The Secret Gospel of Mark is a putative non-canonical

New Testament apocrypha

The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...

 Christian gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

 known exclusively from 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:...

, which describes Secret Mark as an expanded version of the canonical Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

 with some episodes elucidated, written for an initiated elite.

In 1973 Morton Smith

Morton Smith

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...

 (May 29, 1915 – July 11, 1991), professor of ancient history at Columbia University, claimed to have found a previously unknown letter of 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...

 in the monastery of 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...

, on the West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

, transcribed into the endpapers of a 17th-century 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...

. The original manuscript was subsequently transferred to another monastery and the manuscript is believed to be lost. Further research has relied upon photographs and copies, including those made by Smith himself.

The revelation of the letter caused a sensation at the time, but was soon met with accusations of forgery. Subsequent study, including handwriting analysis of higher quality color photographs of the document first published in 2000, revealed more possible evidence of forgery, leading scholars such as 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...

 and Emanuel Tov

Emanuel Tov

Emanuel Tov is Professor in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, corresponding to Fellow of the British Academy , since 2006.-Biography:...

 to conclude the work is a hoax, with Smith being the most likely perpetrator. However, while an increasing number of scholars have been convinced by this view, the forgery explanation is not universally accepted, and debate continues about the authenticity of the Mar Saba letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark.

Discovery of the manuscript

In 1973 Morton Smith

Morton Smith

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...

 published a book on a previously unknown letter of 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...

. He stated that, while cataloging documents at the ancient Greek Orthodox monastery of 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 the summer 1958, he discovered the text of the letter handwritten 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...

. It presented a letter of 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...

 to one Theodore, who he seeks to warn against a Gospel of Mark falsified by the gnostic sect of Carpocrations. Clement concedes that it gives a 'more spiritual' version of Mark and quotes from it. This letter is consequently referred to as the Mar Saba letter. Smith also published a second book for the popular audience in 1974.

The authenticity of the Mar Saba letter itself has long been the subject of controversy. The manuscript and the book where it was found have disappeared; all that remains are black and white photographs made by Smith in 1958 and color photographs by a librarian ca 1976-1977. The copy of the 1646 edition of Ignatius into which the letter was allegedly bound has also gone missing.

Yet, in 1976, Guy G. Stroumsa and three other scholars relocated the document. The book was subsequently taken from Mar Saba to the library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem in 1977, where the letter (i.e. the manuscript) was cut out of the book (on the back pages of which it was inscribed) as part of the library's scheme to house such material
separately. It was then photographed, by librarian Kallistos Dourvas.

The manuscript cannot now be relocated; the second photo series were only published in 2000. As of January 2009, the letter is only documented in the two sets of photographs. The ink and fiber were never subjected to examination.

Content according to the Mar Saba letter

In the Mar Saba letter, the Secret Gospel of Mark is described as a second "more spiritual" version of the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

 composed by the evangelist himself. Its purpose was supposedly to encourage knowledge (gnosis

Gnosis

Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge . In the context of the English language gnosis generally refers to the word's meaning within the spheres of Christian mysticism, Mystery religions and Gnosticism where it signifies 'spiritual knowledge' in the sense of mystical enlightenment.-Related...

) among more advanced Christians, and it was said to be in use in liturgies in Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

.

Fragments

The letter includes two excerpts from the Secret Gospel. The first is to be inserted, Clement states, between what are verses 34 and 35 of Mark 10:

And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.

The second excerpt is very brief and is to be inserted, according to Clement, in Mark 10:46:

And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them.

Clement's commentary

While Clement endorses these two passages as authentic to the Secret Gospel of Mark, he rejects as a Carpocratian

Carpocrates

Carpocrates of Alexandria was the founder of an early Gnostic sect from the first half of the 2nd century. As with many Gnostic sects, we know of the Carpocratians only through the writings of the Church Fathers, principally Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria. As the former strongly...

 corruption the words "naked man with naked man".

Very shortly after the second excerpt - as Clement begins to explain the passages - the letter breaks off. However, just before that, Clement says, "But the many other things about which you wrote both seem to be and are falsifications."

These two excerpts comprise the entirety of the Secret Gospel material. No separate text of the secret gospel is known to survive.

Morton Smith's analysis

Through detailed linguistic investigations Smith argued that it could be a question of a genuine discovery of a letter by Clement. That the two quotations go back to the Aramaic original version of Mark, which served as a source for the canonical Mark but also the Gospel of Saint John. And that Jesus baptises the resurrected dead man in a possible homosexual act. Smith finally argued his view that the historical Jesus was a magus possessed by the Spirit. The libertinism of Jesus was then later suppressed by James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul.

Other views

Early on, there have been suggestions that, while Mar Saba manuscript may indeed be a genuine old manuscript, it could well contain an ancient or medieval forgery, based on canonical texts. Nor is it established whether the letter derives from Clement of Alexandria or not. Linguistic indications speak for authenticity. However, differences of substance compare with Clement's other writings have been noted. The text contains none of the errors typical in the manuscript tradition. Charles Murgia (1975) followed Quesnell's allegations of modern forgery with further arguments.

F. F. Bruce

F. F. Bruce

Frederick Fyvie Bruce was a Biblical scholar and one of the founders of the modern evangelical understanding of the Bible...

, writing in 1974, saw the story of the young man of Bethany clumsily based on the raising of Lazarus in the Gospel of John. Thus he sees the Secret Mark narrative as derivative, and denies that it could be either the source to the story of Lazarus or an independent parallel.

N. T. Wright wrote that most scholars who accept the text as genuine see in the Secret Gospel of Mark a considerably later gnostic adaptation of Mark in a gnostic

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

 direction.

Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester is a German-born American scholar of the New Testament and currently Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School. He teaches courses at both the Divinity School and at Harvard Extension School, and was the...

 and Ron Cameron have argued that Secret Mark preceded the canonical Mark, and that the canonical Mark is in fact an abbreviation of Secret Mark. This would explain the narrative discontinuity above. John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan is an Irish-American religious scholar and former Catholic priest known for co-founding the Jesus Seminar. Crossan is a major figure in the fields of biblical archaeology, anthropology and New Testament textual and higher criticism. He is also a lecturer who has appeared in...

 has also been supportive of these views of Koester: "I consider that canonical Mark is a very deliberate revision of Secret Mark." More on the possible connection of Secret Mark to the Synoptic problem can be found in The Secret Gospel of Mark and the Synoptic Problem

The Secret Gospel of Mark and the Synoptic Problem

The Secret Gospel of Mark and the Synoptic Problem examines how the Secret Gospel of Mark, said to have been discovered by Morton Smith, relates to the Synoptic Gospels. Helmut Koester hypothesized this relationship, specifically in reference to the formation of “Canonical” Mark. This article will...

.

In addition, there has also been speculation that (if the letter is authentic) Clement may have been mistaken in his view that "Secret Mark" was a longer version of the Gospel of Mark written specifically for the spiritually elite. Instead, it may be the case that "Secret Mark" was actually the original version of the Gospel of Mark. If this scenario is the case, the excerpts Clement claims are additions to the Gospel were actually part of the original, but were edited out by scribes (possibly because of the perception of homoeroticism). Since the only knowledge we have of "Secret Mark" is from the Mar Saba letter, it is currently impossible to know if Clement's view of "Secret Mark" as an extension of the canonical Gospel of Mark was accurate, or if "Secret Mark" was actually the original version of the Gospel of Mark.

Even if the letter is genuine it tells us nothing more than that an expanded version of Mark was in existence in Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

 in AD 170.

Forgery?

It is believed that the first scholar to suggest in print that Secret Mark was a modern forgery, possibly implicating Smith, was Quentin Quesnell, in his 1975 article.

The view of Secret Mark and the Mar Saba manuscript as modern forgeries was promoted after Morton Smith's death by Jacob Neusner

Jacob Neusner

Jacob Neusner is an American academic scholar of Judaism who lives in Rhinebeck, New York.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.Neusner is often celebrated...

, a specialist in ancient Judaism. Neusner was Morton Smith's student and admirer but, later, in 1984, there was a very public falling out between them after Smith publicly denounced his former student's academic competence. Neusner subsequently described Secret Mark as the "forgery of the century". Yet Neusner never wrote any detailed analysis of Secret Mark, or an explanation of why he thought it was a forgery.

Some scholars have discounted Smith's claims because, as it was believed, the copy of the letter had been seen by no scholar other than Smith. 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...

 remarks that the 1646 edition of Ignatius had "Smith 65" written into it, and that there was no record of the book having been at the library prior to Morton Smith's visit.
Stephen C. Carlson writes that the academic reception of Secret Mark is represented by Larry Hurtado as:

Furthermore, as a good many other scholars have concluded, it is inadvisable to rest too much on Secret Mark. The alleged letter of Clement that quotes it might be a forgery from more recent centuries. If the letter is genuine, the Secret Mark to which it refers may be at most an ancient but secondary edition of Mark produced in the second century by some group seeking to promote its own esoteric interests.

In 2001, scholar Philip Jenkins drew attention to a popular novel by James Hunter entitled The Mystery of Mar Saba, that first appeared in 1940. This novel presents some unusual parallels to the events associated with Mar Saba MS, that have unfolded in real life after 1958. Later, 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...

 also drew attention to this novel. In 2007, musicologist Peter Jeffery also published a book accusing Morton Smith of forgery arguing that Smith wrote the Mar Saba document with the purpose of "creat(ing) the impression that Jesus practised homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

". Some wonder if this accusation was made on the grounds that Smith himself was a homosexual, and had a well-established reputation as a sharp-witted cynic.

In 2005, writer Stephen Carlson published The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark, in which he spells out his case that Morton Smith, himself, was both the author and the scribe of Mar Saba manuscript. When Carlson examined the photographs supplied by Smith, he claimed to observe a "forger's tremor." Thus, according to Carlson the letters had not actually been written at all, but drawn with shaky pen lines and with lifts of the pen in the middle of strokes. Carlson also claims that his comparisons with Morton Smith's typical rendering of Greek letters (such as in his own correspondence and notes) reveal that the unusual formation of the letters theta and lambda in the Mar Saba text matched Smith's own peculiar formation of those letters. Yet these claims by Carlson have been, in their own turn, challenged by subsequent scholarly research, especially by Scott G. Brown

Scott G. Brown

Scott G. Brown Ph.D. is a scholar of Christian Origins, and teaches at the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. He has written the first about the Secret Gospel of Mark , which he believes is genuine...

 in numerous articles.

In 2010, two further handwriting analysis of the Mar Saba MS were undertaken by two Greek graphologists at the behest of 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...

. The first, Venetia Anastasopoulou, a forensic handwriting expert witness

Expert witness

An expert witness, professional witness or judicial expert is a witness, who by virtue of education, training, skill, or experience, is believed to have expertise and specialised knowledge in a particular subject beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may officially and legally...

 with experience in many Greek court cases, compared the Mar Saba photos with known samples of Morton Smith's Greek handwriting, and concluded that it was most probably not written by Morton Smith. However the second graphologist, Agamemnon Tselikas, a paleographer, director of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation

National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation

The National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation is a cultural foundation based in Athens founded in 1966. The Foundation was established under the administration of Georgios Mavros, as part of the 125th anniversary celebrations of the National Bank of Greece, which decided to create a cultural...

 and also of the Mediterranean Research Institute for Paleography, Bibliography and History of Texts, concluded it was a 20th century forgery of 18th century script, and that the most likely forger was either Smith or someone in Smith's employ.

Therefore it is still an open question if forgery is accepted, whether Smith had someone else forge the letter.

Lacunae and continuity

The two excerpts suggest resolutions to some puzzling passages in the canonical Mark.

The young man in the linen cloth

In Mark 14:51-52, a young man in a linen cloth is seized during Jesus' arrest, but he escapes at the cost of his clothing. This passage seems to have little to do with the rest of the narrative, and it has given cause to various interpretations. Often it is suggested that the young man is Mark himself. Some commentators believe that the boy was a stranger, who lived near the garden and, after being awakened, ran out, half-dressed, to see what all the noise was about (vv. 46-49). W. L. Lane thinks that Mark mentioned this episode in order to make it clear that "all (not only the disciples) fled, leaving Jesus alone in the custody of the police."

The same Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 word neaniskos

Neaniskos

Neaniskos is the Classic Greek word for "young man." It appears a total of eleven times in five of the books of the Greek New Testament,...

(young man) is used in both Secret Mark and at Mark 14:51. If we accept Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester is a German-born American scholar of the New Testament and currently Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School. He teaches courses at both the Divinity School and at Harvard Extension School, and was the...

's theory that the canonical Mark is a revision of Secret Mark, another explanation is possible: namely, that the ancient editor who deleted an earlier encounter of Jesus with such a young man in a cloth, then added this incident also involving a young man during Jesus' arrest.

There is another occurrence of neaniskos

Neaniskos

Neaniskos is the Classic Greek word for "young man." It appears a total of eleven times in five of the books of the Greek New Testament,...

in Mark, this time as a youth dressed in white at the tomb of Jesus (Mark 16:5). For this particular passage, there are also parallel passages in both Matthew and Luke, but neither of the other Synoptic Gospels use the word neaniskos. (In Matthew 28:2 it is "an angel of the Lord" dressed in white that appears and, in Luke 24:4, there are two "men" (Greek: andres)). Thus, it is also possible that all three of these occurrences of neaniskos in Mark and in Secret Mark are somehow related. The proponents of Secret Mark as a forgery, on the other hand, suggest that Secret Mark was created based on Mark 14:51 and 16:5.

Morton Smith indicates that in Clement's letter, the presentation of the young man in the linen cloth has homoerotic connotations. Following Mark 10:34, Clement writes in his letter, the story of Jesus raising the young man from the dead, who then loves Jesus and begs to stay with him. After six days, the young man comes to Jesus in the evening, clothed in nothing but a linen garment, and spends the night, during which time Jesus teaches him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

The authenticity of this passage has been called into question on the basis of biographical details about Morton Smith. Some speculate that the homoerotic overtones were included by Smith because he himself was a homosexual. Although this speculation may not be relevant, Smith's reluctance or inability to present the original document of Clement's letter for inspection has left room for forgery accusations. He made photographs of the document available, but that has not convinced many skeptics.

Lacuna in the trip to Jericho

The second excerpt fills in an apparent lacuna

Lacuna (manuscripts)

A lacunaPlural lacunae. From Latin lacūna , diminutive form of lacus . is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work...

 in Mark 10:46: "They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside."

The lack of any action in Jericho is interpreted by some as meaning that something has been lost from the text, and the second excerpt gives a brief encounter at this point.

Secret Mark and the Gospel of John

The story of the resurrection of the young man by Jesus in Secret Mark bears clear similarities to the story of the raising of Lazarus

Lazarus of Bethany

Lazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...

 in John’s Gospel (John 11:1-44), and this was already noted by Morton Smith.

Smith tried to demonstrate that the resurrection story in Secret Mark does not contain any of the secondary traits found in the parallel story in John 11, and that the story in John 11 is more theologically developed. He concluded that the Secret Mark version of the story contains an older, independent, and more reliable witness to the oral tradition.

Helmut Koester agrees with Smith that the two stories are very close,

"That it is, in fact, the same story is evident in the emphasis upon the love between Jesus and the man who was raised by him (cf. John 11:3, 5, 35-36), expressed twice in the additions of Secret Mark. Both stories are also located in Bethany

Bethany

Bethany, in the Bible, was the name of a village near Jerusalem - see Bethany - mentioned in the New Testament as the home of the siblings Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and, according to the Gospel of John, the site of a miracle in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead...

.

Further, Koester argues that the resurrection story in Secret Mark appears to be independent from that of John 11, and that the author of Secret Mark may have acquired it from some other source, possibly from the free tradition of stories about Jesus,

"But it is impossible that Secret Mark is dependent upon John 11. In its version of the story, there are no traces of the rather extensive Johannine redaction (proper names, motif of the delay of Jesus' travel, measurement of space and time, discourses of Jesus with his disciples and with Martha

Martha

Martha of Bethany is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem...

 and Mary). As to its form, Secret Mark represents a stage of development of the story that corresponds to the source used by John. The author evidently still had access to the free tradition of stories about Jesus, or perhaps to some older written collection of miracle stories."

Baptismal significance

Until recently, the opinion has been very common that the raising of the young man, portrayed in Secret Mark, has primarily a baptismal significance, as a sort of a 'baptism of initiation.' This was the opinion that Smith himself originally proposed. Along these lines, the statement "Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God" was typically read as a reference to the rites of baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

.

But recently, there has been some debate about this matter. For example, Scott G. Brown

Scott G. Brown

Scott G. Brown Ph.D. is a scholar of Christian Origins, and teaches at the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. He has written the first about the Secret Gospel of Mark , which he believes is genuine...

 (while defending the authenticity of Secret Mark) disagrees with Smith that the scene is a reference to baptism. Thus, he says, "[T]here is no mention of water or depiction of a baptism." He adds that "...the young man’s linen sheet has baptismal connotations, but the text discourages every attempt to perceive Jesus literally baptizing him." S. Carlson seems to agree with Brown. The idea that Jesus practiced baptism is absent from the synoptic gospels, though it is introduced in the Gospel of John

Gospel of John

The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

.

According to Brown, for Clement, "the mystery of the kingdom of God" meant primarily "advanced theological instruction." These matters have a bearing on the debates about the authenticity of Secret Mark, because Brown clearly implies that Smith, himself, did not quite understand his own discovery.

Other interpretations

Scholar John Dart has proposed a complex theory of 'chiasms' (or 'chiasmus

Chiasmus

In rhetoric, chiasmus is the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism...

') running through the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

 -- a type of literary devices he finds in the text. "He recovers a formal structure to original Mark containing five major chiastic spans framed by a prologue and a conclusion." According to Dart, his analysis supports the authenticity of Secret Mark.

In 2008, extensive correspondence between Smith and his teacher and lifelong friend Gershom Scholem

Gershom Scholem

Gerhard Scholem who, after his immigration from Germany to Palestine, changed his name to Gershom Scholem , was a German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian, born and raised in Germany...

 was published, where they discuss Mar Saba MS over many years. The book's editor, Guy Stroumsa, argues that Smith could not have forged the MS, because these letters "show him discussing the material with Scholem, over time, in ways that clearly reflect a process of discovery and reflection." Those letters can be interpreted differently. Smith wrote in 1948 that he was working on the early Fathers, "especially Clement of Alexandria" (p. 28). In 1955 Smith wrote that he was at work on a chapter "for a book on Mark" (p. 81). Later in 1955 Smith writes of "my book on Mark." (p. 85)

The November/December 2009 issue of 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...

(BAR 35:06) features a selection of articles dedicated to the Secret Gospel of Mark. It includes articles by Charles W. Hedrick, Hershel Shanks

Hershel Shanks

Hershel Shanks is the founder of the Biblical Archaeology Society and the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review and has written and edited numerous works on Biblical archaeology including the Dead Sea Scrolls....

, and Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester is a German-born American scholar of the New Testament and currently Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School. He teaches courses at both the Divinity School and at Harvard Extension School, and was the...

. Generally, they are supportive of the authenticity of the Mar Saba MS.

The placement of the story within canonical Mark

If what is portrayed in Secret Mark is indeed a baptism, then the placement of this story within the canonical Mark is highly significant. What precedes the story is the third prediction of the Passion/Crucifixion (Mark 10:32-34). And what follows next is the story of the Sons of Zebedee (Mark 10:35-45), where baptism is mentioned explicitly. James and John ask Christ for positions of higher honor once Jesus is an earthly ruler. Jesus responds,

"You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" (Mark 10:38)

Here baptism is clearly seen as a symbol of Jesus' coming crucifixion, and this is widely accepted by Christian commentators. This understanding of baptism seems to be based on the teachings of Paul, according to whom, those who "were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death" (Romans 6:3). Among the Synoptic gospels, only Mark mentions baptism in this passage; thus the interests of the author of Secret Mark parallel those of the author of Mark, which also parallel the teachings of Paul.

Smith's theories about the historical Jesus

In his later work, Morton Smith increasingly came to see the historical Jesus as practicing some type of magical rituals and hypnotism, thus explaining various healings of demoniacs in the gospels. Smith seems to have developed his libertine understanding of Jesus starting from about 1967. He carefully explored for any traces of a "libertine tradition" in early Christianity, and in the New Testament. Yet there's very little in the Mar Saba MS to give backing to any of this. This is illustrated by the fact that Smith devoted only 12 lines to Mar Saba MS in his book Jesus the Magician.

See also

• 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:...
  
  
• Morton Smith
  Morton Smith
  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...
  
  
• The Secret Gospel of Mark and the Synoptic Problem
  The Secret Gospel of Mark and the Synoptic Problem
  The Secret Gospel of Mark and the Synoptic Problem examines how the Secret Gospel of Mark, said to have been discovered by Morton Smith, relates to the Synoptic Gospels. Helmut Koester hypothesized this relationship, specifically in reference to the formation of “Canonical” Mark. This article will...
  
  

For further reading

• "Clement of Alexandria." In New Catholic Encyclopedia. Rev. exp. ed. Collegeveille, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8146-5962-4
• Eyer, Shawn. "The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark: How Morton Smith's Discovery of a Lost Letter by Clement of Alexandria Scandalized Biblical Scholarship." Alexandria: The Journal for the Western Cosmological Traditions. 1995.
• Fowler, Miles. "Identification of the Bethany Youth in the Secret Gospel of Mark With Other Figures Found in Mark and John." Journal of Higher Criticism. 5:1 (Spring 1998).
• Grant, Robert M. A Historical Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
• Charles W. Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses., in "The Fourth R" 13:5 (2000): 3–11, 14–16. Contains color plates of the manuscript. (Available on-line.)
• Jennings, Theodore W., Jr. The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament. Paperback ed. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8298-1535-X
• Metzger, Bruce. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2d rev. ed. New York: United Bible Societies, 2005. ISBN 1-59856-164-2
• Smith, Morton. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. ISBN 0-674-13490-7
• Smith, Morton. The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark. 3rd ed. Middletown, Calif.: Dawn Horse Press, 2005. ISBN 1-57097-203-6
• Smith, Morton "Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade." Harvard Theological Review. October 1982.
• Smith, Morton. Jesus, the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56975-155-2
• Thackara, W.T.S. "Secret Gospels and Lost Christianities, Part I." Sunrise. December 2003/January 2004.
• Thackara, W.T.S. "Secret Gospels and Lost Christianities, Part II." Sunrise. February/March 2004.
• Thackara, W.T.S. "Secret Gospels and Lost Christianities, Part III." Sunrise. June/July 2004.
• Thackara, W.T.S. "Secret Gospels and Lost Christianities, Part IV." Sunrise. August/September 2004.

External links

• "Secret Gospel of Mark" Text as published by Morton Smith.
• Translation by Morton Smith and Manuscript images
• Kirby, Peter. "Secret Mark." Early Christian Writings Web site.
• Price, Robert M. "Second Thoughts on the Secret Gospel." Robert M. Price Web site
• Robinson, B.A. "The 'Secret Gospel of Mark': What happened to the copy of Clement's letter?" ReligiousTolerance.org - Contains text of the Clementine letter, with several translations
• Did Morton Smith Forge ‘Secret Mark’? Biblical Archaeology Society