Morton Smith
Encyclopedia
Morton Smith was an American
professor of ancient history at Columbia University
. He is best known for his controversial discovery of the Mar Saba letter
, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria
containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark
, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba
in 1958. This letter fragment has had many names, from The Secret Gospel through The Mar Saba Fragment and the Theodoros.
and the Harvard Divinity School
, a Ph.D.
from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Th.D. in theology from Harvard Divinity School
. He taught at Brown University
and Drew University
and then he became a teacher at Columbia University
in 1957. He became professor emeritus in 1985 and continued as a lecturer in religion until 1990. He died of heart failure on July 11, 1991 in New York City
.
Morton Smith was well-known for his sharp wit when it came to religious debates. He made regular scholarly contributions in many fields, including but not limited to: Greek and Latin classics, New Testament, Patristics, second-temple Judaism, and rabbinics. Despite the numerous claims of forgery against Smith's finding, Smith was seen as a dedicated scholar when it came to research. He was said to have devoted fifteen years of his life to just studying his finding of the Secret Gospel.
(c.150 - c. 215) while cataloging documents there in the summer 1958. The letter, according to Smith, had been bound into the endpapers of Isaac Vossius
' 1646 printed edition of the works of Ignatius of Antioch
. Modern discussion of the letter concludes that the paper bound in was also 17th Century. Smith subsequently published a second book for a popular audience in 1974.
group who were citing a libertine version of the Gospel of Mark. The bulk of the letter is spent acknowledging the fact that there is indeed a "secret Gospel of Mark," but Clement's version of this gospel is not the version used by the Carpocratians. According to the letter, the Carpocratians had altered the gospel significantly. In particular, the letter quotes "Secret Mark" to the effect that Jesus had a practice of initiating his male followers into the "mystery of the Kingdom of God." But, Clement insists, "Secret Mark" does not include the phrase "naked male with naked male."
, but a secret letter to his disciple Theodore. But right from the start, some scholars voiced the opinion that the letter is not authentic, and that it was either an ancient or medieval forgery. In 1975, Quentin Quesnell published a lengthy article in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly
, where he even suggested that Smith had forged the document himself, and then photographed his alleged forgery. An incensed Smith issued a furious rebuttal, whereupon Quesnell disclaimed any personal accusations against Smith.
In 1985 in his Strange Tales Per Beskow
of Lund
cast doubt on the Gospel, Morton Smith responded by threatening to sue the publisher, Fortress Press of Philadelphia, "for a million dollars" and the publisher amended the offending paragraph.
Scholars such as Philip Jenkins and Robert M. Price
pointed out parallels between The Secret Gospel of Mark and a novel by James H. Hunter
published in 1940 entitled The Mystery of Mar Saba. Craig A. Evans
(2008) concludes that "The upshot of the whole matter is that Smith's Mar Saba Clementine is almost certainly a hoax and Smith is almost certainly the hoaxer. No research into the Gospels and the historical Jesus should take Smith's document seriously." Craig A. Evans
also notes that unusually the copy of Voss' edition of Ignatius had the note "Smith 65" inked into the copy, and there was no record of it having been in the library's catalogue before.
In fact Smith's evidence on this point is incorrect, since while the catalogue may not have been updated in 1941 the library had a catalogue from 1923, in which the copy of Voss' 1646 edition of Ignatius is not listed, indicating that the book could only have entered the library after 1923. Further the Voss' edition of Ignatius is missing from the most likely point of entre, the list of 263 books bequeathed to the monastery by Patriarch Nicodemus in 1887 which includes the 1715 Oxford edition of Clement, but makes no mention of a 1646 Amsterdam edition of Ignatius. So, according to Smith, during his sabbatical Smith undertook the task of cataloging the Mar Saba library. It was during his time spent cataloging the library that Smith discovered, written on pages at the end of a book attributed to the seventeenth-century Amsterdam printer Isaac Voss
. Ironically this book contained letters from the proto-Orthodox bishop Ignatius of Antioch. Letters which Voss had collected into this rare volume, with the purported idea that it was a collection of legitimate letters penned by Ignatius, significant at the time because there had been many letters in circulation forged in the name of Ignatius. This fact has been a player in the critical studying of Smith's discovery, as Smith's reputation for sharp-witted cynical humor lends well to the idea that he may have intentionally chosen this volume in which to forge his "discovery." (Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities. Oxford, 2003.)
Smith reported he found the manuscript in the Mar Saba
monastery in 1958, photographed it carefully, and then left the book where he found it. He first announced the discovery publicly in 1960 but, due to various delays, his main publications on the subject did not come out until 1973. When people asked him where the original manuscript was, he replied, "On the third floor of the library, where I found it." Four scholars found the manuscript there and saw it in 1976. They were Professors David Flusser and Shlomo Pines, both of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Archimandrite Meliton of the Patriarchate, and G.A.G. Stroumsa, at the time a Harvard graduate student (Stroumsa recounted this story in 2003).
Then the chief monk got involved, and is reported to have transferred the book to the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem, and the librarian at the Patriarchal Library removed the manuscripts from the end-papers of the book where Smith had found it, took more photographs.
In 2010 the Biblical Archaeology Review
hired a Greek forensic handwriting expert, Venetia Anastasopoulou, and a Greek paleographer, Agamemnon Tselikas, to assess the document. The forensic expert Anastasopoulou, an expert witness in many Greek court cases, compared the surviving photographs of the manuscript with known examples of Smith's own handwriting, including notes he wrote in Greek, and concluded that it was unlikely that Smith could have so successfully imitated the 17th or 18th Century handwriting of the letter. The paleographer Tselikas, director of the Center for History and Paleography of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, concluded that the handwriting of the Clement letter does not match that of any known scribe at Mar Saba monastery in the 17th or 18th Centuries, and in fact indicates 20th Century forgery or imitation of 18th-century Greek script. Tselikas concludes that Smith either forged the letter or had someone else do it for him before placing the 17th Century edition of Ignatius into the Mar Saba library.
The controversy is ongoing and far from settled, although there is no lack of scholars on both sides already claiming victory.
The letter appeared provisionally with qualification in a German edition of Clement's works in 1980.
to reconstruct the social background to the Old Testament, Smith advanced the proposal that two parties had vied for supremacy in ancient Israel, the first composed of those which worshipped many gods of which Yahweh
was chief, while the other, the "Yahweh-alone" faction, was largely the party of the priests of Jerusalem, who wished to establish a monopoly for Yahweh. In monarchic Judah
the Yahweh-alone party were a permanent minority; although sometimes able to win over a king like Josiah
to their cause. Meanwhile, the population at large, including most of the kings, remained stubbornly polytheistic, worshipping the same gods as their neighbours in Moab
, Ammon
etc. In the post-Exilic period the idea of Yahweh as the only god of Israel finally triumphed, but a new division emerged, between the separatists, who wished the Jews to remain strictly apart from their neighbours, (this separation being defined in terms of purity), and the assimilationists who wished for normal relations with them. Ultimately, by the late Persian/early Hellenistic period, the purists won, the modern version of the Hebrew bible
was written, and a recognisably modern Judaism emerged.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
professor of ancient history at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He is best known for his controversial discovery of the Mar Saba letter
Mar Saba letter
The Mar Saba Letter is an epistle attributed to Clement of Alexandria and discovered by Morton Smith in 1958. It contains the only known references to the Secret Gospel of Mark.-Discovery and disappearance:...
, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark
Secret Gospel of Mark
The Secret Gospel of Mark is a putative non-canonical Christian gospel known exclusively from the Mar Saba letter, which describes Secret Mark as an expanded version of the canonical Gospel of Mark with some episodes elucidated, written for an initiated elite.In 1973 Morton Smith , professor of...
, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba
Mar Saba
The Great Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified, known in Arabic as Mar Saba , is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank east of Bethlehem. The traditional date for the founding of the monastery by Saint Sabas of Cappadocia is the year 483 and today houses around 20...
in 1958. This letter fragment has had many names, from The Secret Gospel through The Mar Saba Fragment and the Theodoros.
Biography
Smith was born in Philadelphia on May 29, 1915. He received his bachelor's degrees from Harvard CollegeHarvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
and the Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...
, a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Th.D. in theology from Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...
. He taught at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
and Drew University
Drew University
Drew University is a private university located in Madison, New Jersey.Originally established as the Drew Theological Seminary in 1867, the university later expanded to include an undergraduate liberal arts college in 1928 and commenced a program of graduate studies in 1955...
and then he became a teacher at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1957. He became professor emeritus in 1985 and continued as a lecturer in religion until 1990. He died of heart failure on July 11, 1991 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Morton Smith was well-known for his sharp wit when it came to religious debates. He made regular scholarly contributions in many fields, including but not limited to: Greek and Latin classics, New Testament, Patristics, second-temple Judaism, and rabbinics. Despite the numerous claims of forgery against Smith's finding, Smith was seen as a dedicated scholar when it came to research. He was said to have devoted fifteen years of his life to just studying his finding of the Secret Gospel.
Mar Saba letter
Discovery of the letter
Mar Saba is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank east of Bethlehem. In 1973 Morton Smith published a book in which he claimed to have discovered a previously unknown letter of Clement of AlexandriaClement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
(c.150 - c. 215) while cataloging documents there in the summer 1958. The letter, according to Smith, had been bound into the endpapers of Isaac Vossius
Isaac Vossius
Isaak Vossius, sometimes anglicised Isaac Voss was a Dutch scholar and manuscript collector.-Life:...
' 1646 printed edition of the works of Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology...
. Modern discussion of the letter concludes that the paper bound in was also 17th Century. Smith subsequently published a second book for a popular audience in 1974.
Contents
The letter congratulates Theodore on silencing the Carpocratians, hereticalHeresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
group who were citing a libertine version of the Gospel of Mark. The bulk of the letter is spent acknowledging the fact that there is indeed a "secret Gospel of Mark," but Clement's version of this gospel is not the version used by the Carpocratians. According to the letter, the Carpocratians had altered the gospel significantly. In particular, the letter quotes "Secret Mark" to the effect that Jesus had a practice of initiating his male followers into the "mystery of the Kingdom of God." But, Clement insists, "Secret Mark" does not include the phrase "naked male with naked male."
Accusations of forgery
The Mar Saba letter was initially received as a notable discovery as it was not only a previously unknown letter written by Clement of AlexandriaClement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
, but a secret letter to his disciple Theodore. But right from the start, some scholars voiced the opinion that the letter is not authentic, and that it was either an ancient or medieval forgery. In 1975, Quentin Quesnell published a lengthy article in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly is a refereed theological journal published by the Catholic Biblical Association of America....
, where he even suggested that Smith had forged the document himself, and then photographed his alleged forgery. An incensed Smith issued a furious rebuttal, whereupon Quesnell disclaimed any personal accusations against Smith.
In 1985 in his Strange Tales Per Beskow
Per Beskow
Per E. Beskow is a Swedish biblical scholar. In 1985 his Strange Tales was one of the first books to cast doubt on Morton Smith's Secret Gospel of Mark. Smith responded by threatening to sue Fortress Press.-References:...
of Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...
cast doubt on the Gospel, Morton Smith responded by threatening to sue the publisher, Fortress Press of Philadelphia, "for a million dollars" and the publisher amended the offending paragraph.
Scholars such as Philip Jenkins and Robert M. Price
Robert M. Price
Robert McNair Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including...
pointed out parallels between The Secret Gospel of Mark and a novel by James H. Hunter
James H. Hunter
James Hogg Hunter was a Canadian author of early evangelical Christian thrillers, notably The Mystery of Mar Saba . Hunter was the editor of the Evangelical Christian magazine, published in Toronto.-The Mystery of Mar Saba :...
published in 1940 entitled The Mystery of Mar Saba. Craig A. Evans
Craig A. Evans
Craig Alan Evans is a biblical scholar and author.He earned his Bachelor of Arts in history and philosophy from Claremont McKenna College, a Master of Divinity from Western Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and his Master of Arts and Ph.D...
(2008) concludes that "The upshot of the whole matter is that Smith's Mar Saba Clementine is almost certainly a hoax and Smith is almost certainly the hoaxer. No research into the Gospels and the historical Jesus should take Smith's document seriously." Craig A. Evans
Craig A. Evans
Craig Alan Evans is a biblical scholar and author.He earned his Bachelor of Arts in history and philosophy from Claremont McKenna College, a Master of Divinity from Western Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and his Master of Arts and Ph.D...
also notes that unusually the copy of Voss' edition of Ignatius had the note "Smith 65" inked into the copy, and there was no record of it having been in the library's catalogue before.
History of the manuscript
In 1941, Smith, at age 26, was on a trip to the holy land with the Harvard Divinity School. Due to issues relating to the war, he was stuck in Jerusalem, where he made acquaintances with a leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, who gave him a tour of various places, one of which happened to be the Mar Saba monastery. While there, Smith was given access to the libraries of the monastery. Years later, in 1958, having landed a teaching career at Columbia, Smith was awarded a sabbatical. With his sabbatical, Smith decided to return to Mar Saba, having since become very interested in the Mar Saba library. He recalled that during his first visit, the library had been a terrible mess, and according to Smith no one had bothered to catalog it.In fact Smith's evidence on this point is incorrect, since while the catalogue may not have been updated in 1941 the library had a catalogue from 1923, in which the copy of Voss' 1646 edition of Ignatius is not listed, indicating that the book could only have entered the library after 1923. Further the Voss' edition of Ignatius is missing from the most likely point of entre, the list of 263 books bequeathed to the monastery by Patriarch Nicodemus in 1887 which includes the 1715 Oxford edition of Clement, but makes no mention of a 1646 Amsterdam edition of Ignatius. So, according to Smith, during his sabbatical Smith undertook the task of cataloging the Mar Saba library. It was during his time spent cataloging the library that Smith discovered, written on pages at the end of a book attributed to the seventeenth-century Amsterdam printer Isaac Voss
Isaac Vossius
Isaak Vossius, sometimes anglicised Isaac Voss was a Dutch scholar and manuscript collector.-Life:...
. Ironically this book contained letters from the proto-Orthodox bishop Ignatius of Antioch. Letters which Voss had collected into this rare volume, with the purported idea that it was a collection of legitimate letters penned by Ignatius, significant at the time because there had been many letters in circulation forged in the name of Ignatius. This fact has been a player in the critical studying of Smith's discovery, as Smith's reputation for sharp-witted cynical humor lends well to the idea that he may have intentionally chosen this volume in which to forge his "discovery." (Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities. Oxford, 2003.)
Smith reported he found the manuscript in the Mar Saba
Mar Saba
The Great Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified, known in Arabic as Mar Saba , is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank east of Bethlehem. The traditional date for the founding of the monastery by Saint Sabas of Cappadocia is the year 483 and today houses around 20...
monastery in 1958, photographed it carefully, and then left the book where he found it. He first announced the discovery publicly in 1960 but, due to various delays, his main publications on the subject did not come out until 1973. When people asked him where the original manuscript was, he replied, "On the third floor of the library, where I found it." Four scholars found the manuscript there and saw it in 1976. They were Professors David Flusser and Shlomo Pines, both of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Archimandrite Meliton of the Patriarchate, and G.A.G. Stroumsa, at the time a Harvard graduate student (Stroumsa recounted this story in 2003).
Then the chief monk got involved, and is reported to have transferred the book to the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem, and the librarian at the Patriarchal Library removed the manuscripts from the end-papers of the book where Smith had found it, took more photographs.
Arguments for and against forgery
There are, as of 2008, three relatively new books in print which deal with the allegations of forgery: Stephen C. Carlson's The Gospel Hoax, Baylor University Press, 2005; Peter Jeffery's The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled, Yale University Press, 2006 (both arguing for forgery by Smith), and Scott G. Brown's Mark's Other Gospel, Wilfrid Laurier, 2005 (defending Smith).In 2010 the Biblical Archaeology Review
Biblical Archaeology Review
Biblical Archaeology Review is a publication that seeks to connect the academic study of archaeology to a broad general audience seeking to understand the world of the Bible and the Near and Middle East . Covering both the Old and New Testaments, BAR presents the latest discoveries and...
hired a Greek forensic handwriting expert, Venetia Anastasopoulou, and a Greek paleographer, Agamemnon Tselikas, to assess the document. The forensic expert Anastasopoulou, an expert witness in many Greek court cases, compared the surviving photographs of the manuscript with known examples of Smith's own handwriting, including notes he wrote in Greek, and concluded that it was unlikely that Smith could have so successfully imitated the 17th or 18th Century handwriting of the letter. The paleographer Tselikas, director of the Center for History and Paleography of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, concluded that the handwriting of the Clement letter does not match that of any known scribe at Mar Saba monastery in the 17th or 18th Centuries, and in fact indicates 20th Century forgery or imitation of 18th-century Greek script. Tselikas concludes that Smith either forged the letter or had someone else do it for him before placing the 17th Century edition of Ignatius into the Mar Saba library.
The controversy is ongoing and far from settled, although there is no lack of scholars on both sides already claiming victory.
The letter appeared provisionally with qualification in a German edition of Clement's works in 1980.
Contribution to Old Testament studies
Smith's contribution to Old Testament studies was contained in his "Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament" (1971). Using form criticismForm criticism
Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism that classifies units of scripture by literary pattern and that attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. Form criticism seeks to determine a unit's original form and the historical context of the literary tradition. Hermann...
to reconstruct the social background to the Old Testament, Smith advanced the proposal that two parties had vied for supremacy in ancient Israel, the first composed of those which worshipped many gods of which Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
was chief, while the other, the "Yahweh-alone" faction, was largely the party of the priests of Jerusalem, who wished to establish a monopoly for Yahweh. In monarchic Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
the Yahweh-alone party were a permanent minority; although sometimes able to win over a king like Josiah
Josiah
Josiah or Yoshiyahu or Joshua was a king of Judah who instituted major reforms. Josiah is credited by most historians with having established or compiled important Jewish scriptures during the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule.Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after...
to their cause. Meanwhile, the population at large, including most of the kings, remained stubbornly polytheistic, worshipping the same gods as their neighbours in Moab
Moab
Moab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...
, Ammon
Ammon
Ammon , also referred to as the Ammonites and children of Ammon, was an ancient nation located east of the Jordan River, Gilead, and the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan. The chief city of the country was Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon, site of the modern city of Amman, Jordan's capital...
etc. In the post-Exilic period the idea of Yahweh as the only god of Israel finally triumphed, but a new division emerged, between the separatists, who wished the Jews to remain strictly apart from their neighbours, (this separation being defined in terms of purity), and the assimilationists who wished for normal relations with them. Ultimately, by the late Persian/early Hellenistic period, the purists won, the modern version of the Hebrew bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
was written, and a recognisably modern Judaism emerged.
Publications
Books:- Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels (1951)
- The Ancient Greeks (1960)
- Heroes and Gods: Spiritual Biographies in Antiquity [in collaboration with Moses Hadas] (1965)
- Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (1971)
- Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (1973)
- The Secret Gospel (1973)
- The Ancient History of Western Civilization [with Elias Bickerman] (1976)
- Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? is a 1978 book by Morton Smith arguing that the historical Jesus was a magician who "sprang from a Galilean strain of Semitic paganism" .-Background:...
(1978) - Hope and History (1980)
- Studies in the Cult of Yahweh. Vol. 1. Historical Method, Ancient Israel, Ancient Judaism. Vol. 2. New Testament, Early Christianity, and Magic [edited by Shaye J. D. Cohen] (1996)
- What the Bible Really Says (edited with R. Joseph HoffmannR. Joseph HoffmannR. Joseph Hoffmann is a historian of religion, and was chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, Associate Editor of the journal Free Inquiry from 2003-2009. He was founding editor of CSER's Review, CAESAR: A Journal of Religion and Human Values...
(1992)).
Awards
- Lionel TrillingLionel TrillingLionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
Book Award for Jesus the Magician - Ralph Marcus Centennial Award of the Society of Biblical Literature
External links
- Is the Secret Gospel of Mark a Modern Forgery Based on a Cheesy Christian Novel?
- This website by Wieland Willker contains Smith's complete English translation of the manuscript, his original photos of it, the Greek text, and plenty of background material
- This website (pages from a book; PDF format) contains much more information about the physical history of the manuscript, and the four scholars who actually saw it. In addition, it tells us that the second set of photographs (done by the Jerusalem library) were in color, and have been published
- Second Thoughts on the Secret Gospel, by Robert M Price
- Secret Mark, by Hedrick and Olympiou (with color plates)
- Factualizing the Folklore: abstract of Brown's article
- "Morton Smith's translation of Hekhalot Rabbati"
- Did Morton Smith Forge ‘Secret Mark’? A Handwriting Expert Weighs In Biblical Archaeology Society