Loading...In my previous posts I explained how American scholar of early Christianity, Morton Smith, claimed to have discovered the Secret Gospel of Mark in 1958. Now I’ll discuss how, once he discovered it (assuming he did – some scholars think he actually forged it…), how he went about trying to find out if it was actually an ancient Gospel.
Again, from my book Lost Christianities:
Authenticating and Interpreting the Letter
Morton Smith devoted much of his research for the next fifteen years studying this find. Roughly speaking, the work involved establishing the authenticity of the letter and determining the meaning of the passages quoted from the Secret Gospel. In 1973, Smith published the results of his labors in two books, one a popular account for general audiences, full of interesting anecdotes and still worth reading, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the the Secret Gospel According to Mark, the other an erudite report on his investigations for scholars in the field, an amazing book of scholarship but inaccessible for the most part to those who do not have the requisite ancient languages and extensive expertise in the field of Christian antiquity.[1]
With respect to the authentication of the letter there were, and still are, significant questions to be addressed: Was the letter actually
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I’m catching up on the blog and reading through the purgatory thread.
Do you think it is significant that Dinocrates face remained scarred vs complete healing, like nothing had happened?
If we are cleansed of sin after time in purgatory, would we still be scarred?
Yup, it’s interesting. Not sure what to make of it. AS to what actually happens to us in purgatory, I hope never to find out.
Hi! I am watching your debate with Dr. Justin Bass, and you said that the disciples of Jesus did not believe in a life after death as we do, meaning, the soul goes to the beyond. However, we have the literature of Enoch and other literature from that time and even before the first century that suggested jews had an eschatology similar to others, how do you solve this?
Some did, that’s right. But it was by far the mimority view and we see no evidence of it in the earliest followers of Jesus. (What besides 1 Enoch are you thnking of?)
I appreciate the response. Books like Apocalypse of Abraham come to mind.
Apocalypse of Adam, Apocalypse of Moses, Gabriel’s Revelation (what do you think of the authenticity of the Gabriel’s revelation?) the first and second Maccabees books. How else can we be certain that Jesus and his followers did not hold such a strong belief in eternal life as disembodied spirits like many Pharisees did? Can you give me some books or academic papers on the subject? I appreciate you.
I suppose you could read something like E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief. But I don’t recall if he deals with the topic. I first got this idea from DAle Allison I believe, but I don’t recall where. I’m not at all sure Pharisees believed in disembodied souls. One of their main conflicts with Sadducees was over whether *bodies* were resurrected. (I’m don’t think Josephus can be trusted for understanding the various sects views of afterlife; he’s explaining thigs to a Roman audience and that makes a huge difference)
I appreciate the reply! Any words on the Gabriel´s revelation tablet?
I don’t think it has any significance for understanding Judaism at the time of Jesus or the original Christian understadings of Jesus as messiah.
Dr. Ehrman,
In your book you say we have a solid piece of early evidence that a Jesus of history existed. I think it’s a great argument, but what would you say to some critics who claim that that the James of Gal. 1:19 is not Jesus’ biological brother and
Paul might merely mean “brother in the faith?”
I think it’s easily shown to be wrong. I explain that at some length in my book Did Jesus Exist.