Discussion Secret Mark
Discussion of Carlson's Gospel Hoax
on the textualcriticism list
Nov-Dec 2005
I've now read the book.
I must say that I am disappointed with the book. Perhaps this was my fault, because I expected, based on the early advertisements, some groundbreaking discovery by Carlson.
What I found in the book, though, is an accumulation of mini-arguments against the genuineness of the Clement letter. Carlson approaches the case as a good lawyer, representing the prosecution. Without strong, convincing arguments he does what a good lawyer has to do. He collects as many mini-arguments of all kinds and on all possible aspects of the case as possible. He's doing his job well and on cursory reading everything sounds quite convincing.
One general problem I have with the book is that it does not approach the case in a scientific way. It is extremely one-sided. It only tries to prove a hoax. But in the scientific world one has to evaluate both sides of the story unprejudiced. Popper's falsifiability immediately comes to mind. Carlson is not even trying to do that. The law suit, too, has the defense.
Many of his mini-arguments I found not really convincing.
If Secret Mark was a joke, it was a very bad one. It's been said that Smith created the document to show that the theological guild is unable to recognize it as a hoax. Exactly that's the case. One is unable. But not because one is dumb and ignorant, but because the evidence is insufficient.
To conclude, I have to say that I'm not convinced. This package of mini-arguments is not very strong. Some arguments are quite far-fetched. Clearly if you are eagerly following your pet theory, you will see all kinds of things, that are actually nothing.
The book makes an interesting read. It is especially useful for its many references. It has some good points, but it's not "a scholarly bombshell" and not "utterly convincing".
I am not promoting genuineness. I just don't know what to make of it, for me it's a 50/50 case. A hoax is possible, also along the lines of Carlson, but it's still equally possible that it is a genuine document. Perhaps Carlson is correct, but we have no prove.
I already know what will happen. Many theologians will accept the thesis of this book, happy to get rid of the problem. But it will not go away, unless we will find the real thing and subject it to a scientific analysis.
For me as a scientist it is rather funny to see the theologians lamenting over the document and writing and writing without actually go out for the physical object. It's telling.
Someone wrote: "I don't think there will be many defenders of Clement's letter after Carlson's book becomes widely read. If there are, there's a big problem in academia." Exactly the opposite is true.
PS: I know Carlson as a very intelligent man. In his role as lawyer I could imagine him saying to his wife: "I can do it. I can write a book to fool, errrh, convince everyone."
I'm now expecting his next book on defense. Will give a good laugh, Stephen!
Best wishes
Wieland Willker
Wieland,
You used the fact that Carlson is a lawyer (though you call him a good one and very intelligent) in dismissing his arguments, without engaging his arguments.
Would that be like someone using the fact that you are a chemist to belittle your call for a physical examination (e.g. of ink)? Some have tried to locate
it; and it's worth retrying to find it and the Voss book from which it was separated as well as the other Mar Saba ms that Carlson claims has a note in Smith's hand.
You declare the possibilities are 50/50 without giving any evidence for the 50% genuine possibility claim. Would you care to state your reasons to consider the ms even 50% probably genuine (i.e. 18th century)?
Stephen Goranson
It's certainly persuasive at first, but I found it grew in
conviction the second time I read it. It's quite hard to review a
book without giving away the good bits, and for an unpublished book,
one can hardly do otherwise. But good forgeries are hard to unmask -
- all of us know the 'convincing' arguments that would dispose of
them, and also most of antiquity! -- and conviction genuinely does
grow over time.
All of us know about the Codex Sinaiticus of the bible, and its
discovery by Tischendorff. I don't know how many will recall that
around the same time a man called Simonides came to London with a
bunch of extremely early Gospel mss (which Simonides had written
himself), and was unmasked by T. Simonides then had his revenge, by
asserting that Sinaiticus had been written by Simonides, as a young
man! A controversy ensued, in which no-one wanted to call Simonides
a liar -- but if you read it (I stumbled across a reprint of it in
the 19th century 'Journal of Sacred Literature' while looking for
other things and chased it from volume to volume), you see a gradual
accumulation of small things.
I went and read Lorenzo Valla's refutation of the Donation of
Constantine awhile back, partly because I wondered whether it would
stand examination. I found some of the arguments invalid, but the
core of it was an accumulation of small anachronisms. If Smith's
hoax were crass, it would not be a problem.
SC's analysis of why a forgery/hoax *must* contain material which is
wrong for its period and a topic of controversy in its own -- if it
doesn't grab the attention of the period it is written for, it will
never come to notice, but each period has its own keynote
controversies -- seems to me a truly excellent insight, which allows
us to remove a lot of subjectivity from any uneasy feeling 'it feels
wrong but I can't say why'.
I'm not sure about the Morton salt company and the goldsmith, tho.
I'm nervous of false positives here.
I wonder when it's due to be published? We're all a bit constrained
by the pre-production status.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
PS: I know Carlson as a very intelligent man. In his role as lawyer I
could
imagine him saying to his wife: "I can do it. I can write a book to fool,
errrh, convince everyone."
I'm now expecting his next book on defense. Will give a good laugh, Stephen!
Well, my defense for Smith would be to the acknowledge that he did it but point out that it wasn't done to defraud or to cheat. In other words, Secret Mark was a hoax, not a forgery. But that's already in my book, so there's no need to wait.
Then again, Morton Smith would probably not want to hire a patent attorney for his defense. We spend all our time working with scientists and explaining their inventions to the Patent Office. (Do Patentanwälte in Germany have a reputation for fooling people? Otherwise, I don't get the joke.)
Stephen Carlson
Stephen Goranson wrote:
You used the fact that Carlson is a lawyer (though you call him
a good one and very intelligent) in dismissing his arguments,
without engaging his arguments.
No. I only said that he acted like a lawyer, not like a scientist.
You declare the possibilities are 50/50 without giving any evidence
for the 50% genuine possibility claim. Would you care to state
your reasons to consider the ms even 50% probably
genuine (i.e. 18th century)?
I am quite busy, so don't have the time to go into details now, but I think
it quite easy to refute most, if not all of Carlson's mini-arguments. Just
starting at the beginning: To say that the handwriting is "painted" cannot
be maintained. Compare for example with fig 2b. Is this "painted", too? To
me the writing of the letter looks quite fluent. I agree that the first two
TOU look a bit scribbled, this could be something, but it could also be
caused by something else.
Regarding the cross: Where is an ink blob? At the bottom? Could equally well
be a tail. I think it is very difficult to draw conclusions from such photos
at all. The photos are rather bad. The writing is very small. Distinguishing
slight changes in the ink is problematic.
I think you can equally well write a book "from the other side", defending
the letter. This should not be too difficult. Without the physical evidence
we are in a deadlock. Some people think this, some that.
Roger Pearse wrote:
SC's analysis of why a forgery/hoax *must* contain material which is
wrong for its period and a topic of controversy in its own -- if it
doesn't grab the attention of the period it is written for, it will
never come to notice, but each period has its own keynote
controversies -- seems to me a truly excellent insight
I am not sure.
In our case it could equally well be chance. Only because a document
contains something that causes a controversy does not automatically make it
a hoax.
S. Carlson wrote:
Do Patentanwälte in Germany have a reputation for fooling people?
Otherwise, I don't get the joke.
The joke was basically that the words I put into your mouth, could also have
been spoken by M. Smith.
Of the arguments you presented, which one do you consider the strongest?
Best wishes
Wieland
Stephen Carlson argued that the letter is in Morton Smith's hand. That
is not a
"mini-argument." That claim can be further tested by examining the second ms Carlson claims is in Smith's hand, but that is only partly shown in a photo. The hand as well as the content of that text is well worth reading (will it contain a confirming clue?)
That the anomolous Voss book was brought to Mar Saba is a substantial
argument.
I add that the front cover being missing from a book otherwise apparently in good condition strengthens Carlson's argument: not only would that erase ownership marks, but also provide Smith practice sheets from the front of the book identical to those in its back.
The argument that the letter was written to order is major. E.g., Smith
knew (if
he read the book he owned) of three quotes from other Clement letters,
probably
Mar Saba connected (from John of Damascus' years there), with Stromateis-identified author in two cases. E.g., Smith was interested in discussing with Scholem antiniomian messianism.
The modern Mar Saba novel is a mini-argument, though worth noting even
if minor.
That Simonides also claimed Mar Saba for his "Matthew" facsimilies may be more weighty. The Hippolytus text Smith worked on right before his visit was also extant in only one ms, from a Mt. Athos monastery--a mini-observation.
The medieval Timotheus letter asking whether certain verses were found
in texts
by the Dead Sea deserves much more attention in this case. Though published in 1901 (O. Braun, Oriens Christianus 1, 138-52, 299-313), it was already brought up in 1949 (O. Eissfeldt, Theologische Litteraturzeitung 74, 597-600)
in Qumran
discussions.
The game and "the score so far" and what gnosis can be said and no and the end lacuna and the "genuine" letters title (unlike later Pfaff forgery)--the game, magic trick, theatre, test, of it, the dedication to Nock who was not fooled--in my view, worth considering.
best,
Stephen Goranson
On which page did I say that the handwriting was "painted"? I don't believe that I used the term that is put into direct quotes above.
It is fair, however, to wonder whether my analysis of the handwriting is competent. I wondered that too, so I had a professional forensic document examiner, Julie C. Edison, review my work. Here's what she wrote to me:
--- excerpt ---
Mr. Carlson asked me – a questioned document examiner – to help verify his
methods for uncovering the truth.
A professional forensic document examiner since November 1998, I have given
testimony – both in the courtroom and in depositions – in Maryland,
Virginia, District of Columbia, Connecticut, and Australia. Currently, I am
a member of the Independent Association of Questioned Document Examiners
(IAQDE), and the American College of Forensic Examiners International (ACFEI).
. . .
However, Mr. Carlson has carefully studied the “bible” of the questioned
document field, Questioned Documents, authored by Albert S. Osborn in 1910
and revised in 1929. The text consists of 36 chapters and – with its index
included – more than 1,000 pages.
On pages 129 and 365 of Questioned Documents, Mr. Osborn discusses
“patching” or the creation of letters using more than one stroke. Here, the
writer uses more than one stroke to construct a letter or letter portion.
When patching is present, the writing often appears halting and stilted
rather than natural. And although such strokes would be acceptable for
elderly or ill writers, Osborn writes, patching is a telltale sign of a
forgery.
Mr. Carlson – as well as this examiner – found numerous examples of patching
throughout the manuscript in question. He accurately illustrates a few in
Figures 4A, 4B, and 4C of his text.
Mr. Carlson and this examiner also found numerous examples where what
appeared to be connecting letters – upon close examination – were individual
letters carefully constructed together. In this examiner’s own case
experience, this trait is prominent in documents where fraudulent signatures
appeared genuine. This examiner has discovered fraudulent signatures that
were carefully constructed using tiny, overlapping pen strokes.
. . .
In my opinion, Mr. Carlson’s research into the questioned document field has
been exemplary. My advice to him was to use Albert S. Osborn as a guide in
his quest to disprove the authenticity of this document.
--- end excerpt ---
Of the arguments you presented, which one do you consider the
strongest?
The case is comprehensive, with multiple, diverse strands of evidence all pointing to the same solution. It does not depend on any particular argument. The most satisfying part of the case was that I was able to account for the anomalies of the script with Smith's own handwriting-- in Smith's personal copy of Stählin's edition of Clement of Alexandria no less. Prosecutors are rarely so fortunate to find a forger's imitation lapsing into his own hand because professional forgers are usually more practiced than that. However, it is not strictly necessary to the case because forgers routinely go to prison without such evidence.
Stephen Carlson
I've reviewed Stephen Carlson's book on Secret Mark at
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/reviews/carlson_gospel_hoax.htm
All the best,
Roger Pearse
You wrote in your review:
> The key argument is, and always was, anachronism
I must say, that I don't understand this argument. Because there is an allusion
(and to me it's only a rather vague allusion) to homosexuality and this was a
hot theme in the 1950s, it is pretty clearly a hoax?
One could equally well argue the other way round, that because it was a hot
theme in the 1950s people jumped on this rather marginal detail of Secret Mark.
...
What is really a shame is that nobody ever analyzed the physical object. To me
this is quite inexplicable and inexcusable.
ALLA POIHSAI BIBLIA OUK ESTIN PERASMOS.
:-)
Best wishes
Wieland
Well I've know received my copy and have read through it once. Firstly I
want to congratulate Stephen on a really nice job - clear, well argued,
apparently persuasive, and if successful ridding us of a problem. Also I
think Baylor has done an excellent promotion (blogs etc. have also had a
part in this). Baylor are publishing some other useful books too recently.
I had expected, from discussions with various people who had read it in an
earlier form, that it would be the concrete evidence on the hand-writing
that would be the most original and persuasive contribution of the book.
But I didn't find that to be the case. I found some of the more general
considerations (esp. on homosexual activity in antiquity and the 1950s)
more compelling. The raising of suspicions has been done before, what we
need to convict is proof. But that I'm not yet sure I've seen.
Specifically I don't find convincing the argument on p. 42f that the hand
of MS 22 (figure 5A = also the front cover) is the same hand as that of
Theodore. For such a critical argument (one of the few that involve
concrete testable issues rather than suspicious/possibly trickery) the
actual basis for it is rather slim and vague (resemblances of a few letters
etc.), and very little of the relevant text is shown in the photograph (not
enough to get a clear idea even what it is about). To me the differences
are clear and this whole part of the argument doesn't actually work. Nor
do I find any significant association between the samples of Smith's Greek
hand and the photos of Theodore. So this section doesn't persuade me that
Smith wrote Theodore. I'd be interested to know from Stephen the order of
his own thinking on this subject. Did he firstly see the supposed
similarity of hand-style and then think about Madiotes? Or was it the other
way around? He saw that Madiotes could be conceived of as a clue and then
wonder about the hand?
Secondly I have my doubts about the relevance of this so-called expertise
in hand-writing analysis in connection with forgery of signatures in
contemporary English to the problem at hand. No-one doubts that Theodore is
a copied text so everyone would expect to find in it indications of
hesitation etc. that come from copying techniques. You'd need to have a
test that could distinguish 20th cent copying of a 20th cent exemplar
(Morton Smith) from 18th cent copying from an unknown exemplar (A.N.
Other). But there is no such test proposed. The confidence expressed here
in 'forger's tremor' seems unwarranted: there is no 18th Cent original that
Smith is trying to copy/imitate.
So I'm interested to hear what people who may have read it think about the
argument (and I'm copying Stephen in too).
Cheers
Peter Head
At 04:29 PM 11/30/2005 +0000, Peter Head wrote:
>Well I've know received my copy and have read through it once. Firstly I
>want to congratulate Stephen on a really nice job - clear, well argued,
>apparently persuasive, and if successful ridding us of a problem. Also I
>think Baylor has done an excellent promotion (blogs etc. have also had a
>part in this). Baylor are publishing some other useful books too recently.
>
>I had expected, from discussions with various people who had read it in an
>earlier form, that it would be the concrete evidence on the hand-writing
>that would be the most original and persuasive contribution of the book. But
>I didn't find that to be the case. I found some of the more general
>considerations (esp. on homosexual activity in antiquity and the 1950s) more
>compelling. The raising of suspicions has been done before, what we need to
>convict is proof. But that I'm not yet sure I've seen.
I'm glad you've found much to like in the book. The book presents three
independent cases for Smith's respective compositions. Different people
seem to find different parts of the cases more compelling than others.
Every time someone reacts to the book constructively, I do find ways of
improving its exposition.
>Specifically I don't find convincing the argument on p. 42f that the hand of
>MS 22 (figure 5A = also the front cover) is the same hand as that of
>Theodore. For such a critical argument (one of the few that involve concrete
>testable issues rather than suspicious/possibly trickery) the actual basis
>for it is rather slim and vague (resemblances of a few letters etc.), and
>very little of the relevant text is shown in the photograph (not enough to
>get a clear idea even what it is about). To me the differences are clear and
>this whole part of the argument doesn't actually work.
I would certainly be nice to have more of the Madiotes text, but we do have
enough of it to know in conjunction with Smith's catalog entry that there was
a 20th century person imitating an 18th century hand in books that Smith
cataloged at Mar Saba. That fact alone means that the 10 oral paleographic
opinions of Smith's colleagues are not worth the paper they're written on.
As for the identification itself, no other hand of the several I examined
from Mar Saba comes anywhere as close to the hand of Theodore as that of
Madiotes among several diverse characteristics (execution of the strokes,
letter shapes, pen nib width), and the differences fall within the range
of variation exhibited by the hand of Theodore. The identification is
made even easier when the size of the population of 20th cen. individuals
with access to Mar Saba and imitating 18th cen. handwriting is considered.
>Nor do I find any
>significant association between the samples of Smith's Greek hand and the
>photos of Theodore.
Really? We are dealing with a case of *disguised* handwriting; we're not
trying to determine whether two instances of normal handwriting come from
the same person (which is the more usual question in paleography). Good
imitators can usually mask their normal handwriting traits, so there is
normally no expectation of finding any similarities at all. However, less
competent imitators have been known to lapse into their natural hand, so
the fact that it was possible to match any of the lapses in the hand of
Theodore to Smith's handwriting is highly significant.
>I'd be interested to know from Stephen the order of his own
>thinking on this subject. Did he firstly see the supposed similarity of
>hand-style and then think about Madiotes? Or was it the other way around? He
>saw that Madiotes could be conceived of as a clue and then wonder about the
>hand?
It was my noticing the similarity of the hands that spurred me to do
what I should have done earlier: read and translate all the catalog
entries of Smith's from the Modern Greek. Then it took me a while to
discover the meaning of Madiotes. Perhaps the book's treatment of this
issue would have benefited from a more logical, rather than chronological,
exposition of this aspect of the case (i.e., use Smith's identification
of Madiotes as an input into the identification of the hand rather than
vice versa)?
>Secondly I have my doubts about the relevance of this so-called expertise in
>hand-writing analysis in connection with forgery of signatures in
>contemporary English to the problem at hand. No-one doubts that Theodore is
>a copied text so everyone would expect to find in it indications of
>hesitation etc. that come from copying techniques. You'd need to have a test
>that could distinguish 20th cent copying of a 20th cent exemplar (Morton
>Smith) from 18th cent copying from an unknown exemplar (A.N. Other). But
>there is no such test proposed. The confidence expressed here in 'forger's
>tremor' seems unwarranted: there is no 18th Cent original that Smith is
>trying to copy/imitate.
I don't quite understand the objection. The samples of genuine Mar Saba
handwritings in FIGS. 2A-2C are from copying their exemplars yet they do
not show the evidence of the "forger's tremor." Indeed, these writings
are noticeably more fluent than the supposed hurried cursive of Theodore.
Also, the 20th century imitative writing of M. Madiotes in FIGS 4A-4B
exhibits the indications of hesistations even though it does not seem to
be copied from an exemplar (i.e., the phrase "TO PARO[" looks like the
beginning of a line that reads "TO PARO[N BIBLION ...", a common phrase
in marking the ownership of a book.).
The forensic handwriting analysis shows that the hand was written much
more slowly (and less expertly) than its "hurried cursive" appearance
would indicate. This is indicated by the combination of the shakiness
of the lines in the presence of retouching and patching, nice margins,
that otherwise demonstrates the scribe's fine motor control. (Advanced
age as a cause for the tremor is thus contradicted by the scribe's fine
motor control in other aspects of the document.)
True, a copied text would be written slowly, but that leaves the mystery
of the the writer's choice to use a cursive hand and take the time, with
patching and retouching, to ensure that the result looks like a quickly
written cursive, despite the underlying reality. Cursive handwriting
sacrifices legibility for speed. The scribe of Secret Mark, however,
obtained neither legibility nor speed. For some reason, the *appearance*
of a quickly written cursive was more important to the scribe than whether
it was actually written quickly or legibly. In this case, the superficial
appearance of the hand is deceptive of its reality.
The deceptively hurried appearance of the cursive handwriting in light
of its actual, slow execution is what *raises* the question of forgery.
Notice that I said "raises," not "proves." We don't have the actual
exemplar to make that judgment solely from the forensic handwriting
analysis (e.g., what if there was an 18th century monk who writes like
that normally?), but we are not limited solely to the forensic analysis.
Among the many samples of 18th century Mar Saba handwriting I looked at,
I couldn't find such an example -- except for the sample from M. Madiotes,
which Smith confidently dated to the 20th century! Perhaps that's just
a coincidence. If so, then so must be the case that Madiotes is a
pseudonym. And if both are coincidences, the fact that the meaning of
Madiotes just so happens to describe Smith must also be a coincidence.
Now, coincidences do happen, especially if they are isolated, but when
they happen to cluster where there is also evidence of deception, well,
it's time to remember the reason for the word "critical" in "critical
scholarship."
Furthermore, the forensic forgery analysis, by itself, does not tell
us *when* it was simulated. For example, Murusillo suggested an 18th
cen. forgery. This is where the anomalous letter forms for the period
become important. The anomalies not only belong to the 20th century,
they are also found in Smith's handwriting. We generally do not expect
an 18th century forger to lapse into 20th cen. Greek handwriting, much
less those of the document's eventual discoverer. Maybe those too are
coincidences. "When it rains, it pours," I suppose.
Stephen Carlson
Thanks Stephen,
I'd like to ask a couple more questions and respond to your comments. I
hope they are sensible but having read your book I've now put in down
somewhere in my office and - it being the end of term - it seems to have
disappeared.
> I would certainly be nice to have more of the Madiotes text, but we do
> have enough of it to know in conjunction with Smith's catalog entry that
> there was a 20th century person imitating an 18th century hand in books
> that Smith cataloged at Mar Saba. That fact alone means that the 10 oral
> paleographic opinions of Smith's colleagues are not worth the paper
> they're written on.
So, are you saying that you know nothing more of the Madiotes text (no. 22)
than we do? We've got a cut off bit of a picture. Is that what your
discussion is based on? Or is that picture just an illustrative sample?
Surely it is methodologically preferable to get the whole text, read it,
study the hand as a whole etc. What is the Madiotes text? What is it about?
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that this text proves that a 20th c
person imitated an 18th c hand. Are you saying that the Madiotes text is
clearly a 20th Cent writer imitating an 18th C hand? I don't recall that
from the book (which may be my recollection). What is this based on?
Smith's catalogue gives it a 20th Cent date. Are you saying that the hand
is attempting to look 18th Cent? That might just prove Smith wrong on
dating, but you'd need a good argument for the 18th cent date. Or am I
missing something here?
>As for the identification itself, no other hand of the several I examined
>from Mar Saba comes anywhere as close to the hand of Theodore as that of
>Madiotes among several diverse characteristics (execution of the strokes,
>letter shapes, pen nib width), and the differences fall within the range
>of variation exhibited by the hand of Theodore. The identification is
>made even easier when the size of the population of 20th cen. individuals
>with access to Mar Saba and imitating 18th cen. handwriting is considered.
I understand this argument, but it is important to realise this is not a
palaeographical argument for the identity of the scribe responsible for two
different manuscripts. Such an argument would have to start further back
with a bigger sample and demonstrate significant distinctive similarities
unique to the two scripts/manuscripts. Your argument partly depends on the
suspicion: I (SC) reckon these two are similar, and they are more similar
than any other (of the 'several') hands I've seen at Mar Saba. But that is
no palaeographical smoking gun.
I'm also a bit confused about the Madiotes piece. You clearly regard it as
written by Smith. Smith says it came from the binding of a book and judging
by the photo it is sewn in with the other pages. So on your theory Smith
brings his Voss on Ignatius, with Theodore already written into the back
sheets, and deposits this in the monastery's library. During the same visit
he writes a clue to this in a blank sheet in the binding of another book (a
text written by M. Madiotes), takes a photo, and publishes the photo in the
popular book as a clue to the hoax. Hmmmmmmmm. I'd really like to know what
this Madiotes text is all about!
>>Nor do I find any
>>significant association between the samples of Smith's Greek hand and the
>>photos of Theodore.
>
>Really? We are dealing with a case of *disguised* handwriting; we're not
>trying to determine whether two instances of normal handwriting come from
>the same person (which is the more usual question in paleography). Good
>imitators can usually mask their normal handwriting traits, so there is
>normally no expectation of finding any similarities at all. However, less
>competent imitators have been known to lapse into their natural hand, so
>the fact that it was possible to match any of the lapses in the hand of
>Theodore to Smith's handwriting is highly significant.
Well, I'm no expert in 18th Cent Greek palaeography (or 20th cent for that
matter); and I was looking at this material more from the perspective of
'does this prove a connection', rather than 'is this also suspicious?' I'll
have another look.
>> I'd be interested to know from Stephen the order of his own thinking on
>> this subject. Did he firstly see the supposed similarity of hand-style
>> and then think about Madiotes? Or was it the other way around? He saw
>> that Madiotes could be conceived of as a clue and then wonder about the
>> hand?
>
>It was my noticing the similarity of the hands that spurred me to do
>what I should have done earlier: read and translate all the catalog
>entries of Smith's from the Modern Greek. Then it took me a while to
>discover the meaning of Madiotes. Perhaps the book's treatment of this
>issue would have benefited from a more logical, rather than chronological,
>exposition of this aspect of the case (i.e., use Smith's identification
>of Madiotes as an input into the identification of the hand rather than
>vice versa)?
No the book is OK. I would have found the 'more logical' order more
problematic (and I was wondering whether that is actually what happened).
So fair game.
The rest I really need to have the book to hand for. Your comments helped
me understand the argument better, so thanks for that. But this will have
to do for now.
Cheers
Peter Head
Stephen Carlson wrote:
> I would certainly be nice to have more of the Madiotes
> text, but we do have enough of it to know in conjunction
> with Smith's catalog entry that there was a 20th century
> person imitating an 18th century hand in books that Smith
> cataloged at Mar Saba. That fact alone means that the 10
> oral paleographic opinions of Smith's colleagues are not
> worth the paper they're written on.
Come on Stephen, you believe Smith unseen that this is a 20th CE hand? Then you
argue that it is an 20th CE imitation of a 18th CE hand? How can one distinguish
a 20th CE hand from a 20th CE imitation of a 18th CE hand? And you judge from a
rather small sample pic here. All this is doubtful, of course.
You are basically saying that your judgment is better than that of the 10
experts. Possible, but "not worth the paper"?
Because the script resembles that of the Secret Mark letter you conclude they
are the same. Then you notice the name Madiotes, which you cannot find in a
telephone book and therefore conclude that it is an invention by Smith. So, it
must have a special meaning. This sounds rather far fetched to me.
If all this really proves true some day, Smith will turn out to be a real
mad-idiotes. But I still have my doubts.
> Perhaps that's just a coincidence.
How many MSS from Mar Saba did you actually studied?
> If so, then so must be the case that Madiotes is a
> pseudonym.
Is it? Who knows? Says you.
> And if both are coincidences, the fact that the meaning of
> Madiotes just so happens to describe Smith
Again, says you. A rather far fetched theory.
Perhaps you are seeing things where there is nothing? I am a bit astonished that
you are so extremely convinced.
I think it is essential to study the real thing. I would not have written a book
about the case without studying the actual MSS involved. Perhaps a note, but not
a book. Try contacting Kallistos, perhaps via Olympiou. Why not looking at MS
"22"? If it's in Smith's hand, it might reveal something.
Well,
"Of making many books there is no end..."
:-)
Best wishes
Wieland Willker
On this very issue, I stated on Crosstalk in May:
First, I think the biggest problem is the term "forgery." A forgery (in
writing) is an attempt to duplicate a hand and/or signature. This is not
what the person who wrote this document on the flyleaves of Voss' book was
doing. The original text of Clement's letter could easily have been in an
uncial hand. What I am looking at is a COPY in a Phanariot minuscule hand
with its "legalistic" shorthandedness, ligatures and flourishes. Criteria
for forgeries, such as lack of fluency and rhythm, slow broken strokes,
"tremors" and retouching and blunt beginning and ending strokes and frequent
pen rests are not there and do not apply. This hand has fluency and rhythm.
There are smooth unbroken strokes and rounded forms with delicate pressure
at beginning and ending strokes. I have no reason to believe that Morton
Smith was accustomed to writing fluently, normally and rhthmically ( and
hurriedly) in a
Phanariot Greek hand. This is a hurried hand which conforms in my mind to a
librarian attempting to preserve something he thought important and was
probably ordered to destroy, much like Kallistos was ordered to do the same
thing to the copy. In a legitimate copy of the original, a "tremor" can
form where the copyist pauses to check back to the exemplar and there may be
an occasional pen rest. I also see foxing that occurred between 1642 and
the time of the writing and also foxing that occurred afterward that
interferes with the writing....at least so it appears from both the Smith
and Hedrick photos.
This document is not a forgery, it is a handwritten copy. There is a big
difference.
Of course I will read Stephen's work with an open mind but I have to admit
to being somewhat skeptical that this issue is going to be put to rest.
Jack Kilmon
San Marcos, Texas
Yesterday I said:
>The rest I really need to have the book to hand for. Your comments helped
>me understand the argument better, so thanks for that. But this will have
>to do for now.
Well I found the book and some more questions, so let's say this is part
two.
Here I want to ask whether Stephen has rightly identified the texts in No
22 (acc to SC the Madiotes text = plate 5A and Front Cover). This is a
simple question with far-reaching implications.
Acc to SC: there are three handwriting styles that basically equate to the
three which Smith's catalogue identifies as appearing on f.1.r (Carlson, p.
42f). The first of these is crucial as (acc to SC) it is the Madiotes hand
which Smith dated 20th Cent but actually looks 18th Cent (i.e. this
provides a parallel example of Smith attempting to imitate an 18th Cent
hand).
BUT According to Smith the three hands (Madiotes, Dionysios, Anobos) appear
on f.1.r and it is not at all clear to me that the right hand text in the
photograph 5A can be f.1.r (else how can we explain the text and other
pages facing on the left - f.1.r should be the first folio of the book).
Acc to Smith's Catalogue (helpfully given in ET here on p100f - I assume
this is an ET of the Greek translation of the original rather than the
original english script) No 22 contains primarily an 18th Cent MS in a 17th
Cent printed book. This was written on the first 11 sheets and the final 6
sheets. f.1.r identifies earlier owners (as we would expect, on the first
opening of the book). Later Smith says: 'The final sheet (r), a Romanian
writing with Latin characters, pertains to a brother of a certain Dionysios
and is dated 1779.' It seems to me that the right hand text in the photo 5A
(and front cover) is actually this text. It looks like a final sheet (in 5A
you can see the backboards behind it). It clearly follows the main
manuscript text (so it can't be f.1.r). It clearly has the date 1779 about
half way down. It is not all very clear as to what is being said here (as I
commented previously), so I can't confirm the other details, but the date
itself would seem to prove this is not f.1.r but rather 'the final sheet
(r)' (presumably f.17.r but this is not stated).
If I am right on this then it creates a big problem for Stephen's case at
this point. If I am right (in thinking that Stephen has misidentified the
page as the claimed Madiotes text) then this page is NOT 20th Cent writing
trying to look 18th Cent and attributed to the bald swindler. "M. Madiotes"
is at the extreme other end of the book. This is quite a separate 18th Cent
hand. This section of Stephen's case would, I fear, collapse.
But I should note that I haven't seen the larger photo in Secret Gospel; or
anything of 'Monasteries and their Manuscripts'; nor the Greek of Smith's
Catalogue. So hopefully I'm wrong on this.
I hope some of you may be able to check me out on this in case I am wrong
here. If I am right then there is an additional layer of irony to the
investigation in the failure to properly check the physical manuscript! It
may not be fatal to Stephen's whole argument, that depends on a few other
areas to which I hope to return.
Cheers
Peter Head
Actually, my working hypothesis (not set out in the book) is
that Smith took home MS 22 as a souvenir from his first visit
to Mar Saba in 1942, wrote the Madiotes material in it, and
returned that book to the library, along with the Voss edition
(MS 65), on his second visit in 1958.
Stephen Carlson
At 01:45 AM 12/3/2005 +0000, P.M. Head wrote:
>BUT According to Smith the three hands (Madiotes, Dionysios, Anobos) appear
>on f.1.r and it is not at all clear to me that the right hand text in the
>photograph 5A can be f.1.r (else how can we explain the text and other pages
>facing on the left - f.1.r should be the first folio of the book). Acc to
>Smith's Catalogue (helpfully given in ET here on p100f - I assume this is an
>ET of the Greek translation of the original rather than the original english
>script) No 22 contains primarily an 18th Cent MS in a 17th Cent printed
>book. This was written on the first 11 sheets and the final 6 sheets. f.1.r
>identifies earlier owners (as we would expect, on the first opening of the
>book). Later Smith says: 'The final sheet (r), a Romanian writing with Latin
>characters, pertains to a brother of a certain Dionysios and is dated 1779.'
>It seems to me that the right hand text in the photo 5A (and front cover) is
>actually this text. It looks like a final sheet (in 5A you can see the
>backboards behind it). It clearly follows the main manuscript text (so it
>can't be f.1.r). It clearly has the date 1779 about half way down. It is not
>all very clear as to what is being said here (as I commented previously), so
>I can't confirm the other details, but the date itself would seem to prove
>this is not f.1.r but rather 'the final sheet (r)' (presumably f.17.r but
>this is not stated).
I considered that possibility, Peter. However, the date 1779 in the
photo of MS 22 occurs within a Greek text, in Greek letters (EIS TOIS
1779 / IANOUARIOU / XION. MEGALON), not within a Romanian writing with
Latin characters.
Also, the recto of final sheet would not be facing the binding (which,
as shown in the picture was composed of older manuscripts). Indeed,
the verso of the final sheet would be facing the binding.
For these reasons, I did not adopt the alternative identification that
you discuss here.
Stephen Carlson
(The ET of the catalog in the book is my translation of the modern
Greek. It is not the original Smith had translated.)
I agree with Peter that we have a problem here.
According to the info given on p. 100f. Smith notes the date 1779 only on
"the final sheet (r.)" and "the final sheet (v.)". And, since the date 1779
can be seen on the photo, we must conclude that this must be either "the
final sheet (r.)" or "the final sheet (v.)". Right?
But the name Madiotes appears on folio f1r. We must conclude then that the
handwriting we see on that photo is not that of Madiotes, but of someone
else.
Regarding the Latin characters, perhaps they are not visible on that photo,
which shows only a small part of the page.
> Also, the recto of final sheet would not be facing the binding
That's a problem, I agree. Perhaps it is written up-side down?
We need a better photo!
Best wishes
Wieland Willker
>I considered that possibility, Peter. However, the date 1779 in the
>photo of MS 22 occurs within a Greek text, in Greek letters (EIS TOIS
>1779 / IANOUARIOU / XION. MEGALON), not within a Romanian writing with
>Latin characters.
>
>Also, the recto of final sheet would not be facing the binding (which,
>as shown in the picture was composed of older manuscripts). Indeed,
>the verso of the final sheet would be facing the binding.
>
>For these reasons, I did not adopt the alternative identification that
>you discuss here.
Thanks Stephen,
I wish I found that persuasive! I really do. But I remain a little troubled
about the critical basis for your positive identification of the page in 5A
with the Madiotes sheet.
What you are saying is that you considered various possibilities for the
identification of the page in the photo 5A, including the one I have
proposed (but which you did not adopt). But I wonder whether there is ANY
positive evidence for the identification you adopt?
According to Smith the Madiotes sheet is:
a) f.1.r: i.e. the opening sheet of the whole book
b) contains names of previous owners or users
c) M. Madiotes
d) the monk Dionysios, Archimandrite
e) Anobos, monk of the Holy Sepulchre
f) no dates mentioned by Smith
I can't see that the photo 5A provides any confirmation of any of these points.
In terms of method, can I return to my previous comment (the first priority
ought to be to check the physical evidence, especially when photos are
unclear, insufficient, or suspiciously cropped) and request a clarification?
I agree that it is important to consider the relationship between No. 22
(Madiotes & Summer) & No. 65 (Theodore). It is clear that this book is
important to Smith's case because the presence of bits of older manuscripts
(10th or 11th cent) in the binding proves that older manuscript material
was available in the monastery in the 18th century. But it is absolutely
critical to your case as well since it provides the concrete physical
evidence that has generally been lacking in earlier accusations of
forgery/hoaxing.
Am I correct though, in presuming from what you've said in the book and
here so far that you never went to Mar Saba and you never inspected this
book/sheet and you never checked the earlier catalogues of books there to
see whether or not this book (which acc to Smith was given to the monastery
in 1756) had been there earlier? Or I am being overly pessimistic?
Cheers
Peter Head
Back to the Secret Mark news page