Rosson re: The Secret Gospel

Loren Rosson has posted some thoughts about Secret Mark. Tony Burke has already replied; I thought I would add some observations.


(Note: I am now moderating all comments. Not that there have ever been any problems; I'm just making sure that continues.)

(Additional note: my sincere apologies for not attending this year's SBL Annual Meeting. Various circumstances contributed to my absence.)

Rosson has made the best summary he could of the case against the authenticity of To Theodore. Nevertheless, there are some problems we can immediately point to:

• Rosson misunderstands Murgia's “seal of authenticity”. Murgia did not place it in the title, nor has anyone else. Everyone who thinks the letter is authentic agrees the title is a later attribution (including Morton Smith). And, if the letter were forged, then everyone (again, including Smith) agrees the title was meant to represent a later attribution. Instead, Murgia's “seal of authenticity” is found in the letter's purported allusion to Clement’s Stromata, as well as to various other reassuring statements found throughout the letter. Yet in an authenticity scenario, the title could easily have been added by someone who noticed the allusion, and therefore assumed it was written by Clement (despite Smith's mistaken assertions that this could not be the case). At any rate, it would seem this leaves Rosson with no “red flag” for a forgery scenario, since he has already admitted Tony's point regarding his other one.

• Several of Rosson's other claims seem either unaware of or unconcerned with the latest research on the topic. Scott Brown's 2006 article, for example ("Factualizing the Folklore: Stephen Carlson's Case against Morton Smith," HTR 99(3): 291-327) comments directly on several topics Rosson discusses, including the kingdom of God, the salt metaphor, and the meaning of EMEINE SUN AUTW THN NUKTA. Smith's critics have hardly ever addressed this article directly--Craig Evans, for example, never cites it even once in his contribution to the York symposium proceedings. Rosson, it would seem, does not address it either.

• I also fail to see how Smith's discovery of the manuscript at Mar Saba "replicates" the events of Hunter's novel--to what coincidences does Rosson think may we point? Allan Pantuck, for example, has shown how easy it is to find purported "coincidences" even in real-live events ("Solving the Mysterion of Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark", BAR Online, 10/14/2009), rather deftly dismantling the case for Hunter's novel as an inspiration for forgery. Even Francis Watson, in his surprisingly short reply to Pantuck, admitted that "coincidences do happen in real life" ("Beyond Reasonable Doubt", BAR Online, 10/14/2009).  

Let me also add (and I am not singling out Rosson alone for criticism here) that the personal attacks we occasionally see emerging from both sides of this debate continue to be disconcerting. This tendency runs utterly counter to the sentiments Paul Foster expressed in the foreword to the Burke volume, where he spoke admiringly of the "mutual respect" and "community of purpose" of the proceeding's contributors (Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?, ed. by Tony Burke [Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2013], pp. xx-xxi). Mockery and derision will not settle this issue. The only things that will settle it are, indeed, mutual respect, but also careful attention to the textual evidence and a patient devotion to the established canons of scholarship.

In brief, there is no "avalanche" of unlikelihoods, coincidences, and modern gags; there is only a contest of interpretations of Smith's confused attempts at explaining and analyzing the letter, interpretations which are sometimes as mistaken about the facts as Smith was about the letter and its contents. This debate is in many ways misdirected, and its terms need to be rethought.