Here are the various reports on the Secret Gospel of Mark Symposium, part of the York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series, held on April 29th in Toronto, followed by some further reflections from my part (as far as the conference reports allow me to join in).
Burke, Tony:
Reflections on the Secret Mark Symposium, part 1
Reflections on the Secret Mark Symposium, part 2
Reflections on the Secret Mark Symposium, part 3
Miceli, Calogero A.:
Secret Mark Symposium: A Student’s View
the_cave:
Secret Mark in Toronto
Veale, Sarah:
Thoughts on the Secret Gospel of Mark Conference
Wettlaufer, Ryan D.:
Report on Secret Gospel of Mark Symposium Pt 1
Report on Secret Gospel of Mark Symposium Pt 2
Report on Secret Gospel of Mark Symposium Pt 3
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One of the stated objectives for the symposium was that "some progress can be made by bringing these scholars together to present their latest work on the gospel". Previously, there was no consensus amongst the scholars, and -- as I have noted elsewhere -- no engagement nor venue for such a consensus to emerge. Clearly then, a symposium on the subject was most useful to have, even though few people (reportedly) came and changed their minds.
Indeed, it is almost six years since Stephen Carlson's The Gospel Hoax came out. Some of the reports above state that many of his claims have been dropped for good, but this does not seem to be exactly the case. Roger Viklund raised the issue a few days ago, and I tend to agree, that many of Carlson's claims have simply been redecorated and occasionally slightly elaborated, hanging along despite the criticism scholars have presented in recent years. There is a desire to move onwards already (Hedrick's paper comes to mind), but at the same time a tendency to travel in circles: since Jenkins raised the issue of Hunter's novel in 2001 how many iterations of that particular argument have we gone through (Carlson, Watson, Evans etc.)? Furthermore, I cannot but perceive a widening gulf between scholars working directly with the Mar Saba manuscript and scholars writing secondary reports on the debate; in recent secondary literature Carlson's arguments still remain the last word on the subject.
Of the individual papers I cannot comment much since I have not seen most of them, but "The Peter Jeffery Challenge" -- go and check how Morton Smith utilized ancient sources in his works and whether one finds him deceptive -- is an interesting proposal. Particularly since I have already done at least the minimum of one hour of checking them. More details regarding the challenge are found here (in the comments), along with Ryan Wettlaufer's question whether the Jeffery challenge is actually begging the question -- further developments may be taking place. [EDIT: Don't forget to check out Jeffery's comment below!] In itself, however, the question of the usage of ancient sources is a legitimate one. But I propose there are limits to the possible conclusions we can arrive at with such questioning.
On a general level, two things seem to be off. First, scholars are trained to disagree with each other; at least this is a big part of the education I have received from Helsinki University. As coming up with original ideas is much more difficult than pointing out weaknesses in other's arguments, the journey into academia begins with referencing and criticizing. It is also self-evident that without disagreement there is no discussion to be had. For a trained scholar, spotting things to disagree with becomes almost trivial and in the end one usually comes to the conclusion that no death nor living scholar is to be found with whom one does not -- cannot -- but disagree with. Not with every single point, mind you, but with many of them, nonetheless.
The other difficulty with Jeffery challenge is the manner with which scholars normally handle their enormous differences in opinion. They soften their responses. They avoid harsh statements. They try to moderate the differences and reach some sort of a compromise. They do NOT call other interpretations Bullshit! They do NOT claim to have solved the question once and for all. Instead, they use a lot of words such as 'probably', 'plausibly', and 'almost certainly' (the more adventurous ones). They do NOT voice their initial, knee-jerk reaction to a point they disagree with, but open their mouths only when they have applied the necessary manners & decorum on top of it. These features of discussion have a simple psychological foundation: they enable scholars to have a dialogue instead of merely shouting at each other. In effect, they are signs with which we can distinguish between academic and non-academic discourses.
What does all of this mean regarding Morton Smith and his use of ancient sources? For one thing, as a scholar goes through Smith's interpretations she is bound to find lots and lots of details she disagrees with. Some of these are minor and some display a gross misunderstanding (if not a gross and deliberate misrepresentation) of the sources in question; finding such things is the bread-and-butter of studying ancient texts, after all. Yes, Morton Smith had highly idiosyncratic ideas! But so does every other scholar, quick or death, and in itself this fact is no grounds for holding him more deceptive than any of the others. In my personal opinion (i.e. from my particular perspective) there are far more 'deceptive' scholars out there, big names in the field of biblical studies even. I have strong knee-jerk reactions for anyone who does not buy the 'diversity in early Christianity' argument, speaks about 'mainstream early Christianity' when he merely refers to one of its variants ('proto-orthodoxy') and fails to put the words 'heresy' and 'heretics' into scare quotes, to cite the first three examples that came instantly to mind. These reactions, however, are not good starting points for further dialogue with e.g. scholars whose knee-jerk reactions are the absolute opposite of mine.
I strongly feel that not calling Morton Smith, or any other scholar, 'deceptive' -- whatever our innermost thoughts on the question might be -- is almost a requisite for having an academic debate in the first place. I wonder if that means I have failed at the Jeffery Challenge.
Posts
Christian Apocrypha at 2012 SBL
3 weeks ago
I’d like to correct the historical record here.
ReplyDelete1. I said 10 hours, not one hour. To take the Jeffery challenge you have to walk around the library with Smith’s Clement book, and every time he mentions or cites a source, go find the text and actually read it, to see if it says what he says it says. Eventually it will be clear Smith often distorted or misrepresented the texts to support his bizarre notion that all ancient (and modern) religions practiced a ritual of “heavenly ascent” that was really a disciple's sexual initiation at the hands of his teacher. At least some of these misrepresentations are clearly deliberate, and there are just too many of them to attribute to differences in methodology or interpretation. At least some of them can only be intentional misstatements that Smith must have known were not true. To see that, though, you have to really read Smith’s text and check every source he mentions, line by line and footnote by footnote. If you don’t read at that level of detail for an extended period of time, you haven’t taken the Jeffery Challenge. If you are reluctant to agree with my assessment of Smith’s writings, go ahead and prove me wrong. Read his books and show us how they make more sense than I claim. Smith’s defenders would not be Smith’s defenders if they really read his publications carefully. Their own publications reveal that they have not.
2. When I used the word “bullshit,” I was obviously referring to a specific Smith quote that was currently projected on the PowerPoint screen. It happened to be footnote 22 from Smith’s article “Pauline Worship as Seen by Pagans.” Check it out for yourself. If you can’t see what’s wrong with this article, you don’t know how to recognize academic fraud, and your prospects for a successful career in academia are doubtful, I'm sorry to say.
3. Though the fraudulent character of Smith’s publications is beyond reasonable dispute, that does not in itself prove that the Secret Gospel is a fake. Liars tell the truth sometimes, and Smith might have really discovered something. But once a person can recognize Smith’s technique of stringing together “scattered indications” from random ancient and modern texts to create bogus rituals, it then becomes possible to go on to the second step, and see that the Mar Saba text was constructed by the very same technique: words, phrases, and excerpts from the gospels, Clement, Papias, Oscar Wilde and other sources, strung together to create the impression of a bogus sexual ritual. But the Jeffery challenge is only about the first step: learning to recognize the techniques by which Smith constructed his counterfeit magical rites. The rest can come later. I do regret that the organizers did not give my paper out to the attendees, and didn't tell me they didn't.
Peter Jeffery
Thanks for the above clarification! Maybe we could say that thoroughly reading and checking Smith's 'Pauline Worship as Seen by Pagans' is Jeffery Challenge Lite. It is also one of those articles I have not read, but I'll try and remedy the situation next week.
ReplyDeleteBut this is my problem: finding a scholar to be an academic fraud is a group effort (as is every task in the study of history) conducted by other scholars who work within a same interpretative paradigm. That is to say, finding someone to be a fraud is not a question of absolutes (whether one is 'really' a fraud or not) since historical studies in general is not working with absolutes at all. In any given time, a specific historical source will have a number of possible interpretations laid down by the academic community, and individual scholars are then placed along the forming trajectory, with some of them crossing the boundaries into the unacceptable (as judged by the community).
I already confessed to have found 'highly idiosyncratic ideas' from Smith's writings, and unless my sense of English is once again failing me, that is not a positive statement (at least, not in this context; the context being me trying to sound as academically acceptable as I possibly can). I simply disagree -- until I cease to disagree for one reason or another -- that Smith or any of the other scholars I have seen to cross those interpretative boundaries should be called frauds for that reason alone. First, people may genuinely believe that their oddball notions (as judged by the community) are quite plausible and even if they did not the difference for the scholarly community is essentially nil since they have already assessed those notions to be oddball (and thus outside the limits of discussion). Second, bringing the language of fraudulence into academic discussion cannot but impede its proceedings as it tends to aggravate and irritate scholars more than bring clarity into the debates.
The implications of the above are, to my mind, the following: at a certain time and place biblical scholars at large might be willing to label Smith a fraud, based on the arguments you have presented above and elsewhere. But as far as I can see this does not seem to be the case at present; thus my decision to not call Smith a fraud despite his interpretative choices is hardly a prime reason for my possible (but let's hope not!) failure as a biblical scholar.