwriting in the letter, claiming that it showed every mark of the careful imitative hand of a forger, not the natural flowing cursive of the 18th century scribe that supposedly copied the manuscript Smith claimed he discovered at Mar Saba in the late 1950s.
I consider these forgery charges to be utterly baseless, and frankly, slanderous, and I am pleased to note that Roger Viklund has just recently published a very persuasive paper, “Tremors, or Just an Optical Illusion? A Further Evaluation of Carlson’s Handwriting Analysis” which you can read on-line here. There is also shorter summary blog post by Viklund provided by Timo S. Paananen here with some comments and responses worth reading as well–particularly Stephan Huller’s humor!
Since my own evaluation of the matter is partly based on regard for Smith as a personal friend and esteemed scholar I am pleased to have clearer heads than mine carrying on the discussion.
For those new to this discussion I should, however, point out once more that whether Smith’s letter of Clement is forged or authentic says nothing about how one might evaluate Smith’s theories regarding the letter and its quotations attributed to a lost “Gospel of Mark,” or what relationship so-called “Secret Mark” might have with our New Testament Gospel of Mark.
