Ancient Gospel Or Modern Forgery

In 1958, American historian of religion Morton Smith made an astounding discovery in the Mar Saba monastery in Jerusalem. Copied into the back of a seventeenth-century book was a lost letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 CE) that contained excerpts from a longer version of the Gospel of Mark written by Mark himself and circulating in Alexandria, Egypt. More than fifty years after its discovery, the origins of this Secret Gospel of Mark remain contentious. Some consider it an authentic witness to an early form of Mark, perhaps even predating canonical Mark. Some claim it is a medieval or premodern forgery created by a monastic scribe. And others argue it is a forgery created by Morton Smith himself. All these positions are addressed in the papers contained in this volume. Nine North American scholars, internationally recognized for their contributions to the study of Secret Mark, met at York University in Toronto, Canada, in April 2011 to examine recent developments in scholarship on the gospel and the letter in which it is found. Their results represent a substantial step forward in determining the origins of this mysterious and controversial text. List of Contributors: Scott G. Brown Tony Burke Stephen C. Carlson Bruce Chilton Craig A. Evans Paul Foster Charles W. Hedrick Peter Jeffery Allan J. Pantuck Marvin Meyer Hershel Shanks Pierluigi Piovanelli

Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions examines the possible motivations behind the production of apocryphal Christian texts. Did the authors of Christian apocrypha intend to deceive others about the true origins of their writings? Did they do so in a way that is distinctly different from New Testament scriptural writings? What would phrases like "intended to deceive" or "true origins" even mean in various historical and cultural contexts? The papers in this volume, presented in September 2015 at York University in Toronto, discuss texts from as early as second-century papyrus fragments to modern apocrypha such as tales of Jesus in India in the nineteenth-century Life of Saint Issa. The highlights of the collection include a keynote address by Bart Ehrman ("Apocryphal Forgeries: The Logic of Literary Deceit") and a panel discussion on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife, reflecting on what reactions to this particular text--primarily on biblioblogs--can tell us about the creation, transmission, and reception of apocryphal Christian literature. The eye-opening papers presented at the panel caution and enlighten readers about the ethics of studying unprovenanced texts, the challenges facing female scholars both in the academy and online, and the shifting dynamics between online and traditional print scholarship.

Despite virtually unanimous patristic association of the Gospel of Mark with the apostle Peter, the Gospel was mostly neglected by those same writers. Michael J. Kok surveys the second-century reception of Mark, from Papias of Hierapolis to Clement of Alexandria, and finds that the patristic writers were hesitant to embrace Mark because they perceived it to be too easily adapted to rival Christian factions. Kok describes the story of Marks Petrine origins as a second-century move to assert ownership of the Gospel on the part of the emerging Orthodox Church.

This work is the product of seven years research based on historical documents that sets out to prove the authenticity and antiquity of the "Gospel of the Essenes," which for 90 years has been considered by theologians a forgery, as the original manuscripts were lost. Evidence is presented to show the "Gospel of the Essenes" to be the predecessor of the New Testament and thus about 2000 years old. The Essene Prophet introduced the model of a brotherhood in that era and viewed the concept of this brotherhood on a universal scale as the only way to create lasting peace in the world.

Conspiratorial fears and desires about biblical discoveries are amplified and contained within the covers of a formulaic fiction genre.

Generically, theologically, and concerning content, Mark and Joseph and Aseneth are quite different. The former is a product of the nascent Jesus movement and influenced by the Greco-Roman Bioi (“Lives”). It details the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of a wandering Galilean. The latter is a Hellenistic Jewish narrative influenced by Greek romances and Jewish novellas. It expands the laconic account of Joseph's marriage to Aseneth in Genesis 41 into a full-fledged love and adventure story. Despite these differences, Elder finds remarkable similarities that the texts share. Elder uses both texts to examine media and modes of composition in antiquity, arguing that they were both composed via dictation from their antecedent oral traditions. Elder's volume offers a fresh approach to the composition of both Joseph and Aseneth and Mark as well as to many of their respective interpretive debates.

A groundbreaking account of the Secret Gospel of Mark, one of the most hotly debated documents in Christian history In 1958, at the ancient Christian monastery of Mar Saba just outside Jerusalem, Columbia University scholar Morton Smith claimed to have unearthed a letter written by the Christian philosopher Clement of Alexandria and containing an excerpt from a previously unknown version of the canonical Gospel of Mark. This excerpt recounts a story of Jesus’s apparent sexual encounter with a young, resurrected disciple. In recent years, an influential group of researchers has alleged that no Secret Gospel or letter of Clement existed in antiquity, and that the manuscript that Morton Smith “found” was a modern forgery—created by none other than Smith himself. In this book, Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau enter into the controversy surrounding this document and argue that the Secret Gospel of Mark is neither a first-century alternative gospel nor a twentieth-century forgery by the scholar who announced its discovery. Instead, this account is intimately bound up with the history of Mar Saba, one of the oldest monasteries in the Christian world. In this fascinating work, Smith and Landau present the realities and misconceptions surrounding not only the now-lost manuscript but also its brilliant, enigmatic, and acerbic discoverer, Morton Smith.

North American study of the Christian Apocrypha is known principally for its interest in using noncanonical texts to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus, and for its support of Walter Bauer's theory on the development of early Christianity. The papers in this volume, presented in September 2013 at York University in Toronto, challenge that simplistic assessment by demonstrating that U.S. and Canadian scholarship on the Christian Apocrypha is rich and diverse. The topics covered in the papers include new developments in the study of canon formation, the interplay of Christian Apocrypha and texts from the Nag Hammadi library, digital humanities resources for reconstructing apocryphal texts, and the value of studying late-antique apocrypha. Among the highlights of the collection are papers from a panel by three celebrated New Testament scholars reassessing the significance of the Christian Apocrypha for the study of the historical Jesus. Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier demonstrates the depth and breadth of Christian Apocrypha studies in North America and offers a glimpse at the achievements that lie ahead in the field.