THE GOSPEL OF MARK-RELIGIOUSTOLERANCE.ORG

Are verses missing from
the full Gospel of Mark?

The Gospels of Mark:
Many ancient versions of Mark, written in the original Greek, have survived to the present day . No two agree perfectly in their wording. Usually, the differences are trivial and do not impact our understanding of Jesus' personality , messages, and ministry. However, some do. For example, consider Mark 1:41 -- the passage where a leper approached Jesus begging to be healed. Some of the earliest manuscripts say that Jesus became angry or indignant at the leper's intrusion. Later copies indicate that Jesus showed compassion or pity to the leper. Usually, Bible translators consider the earliest manuscripts to be the most accurate, because they are less removed from the original autographs. Thus, there was less opportunity for copyists to alter the original text. But in many cases, like the King James Version, the New International Version, and many others, 1 the translators followed the later, apparently incorrect, manuscripts, and describe Jesus as reacting with compassion and pity, rather than with indignation and anger.

Theologian Morton Smith discovered a copy of an ancient letter in a monastery near Jerusalem in the 1940s. The original letter was apparently written by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-213 CE). It referred to three versions of the Gospel of Mark circulating during the second century CE:

A full version "....for those who are advancing with respect to knowledge," and
A shorter version for the common believers who were new to Christianity.
A forgery based on the full version which was circulated by a Christian group in the second century.

The shorter version is like the text of the Gospel that we now have in the Bible. The full version is often referred to as the "Secret Gospel of Mark: " Two of the fragments which were quoted in the letter from the full version of Mark are quite controversial . One refers to Jesus spending the night with a near-naked man. Another passage refers to "the young man whom Jesus loved."

Most conservative Protestant theologians believe that Clement's letter is a forgery, perhaps because of its homoerotic overtones. Most Clementine scholars believe that the letter was written by Clement.



Topics covered in this section:
The content of the Secret Gospel of Mark

How Clement's letter was found and studied

What happened to Clement's letter?

Morton Smith's interpretation of Secret Mark

Beliefs of conservative Protestant theologians



References used:
The Living Bible, Revised English Bible, New English Bible, and Annotated Scholars Version use the phrases "sternly," "anger," "in warm indignation" and "indignant." The Amplified Bible, Contemporary English Version, English Standard Version, James Moffatt Translation, Jerusalem Bible, King James Version, Living Bible, New American Bible, New American Standard Bible, New Century Version, New Living Translation, New Revised Standard Version, New World Translation, Phillips Modern English, Revised Standard Version, Rheims New Testament, Today's English Version, and Young's Literal Translation all use terms like " pity, " and " compassion. " To their credit, the New Living Translation includes a footnote indicating that some early manuscripts state that Jesus was angry.



Charles W. Hedrick, "An Amazing Discovery," Biblical Archaeology Review, 2009-NOV/DEC issue, at: http://www.bib-arch.org/


Key resources:
An extensive index to Internet articles and other resources on Secret Mark is at: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
Morton Smith, "The letter of Clement of Alexandria to Theodore; Transcription of the Greek text," at: http://alf.zfn.uni-bremen.de/ This includes the Greek text and Smith's photos of the letter.
Yuri Kuchinsky, "Why it is impossible that Morton Smith could have forged Clement's letter
& the SecMk fragment." at: http://www.trends.net/



The various Gospels of Mark:
The following is based on the assumption that a letter found by theologian Morton Smith which claims to have been written by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-213 CE), is valid and accurate. No total consensus has been reached by theologians on the letter's legitimacy: religious conservatives tend to reject the letter as a forgery; religious liberals and secularists tend to accept it as real.

In his letter, Clement claims that there were three versions of the Gospel of Mark which were being circulated among different Christian groups in the vicinity of what is now Alexandria in Egypt. They were:

An abbreviated Gospel, written by Mark in the first century CE, and intended to be read by those newly converted to Christianity. It was "an account of the Lord's doings" that Mark had learned from the apostle Peter while both were in Rome. The Gospel contains material that Mark felt was most suited for beginners in the faith. 1
The Secret Gospel -- a "second 'more spiritual Gospel' for those who were more spiritually advanced." This was also written by Mark. He added material to the shorter Gospel, after having moved to Alexandria, a major Christian center in what is now Egypt.
The Carpocratian Mark. After Mark's death, Carpocrates, the founder of the Carpocratian faith group, added his own fictional material to the Secret Gospel. He distributed his forged "gospel," claiming it to be the true Gospel of Mark. The Carpocratians were one of many faith groups that comprised the early Christian movement during the second century CE. They were a licentious lot. They believed in holding all property in common, including each other's spouses. 2

It is the abbreviated public version which we see in modern translations of the Bible. Both the secret version, and the Carpocratian Mark have been lost.

The letter was from Clement to an unknown person named Theodore. If it is accurate then it clarifies two confusing passages in Mark that have long puzzled many students of the Bible: Mark 14:51-52: These verses describe an unusual event associated with Jesus' arrest by the Temple guard in the Garden of Gethsemane. This passage describes an almost-naked young man who had been following Jesus. The passage has an almost cartoon-like theme. The guards grab at the man, but he runs away naked, leaving the men holding only the man's linen cloth. The text reads: "And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him. And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked." 3 Author Bart Ehrman writes: "Interpreters have propounded a host of possible solutions to these questions over the centuries, but there has never been any consensus." 4
Mark 10:46: This describes the arrival and departure of Jesus and his followers at Jericho. The text reads: And they came to Jericho; and as he went out of Jericho..." 4 Scholars have recognized for centuries that there is obviously some text missing from the middle of this verse.




Clement's letter:
The letter of Clement quotes two passages from the secret version that are missing in the public version:

Fragment 1: This was located in "secret Mark" immediately after Mark 10:34. It describes an event very similar to the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Secret Mark relates that a man in Bethany had died. His sister begged Jesus to have mercy on her. At this instant, a voice was heard inside the tomb. Jesus rolled away the stone blocking the tomb's entrance, went in and restored the brother to life.
Following this is an unusual passage:


"The young man looked at Jesus, loved him, and began to beg him to be with him....Six days later. Jesus gave him an order; and when evening had come, the young man went to him, dressed only in a linen cloth. He spent the night with him, because Jesus taught him the mystery of God's domain." 4 (Others translate the last two words as "the kingdom of God.")

The fragment continues, saying that Jesus later returned to the other side of the Jordan.

Fragment 2: Clement's letter also includes the words from Secret Mark which were inserted into the middle of Mark 10:46:

"The sister of the young man whom Jesus loved was there, along with his mother and Salome, but Jesus refused to see them."

Finally, Clement wrote that the other passages that Theodore had provided were false. They were from the heretical version, and not from either the shorter or secret Mark.

According to Wikipedia:

"These two excerpts comprise the entirety of the secret gospel material; no separate text of the secret gospel is known to survive, if indeed such a text ever existed. Knowledge of the secret gospel is therefore in very much the same state as the Gospel of Thomas was before the Oxyrhynchus and Nag Hammadi finds: it is known only through reference in another work. 5



References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

W. Barnstone, Ed., "The Other Bible", Harper Collins, San Francisco, CA, (1984), Pages 339-342. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities: The battles for Scripture and the faiths we never knew," Oxford (2003). Pages 67 to 89. Read reviews or order this book
The quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Op Cit, Ehrman Page 79-80.
"Secret Gospel of Mark," Wikipedia, 2007-JUL-17, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Disclaimer:
The following is based on the assumption that a letter which was apparently written by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-213 CE), is valid and accurate. No consensus has been reached by theologians on the letter's legitimacy: religious conservatives tend to reject the letter as a forgery; religious liberals tend to accept it as real.



Discovery of Clement's letter:
During the 1940s, academic Morton Smith had visited the Christian Orthodox Monastery of Mar Saba in the Judean wilderness. He stayed there for two months, participating with the monks in their daily schedule. It was built in the fifth century CE and is located about 12 miles southeast of Jerusalem. As a professor of ancient history at Columbia University, he revisited the monastery in 1958. He had decided to use his sabbatical time to catalog their library. While examining an 17th century book which documented the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, 1 he found that someone had copied a letter in Greek onto three pages at the end of the book that had been left blank. "It was a common practice for monks to hand copy manuscripts onto the unused pages of old books." 2

The text began: "From the letters of the most holy Clement, the author of the Stromateis, To Theodore." Clement was an early Christian theologian who wrote circa 200 CE. The identity of the recipient of the letter, Theodore, is unknown. Many of Clement's writings have survived to the present time. Smith carefully photographed the pages for future reference. 3



Text of the letter:
Apparently, the letter was in response to a query from a Theodore about the Carpocratians -- one of the many faith groups that formed the early Christian movement. It was a strange group. Unlike most Christians of the time, they believed in reincarnation. They taught that a person must go through many lifetimes on earth until they had experienced every possible emotion and act. This included all possible sexual experiences. The group was infamous for integrating spouse swapping into their religious services.

Charles Hedrick, a professor at Southwest Missouri State University writes:

"Clement�s letter to Theodore appears to be something of a diatribe against the Carpocratians, a Gnostic-Christian group whose members (Clement says in the letter) 'wander ... into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins' and embrace 'blasphemous and carnal doctrine'." 10

Clement wrote that Mark had written a basic Gospel while he was with the apostle Peter in Rome. He intended it for the education of new converts to Christianity. After Peter's execution, he traveled to Alexandria and wrote a second "more spiritual Gospel" for Christians who were able to adsorb more advanced teachings. According to Clement, there were three Gospels of Mark circulating in Alexandria:

The original basic "Mark" which found its way in to the official canon of the present-day Bible;
An advanced version -- the Secret Mark -- for elite Christians who were able to handle more sophisticated material. "Clement says this text is kept by the Alexandrian church for use only in the initiation into 'the great mysteries'." 4
A distorted, heretical version, modified by Carpocrates, the founder of the Carpocratian movement. He apparently created this version in order to give legitimacy to his unusual theological teachings and sexual practices.



Analysis of the letter:
Morton photographed the Clement text "three times for good measure." 2 He also photographed two pages from the book in which the letter had been copied so that it could be positively identified and dated.

Smith committed much of his professional effort over the next fifteen years to analyzing this finding. He announced his discovery of the letter at the 1960 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. In 1973, Smith published two books: "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark" was intended for the general public. 5 He also produced a much larger book for academics titled :"Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark". 6 New Testament scholar, Stephen Patterson, wrote in 1994:

"Early discussion of it was marred by accusations of forgery and fraud, no doubt owing in part to its controversial contents. Today, however, there is almost unanimous agreement among Clementine scholars that the letter is authentic." 7

Smith attempted to confirm the authenticity of the letter:

Was the copy of Clement's letter handwritten in the book in the 18th century, or is it a modern forgery: The book was missing its covers and title page by the time that Smith found it. However, he was able to identify it as a book printed by Isaac Voss, a printer in Amsterdam, in 1646. 4 This established the earliest date when the letter was copied. Smith showed the photographs that he had taken of the letter to a number of palaeographers -- ancient handwriting experts. Most of them agreed that the writing style dated the copy at between 1700 and 1800 CE. The letter does not seem to be a modern forgery.
Was the original letter really written by Clement in the late second century CE or by a forger at a later time? Smith showed the text of the letter to many scholars who had specialized in the writings of Clement. Most agreed that the letter resembled closely Clement's style. Smith then made "a point-by-point comparison of the vocabulary, writing style, modes of expression and ideas found in the letter with" other writings that are known to have been produced by Clement. 8 According to author Bart Ehrman, "it would be well nigh impossible to imagine someone other than Clement being able to write it." 9
Were the fragments of Secret Mark consistent with the writings of the author of the Gospel of Mark? A careful analysis of the letter's "vocabulary, writing style, modes of expression, and theology" showed that it matched those of the author of Mark. 9


Which "Mark" is the original?
Clement claimed that the shorter version -- the one found in modern Bibles -- was the original, and that Mark added extra verses to create the Secret Mark for more sophisticated Christians. However, an analysis of the text indicates that the Secret Mark was probably the original, and that passages were deleted to produce that the shorter version:

Mark 10:46 -- It makes no sense for the shorter version of this passage -- the one with the obvious discontinuity -- came first. It would appear that the Secret Mark was written, and then the center of this verse was removed when the shorter Mark was produced.
Mark 14:52 The inclusion of the naked man in the Garden of Gethsemane makes no sense, if the shorter Mark was the first written. But if the shorter Mark is an edited version of the Secret Mark, then his presence could be explained by sloppy redacting.



References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

Smith later identified the book as: Isaac Voss, "Epistulae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris" (Amsterdam: J. Blaeu, 1646).
Charles W. Hedrick with Nikolaos Olympiou, "Secret Mark," The Fourth R, Volume 13,5, 2000-SEP/OCT, at: http://www.westarinstitute.org/
Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities: The battles for Scripture and the faiths we never knew," Oxford (2003), Pages 67 to 89. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
Shawn Eyer, "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, volume 3 (1995), Pages 103-129. Online at: http://www.gnosis.org/
Morton Smith, "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark", Harper and Row, (1973) This book is out of print, but can usually be purchased in used condition. See the Amazon.com online book store
Morton Smith, "Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark," Harvard University Press, (1973). This is an expensive, out of print book which may be difficult to obtain. See the Amazon.com online book store
Stephen Patterson, "The Secret Gospel of Mark: Introduction," in R.J. Miller, Ed., "The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version", HarperSanFrancisco (1994), Page 408.
Charles Turek, "Objectivity and new discoveries. Be cautious," Book review of Smith's book on the Amazon web site.
Op cit, Bart Ehrman, Page 79.
Charles W. Hedrick, "An Amazing Discovery," Biblical Archaeology Review, 2009-NOV/DEC issue, at: http://www.bib-arch.org/


Background:
Morton Smith discovered a copy of an ancient letter allegedly written by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-213 CE). It discussed a second version -- a "Secret Gospel" -- of the Gospel of Mark. This longer version contains additional information that does not appear in the shorter version of the Gospel of Mark which was accepted into the biblical canon. Although Smith found the letter in an ancient monastery (Hagios Sabbas) in 1958, his two books describing his analysis of the letter were not published until 1973. For the general public, he wrote, "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark". 1 For theologians and historians, he wrote "Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark." 2 He drew parallels between Pagan magical practices in ancient Palestine and some of Jesus' teachings and deeds.

Many conflicting stories have circulated about whether this copy of Clement's letter actually exists, and where it is at the present time.



What happened to the letter?
According to Charles W. Hedrick:

"The publication of Clement's letter with the excerpts from Secret Mark immediately drew charges of forgery and fraud from the scholarly community. These accusations were encouraged by subsequent failed attempts by other Western scholars to see and study the fragment, which had apparently disappeared in the meantime. Privately, scholars wondered if the manuscript even existed and, if it did, why was no one able to see it. 3

In 1975, Quentin Quesnell wrote a book 4 that is critical of Smith's conclusions. 1,2 Quesnell stressed the importance of ancient manuscripts being freely available for analysis by scholars. He quoted an excerpt from E.J. Goodspeed's book "Strange New Gospels" in which Goodspeed argued that direct visual examination is critical. 5 However, Quesnell left out an important point in Goodspeed's claim: that in the absence of the original document, "...a photograph of it will usually answer the purposes of his investigation." 5 Both black and white photos are now available for each page in Clement's letter.

Quesnell suggests that Clement's letter might have been forged. Some of his reasons were:

The original manuscript is not available for examination.
The photographs are in black and white and don't include margins and edges of the pages.
Since 1936, detained knowledge of Clement's writing style has been available. A convincing forgery could have been created any time after that date.
There was poor supervision of documents in the library of the monastery between 1936 and 1958 when Smith found the manuscript.



Location of the letter: circa 1980 to now:
In 1980, Thomas Talley, a Professor from the General Theological Seminary in New York City visited the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Library in Jerusalem. While there, a priest, Archimandrite Melito, stated that he had taken Clement's letter (or perhaps the Voss 1646 book with the letter intact) from Hagios Sabbas to the Jerusalem library.

The librarian, Archimandrite Kallistos Dourvas, confirmed this, but said that it was being repaired and was not available for inspection.

During the 1990s, Kallistos told Professor Nikolaos Olympiou, a Professor of Old Testament at the University of Athens, that he, Kallistos, had removed the letter of Clement from the book shortly after he received the book into the Patriarchate library. Kallistos later gave color photographs of the letter to Olympiou.

Professor Olympiou speculated that the missing Clement letter was concealed by someone at the library for religious reasons.

There is visual evidence that the photographs of Clement's letter were once in the Voss edition. A small circular discoloration appears on the last page of the book. A matching discoloration is found on the first page of the letter.

Charles Hedrick concludes:

"The letter of Clement does exist, and the consensus (with some dissenting opinions) is that it is genuine. Thus at the end of the second century multiple different versions of the Gospel of Mark were known to exist. Scholars have been reluctant to accept Clement's testimony and assign the fragments of the Secret Gospel to the hand of the author of original Mark. But in spite of their reluctance, clearly Clement's letter confirms that a second Gospel of Mark thought to be by the author of the original Gospel of Mark was used in the Alexandrian Church, and it is to be dated before the end of the second century. As Smith noted, 'the real issue seems to be whether they [the excerpts from Secret Mark] should be classed with the pseudepigraphic gospels of the mid- and later second century, or with the canonical gospels and others of that type (P. Egerton 2, G. Hebrews, etc.).' ... Whether or not this 'spiritual gospel' of Mark might, in principle, contain information about the historical Jesus depends on how early the fragments are dated (are they early enough to preserve original oral memory about Jesus), as well as on other usual criteria for determining the originality of traditions." 3



References used:
Morton Smith, "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark", Harper and Row, (1973) This book is out of print, but can usually be purchased in used condition. See the Amazon.com online book store
Morton Smith, "Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark," Harvard University Press, (1973). This is an expensive, out of print book which may be difficult to obtain. See the Amazon.com online book store
Charles W. Hedrick with Nikolaos Olympiou, "Secret Mark," The Fourth R, Volume 13,5, 2000-SEP/OCT, at: http://www.westarinstitute.org/
Quentin Quesnell, "The Mar Saba Clementine," Pages 53 to 58.
E.J. Goodspeed, "Strange New Gospels," Pages 3 to 4.




Morton Smith's speculation about Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus Christ):
There is a well known phenomenon that theologians who study the Gospels often impose their own expectations onto Jesus. Their understanding of Jesus often turn out to be self-portraits. Various theologians and historians have described Jesus as:

A rabbi with unique healing powers;
An apocalyptic prophet prophesizing the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God, and the end of the world as they knew it;
One more of the many failed revolutionaries in 1st century CE Palestine who believed themselves to be the long-awaited Messiah; or as
An itinerant Greek cynic philosopher, etc.


Smith believes that Jesus viewed himself in a number of roles: as a magician, a itinerant rabbi and political revolutionary. In his book "Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?" 1 he attempted to show that references to ancient Pagan magic practices appear throughout the Gospels. This may not be as weird a speculation as it first appears. According to Bart Ehrman: "We know from other ancient sources that Jesus was widely considered to be a 'magician'." 2 The earliest images of Jesus, which date from the late third and early fourth century, show him performing miracles ("multiplying loaves, changing water to wine, raising the dead") 3 with a magic wand in his hand.

A magician during the first century CE was different from a present-day illusionists. Magicians were individuals who could "manipulate the workings of nature through mystical powers connecting him to the divine realm." 2 Practicing magic was a capital offense in the Roman Empire at that time. Smith speculates that Jesus' activity as a magician might have been the primary cause of his crucifixion.



Smith's interpretations about initiation rituals:
Smith suggests that Jesus personally baptized some of his converts, and that the individual "experienced a spiritual unity with him that involved a magical, visionary journey with him into the Kingdom of God." 2 We see a similar journey of Paul's described in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. He writes that he was caught up as far as "the third heaven," where he "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

The text about the young man's clothing in the first fragment reads literally: "a linen cloth having been draped over the naked body." The young man in both fragments, and the man who escaped naked in the Garden of Gethsemane appear to refer to the same individual. He may also have been the young man encountered by the two Marys and Salome when they visited Jesus' tomb in Mark 16:5.

Some scholars suspect that naked young man covered only in a linen cloth might have been prepared for an initiation ritual. In the early Christian church, a person to be baptized wore only a single garment which was removed just before the ritual. Both the presbyter and the person to be baptized stood in the water together, naked. 4 Ritual nudity is no longer a common practice in the world with the exception of followers of Wicca, some other Neopagan religions, and a few Hindu sects in India. But it was very common in the early Christian movement.

Morton Smith (1915-1991) wrote two books about the secret gospel of Mark. 5 In his 1973 book, "The Secret Gospel" which was intended for the general public, he wrote:

"From the scattered indications in the canonical Gospels and the secret Gospel of Mark, we can put together a picture of Jesus' baptism, 'the mystery of the kingdom of God.' It was a water baptism administered by Jesus to chosen disciples, singly and by night. The costume, for the disciple, was a linen cloth worn over the naked body. This cloth was probably removed for the baptism proper, the immersion in water, which was now reduced to a preparatory purification. After that, by unknown ceremonies, the disciple was possessed by Jesus' spirit and so united with Jesus. One with him, he participated by hallucination in Jesus' ascent into the heavens, he entered the kingdom of God, and was thereby set free from the laws ordained for and in the lower world. Freedom from the law may have resulted in completion of the spiritual union by physical union. This certainly occurred in many forms of Gnostic Christianity; how early it began there is no telling." 1

Charles W. Hedrick commented:

"Smith�s conclusion was that Clement�s letter was a genuine second-century text and that Secret Mark was also genuine�from the late first century. The Secret Gospel of Mark demonstrated that the Jesus movement had begun with a mystery-religion baptismal initiation: Jesus baptized each of his closest disciples into the mystery of the kingdom of God, 'singly and at night.' In his larger study Smith wrote: 'In this baptism the disciple was united with Jesus. The union may have been physical ... (there is no telling how far symbolism went in Jesus� rite), but the essential thing was that the disciple was possessed by Jesus� spirit.' This is how Smith put it in his more popular book: The disciple ecstatically 'entered the kingdom of God, and was thereby set free from the laws ordained for and in the lower world. Freedom from the law may have resulted in completion of the spiritual union by physical union'."

Smith speculated further that this spiritual union may have involved a physical union -- a homoerotic experience. If this were true, then the account of the near-naked man who loved Jesus takes on a new meaning.



Opposition to Morton Smith's suggestions:
Smith's books 5,6,1 raised a firestorm of attacks from some theologians who were disturbed at some of the possible interpretations of his work. Author Shawn Eyer commented:

"The possibility that the initiation could have included elements of eroticism was unthinkable to many scholars, whose reaction was to project onto Smith's entire interpretive work an imaginary emphasis on Jesus being a homosexual." 7

Eyer compiled a list of brief quotes from theologians' negative reviews:

Patrick Skehan: "...a morbid concatenation of fancies..."
Joseph Fitzmyer: "...venal popularization..." "...replete with innuendos and eisegesis..."
Paul J. Achtemeier: "Characteristically, his arguments are awash in speculation." "...an a priori principle of selective credulity..."
William Beardslee: "...ill-founded..."
Pierson Parker: "...the alleged parallels are far-fetched..."
Hans Conzelmann: "...science fiction..." "...does not belong to scholarly, nor even...discussable, literature..."
Raymond Brown: "...debunking attitude towards Christianity..."
Frederick Danker: "...in the same niche with Allegro's mushroom fantasies and Eisler's salmagundi."
Helmut Merkel: "Once again total warfare has been declared on New Testament scholarship." 7
A more radical interpretation of these fragments was available online. The author suggested that Jesus and the unnamed young man engaged in sexual behavior on the night mentioned in the first fragment. The implication was that Jesus was had either a homosexual or bisexual orientation. 8




References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

Morton Smith, "Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?," Ulysses Press, (1998) Read reviews or order this book
Op cit, Bart Ehrman, Page 80.
Charles Turek, "Objectivity and new discoveries. Be cautious," Book review of Smith's book on the Amazon web site.
Hippolytus, "Apostolic Tradition, 21.11
Morton Smith, "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark", Harper and Row, (1973) This book is out of print, but a used copy can usually be purchased. See the Amazon.com online book store
Morton Smith, "Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark," Harvard University Press, (1973). This is an expensive, out of print book which may be difficult to obtain. See the Amazon.com online book store
Shawn Eyer, "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, volume 3 (1995), Pages 103-129. Online at: http://www.gnosis.org/
Anon, "Was Jesus Gay? Missing Fragments from St. Mark's Gospel," described the missing verses from Mark at: http://www.darcol.ukns.com/ Unfortunately, the original essay is no longer online. However, references to it still exist elsewhere on the Internet. See: Hank Hyena, "Was Jesus Gay? A search for the Messiah's true sexuality," at: http://www.salon.com/
Charles W. Hedrick, "An Amazing Discovery," Biblical Archaeology Review, 2009-NOV/DEC issue, at: http://www.bib-arch.org/




Background:
Morton Smith discovered a copy of an ancient letter allegedly written by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-213 CE). It discussed a second version -- a "Secret Gospel" -- of the Gospel of Mark. This longer version contains additional information that does not appear in the shorter version of the Gospel of Mark which was accepted into the biblical canon. Although Smith found the letter in an ancient monastery in 1958, his two books describing his analysis of the letter were not published until 1973. For the general public, he wrote, "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark". 1 For theologians and historians, he wrote "Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark." 2 He drew parallels between Pagan magical practices in ancient Palestine and some of Jesus' teachings and deeds.



Beliefs about the Bible held by most conservative Protestants:
Conservative Christians generally hold certain key beliefs about the Bible: that its authors were inspired by God to write inerrant, error-free text. The often refer to the Bible as "God's word."

A logical extension of these beliefs is that God preserved the Christian church leaders from committing any errors when they were decided which books to include in the official canon of the Bible. They were faced with about 40 gospels which were in wide circulation among the various faith groups that made up the early Christian movement. They rejected almost all of them as heretical. They chose only the four Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John to be incorporated into the Bible. Most conservative Protestants would probably agree that if two or three versions of the Gospel of Mark had been circulating in the early Christian movement, that God would have influenced the decision of various church councils to include only the correct, inerrant, version in the canon. The would conclude that the Secret Mark is worthless.



Initial response by conservative Protestants:
Author Shawn Eyer reported that conservative Protestants were:

"... particularly displeased with the new Secret Gospel of Mark. Even without the magical interpretation of earliest Christianity Smith promulgated in his two books, the discovery of another apocryphal gospel only spells trouble for conservative theologians and apologists. What information about Secret Mark made it past the blockade into the evangelical press? There was Ronald J. Sider's quick review in Christianity Today:"3

"Unfounded . . . wildly speculative...pockmarked with irresponsible inferences . . . highly speculative . . .operates with the presupposition that Jesus could not have been the incarnate Son of God filled with the Holy Spirit . . . simply absurd! . . . unacceptable . . . highly speculative . . . numerous other fundamental weaknesses . . . highly speculative . . . irresponsible . . . will not fool the careful reader." 4
Eyer continues:

"Evangelical scholarship has since treated Secret Mark as it traditionally has any other non-canonical text: as a peculiar but ultimately unimportant document which would be spiritually dangerous to take seriously." 3





Subsequent rejections of the letter's authenticity:
Stephen Carlson published an expose of the Secret Mark, claiming to have found clues "in places scholars do not normally look." He also claims to have found letterforms in the letter about Mark ithat resemble Smith's handwriting. 12

All of the additional conservative Protestant websites that we have studied reject the authenticity of the fragments of Secret Mark. [We have added skeptical comments.] Some of their concerns are:

No independent reference to the Clement letter or to Secret Mark exists. 5 [It would be most unusual for a personal letter -- from the late second century or early third century CE that was intended only for the recipient -- to be discussed in other writings.]



The book in which the letter was copied was not listed in any previous catalog of the Mar Saba monastery. 5 [It is important to realize that no previous catalog exists of the library contents. Smith made the first list.]



Smith made no effort to conserve the manuscript. He merely photographed the copy of the letter and returned the book to the shelf. 5 [One might consider Smith's options; should he have stolen the book?]



"...there are several reasons not to believe it. the first is that its secret. where is it? the Lord doesn't work in the dark, he works in the light. The only reason things like this are brought up is to cast doubt on the already existing Bible and that's the work of the devil and whatever academics want to tag along. The secret Mark is like the invisible Q document." 6 [Actually, the Gospel of Q and secret mark are very different. Long passages from Q are preserved in Matthew and Luke; they are the passages that are common to Matthew and Luke that are not found in Mark. The fact that the wording in the two Gospels are often precisely identical indicates that both authors were copying material from a written Gospel, now called "Q." Secret Mark is different. In this case, there are two different versions of the same Gospel, one for use by the general public and one for those spiritually advanced.]



"Many Gnostic writings appear in fragments from the first few centuries. Most of the 'lost' books of the Bible are much later additions. I would give zero credence to any such. BTW, we still have folks looking for some new special knowledge or revelation. They are not content with the Word we have, but add other writings, church traditions, et al. Sad." 7 [Many theologians believe that early Christianity was a very diverse movement. The more we can learn about the beliefs of early Christians, the more we can understand about Jesus' teachings.]



"Secret Mark, then, is a non-existent work cited in a now non-existent text by a late second century author who is known for his gullibility. And thus, the reasonableness of giving this hypothetical work more credibility than the canonical Gospels, whose reliability can be demonstrated, is dubious to say the least." 8 [Two excerpts from Secret Mark exist and have been photographically recorded multiple times.]



"The fact that the expansion is such a pastiche (as it seems to me), with its internal contradiction and confusion, indicates that it is a thoroughly artificial composition, quite out of keeping with Mark's quality as a story-teller." 9
[The extra text in Secret Mark does dovetail neatly with the rest of the Gospel of Mark.]


"So, as it stands, we have A manuscript that many doubt even existed; [Multiple sets of photographs exist.]


If it does/did exist, many doubt that it was written by Clement; [There is general agreement by scholars that Clement was the author of the letter.]


If it does/did exist and it was written by Clement, most don't take Clement as a reliable source about the data; [Certainly most Protestant theologians don't.]


If it does/did exist and it was written by Clement, the passage dealing with Jesus seems to be constructed from the original gospels (like the Gnostic documents of the 2nd century) [Actually, the passages from Secret Mark dovetail neatly into Mark and provide new information.]


The conclusions reached by M. Smith about the implications of the passage are rejected almost uniformly by scholars." [True. There are so many conflicting concepts of the teachings of Jesus that any new idea will be rejected by most scholars.] 10,11




Charles W. Hedrick concludes:

"The stalemate with regard to Secret Mark continues. Although some scholars have made use of the text in their analysis of Christian origins, the focus of the discussion has remained on the man who discovered -- or forged -- the text." 13



References used:
Morton Smith, "The Secret Gospel: The discovery and interpretation of the secret Gospel according to Mark", Harper and Row, (1973) This book is out of print, but can usually be purchased in used condition. See the Amazon.com online book store
Morton Smith, "Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark," Harvard University Press, (1973). This is an expensive, out of print book which may be difficult to obtain. See the Amazon.com online book store
Shawn Eyer, "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, volume 3 (1995), Pages 103-129. Online at: http://www.globaltown.com/
R.J. Sider, "Unfounded 'Secret'," Christianity Today 1973-NOV-9, Page 160.
Joe Baxter, "A few thoughts about the Secret Mark discussion, " 1998-DEC-4, at: http://groups.yahoo.com/
"Bryan 1276," Posting to Baptist Theology & Bible Study board, 2003-NOV-17, at: http://www.baptistboard.com/
Dr. Bob Griffin, Posting to Baptist Theology & Bible Study board, 2003-NOV-17, at: http://www.baptistboard.com/
"5. Finding an Alternative Jesus," http://jesus.com.au/
F. F. Bruce, "The Canon of Scripture," InterVarsityPress, (1988), Page 308.
Glenn Miller, "Question...Does Secret Mark prove the church suppressed the truth at will?," Christian-ThinkTank.com, 199-OCT-18, at: http://www.freenet.de/
Spelling, grammar and punctuation were corrected in some of these quotes.
Stephen Carlson, "The Gospel Hoax," Baylor University Press, (2005).
Charles W. Hedrick, "An Amazing Discovery," Biblical Archaeology Review, 2009-NOV/DEC issue, at: http://www.bib-arch.org/


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