Is the "Secret Gospel of Mark" authentic?

[polonius]

NOTE: From the New American Bible, Gospel of Mark, chapter 14
51 Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him,52but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark
In 1958, Morton Smith, a professor of ancient history at Columbia University, found a previously unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria in the monastery of Mar Saba situated 20 kilometers south-east of Jerusalem.[10] He made a formal announcement of the discovery in 1960[11] and published his study of the text in 1973.[12][13] The original manuscript was subsequently transferred to the library of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, and sometime after 1990 it was lost.[14][15] Further research has relied upon photographs and copies, including those made by Smith himself.[16]
The revelation of the letter caused a sensation at the time, but was soon met with accusations of forgery and misrepresentation.[21] Although most patristic Clement scholars have accepted the letter as genuine,[25][26] there is no consensus on the authenticity among Biblical scholars, and the opinion is split.

https://depts.drew.edu/jhc/fowler.html

1 They come into Bethany, and there was a woman whose brother had died 2 and [she] approaches and bows down before Jesus and says to him, "Son of David, have mercy on me." 3 But the disciples scolded her. 4 And Jesus got angry and went with her into the garden where the tomb was. 5 Right away there was a loud voice from the tomb. 6 Then Jesus went up and rolled the stone away from the opening of the tomb. 7 He went right in where the youth was, reached out a hand and raised him, taking hold of [his] hand. 8 The youth loved him at first sight and began to plead with him to stay. 9 And coming out of the tomb, they go to the young man's home for he was rich. 10 And six days later Jesus called him. 11 And when evening came, the young man went to him wearing a shroud over his nude body. 12 And he stayed all night as Jesus taught him the secret of the kingdom of God. 13 From there he gets up and goes back across the Jordan.

Observation: Was this Lazarus?

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

I read Smith's three major works on Secret Mark, and had a brief mail correspondence with him. I think the jury will always be out on the authenticity of his discovery. It has been well-argued that Smith had the skill to fake the letter and to write it in the form he claimed to have found it. I myself don't know.

I'll venture to say this - that, like the works of Carlos Castenada on Don Juan, Smith's work on early Christianity's relationship to ancient magical practice is spot-on, and if he constructed Secret Mark as a teaching device by which Smith mustered and correlated all his work on magical Christianity under one "unified theory", then my hat is off to him, just as it is to Castenada. Literally, they both could have perpetrated their respective hoax - but what a hoax! Two hoaxes which are treasure chests of mystical/magical experience (Castenada) and (Smith) deep scholarship on first century magical practice in the Levant and the Roman Empire. Both worth reading.

[polonius]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

I read Smith's three major works on Secret Mark, and had a brief mail correspondence with him. I think the jury will always be out on the authenticity of his discovery. It has been well-argued that Smith had the skill to fake the letter and to write it in the form he claimed to have found it. I myself don't know.

I'll venture to say this - that, like the works of Carlos Castenada on Don Juan, Smith's work on early Christianity's relationship to ancient magical practice is spot-on, and if he constructed Secret Mark as a teaching device by which Smith mustered and correlated all his work on magical Christianity under one "unified theory", then my hat is off to him, just as it is to Castenada. Literally, they both could have perpetrated their respective hoax - but what a hoax! Two hoaxes which are treasure chests of mystical/magical experience (Castenada) and (Smith) deep scholarship on first century magical practice in the Levant and the Roman Empire. Both worth reading.

RESPONSE: How do you explain the reference to the young man who ran off naked in the regular Gospel of Mark?

"Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him,but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked."

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 3 by polonius.advice]

I don't have an explanation. Some think that the naked young man was Mark himself, Mark the author making an abstract mention of himself in the story. But of course, no Gospel is eyewitness testimony, and Mark seems not to make any other self-references in his Gospel. Some, like Smith, link the young man to John's Beloved Disciple. Smith suggested that the scene was a baptism, since it was nocturnal (linking it to the Nicodemus "born again" passage in John), and because the young man, like early Christian baptismal candidates, was wearing a linen robe over his naked body. One would speculate that the scene has some symbolic meaning for Mark, but if Smith is correct, scribal tampering makes it difficult to ferret out.

[polonius]

[Replying to post 3 by polonius.advice]

I don't have an explanation. Some think that the naked young man was Mark himself, Mark the author making an abstract mention of himself in the story. But of course, no Gospel is eyewitness testimony, and Mark seems not to make any other self-references in his Gospel. Some, like Smith, link the young man to John's Beloved Disciple. Smith suggested that the scene was a baptism, since it was nocturnal (linking it to the Nicodemus "born again" passage in John), and because the young man, like early Christian baptismal candidates, was wearing a linen robe over his naked body. One would speculate that the scene has some symbolic meaning for Mark, but if Smith is correct, scribal tampering makes it difficult to ferret out.

RESPONSE:

But of course, no Gospel is eyewitness testimony,

Congratulations on your insight! But you are going to find a number of fundamentalists try to argue that they are! A number of them seem to post here.

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 5 by polonius.advice]

Yeah...I know! NO Gospel has even the small snippets of "we-passages" as does Acts. Yet fundies, against the Gospels themselves, think that "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke" and "John" were eyewitnesses...

[brianbbs67]

I think Lazarus for your candidate is likely correct. The verse in Mark is a little odd, but running for your life would preclude clothes.

[brianbbs67]

Never had heard of the Secret Gospel of Mark, but it seems after reading Clement, It was being used to push homosexuality as God's secret knowledge.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

This is what I have read:

Most scholars that I have read believe this to be fake, by M.S. himself. The document was never found; all we have is M.S.'s word and a photograph. It is telling that M.S. himself does not use the "document" in his own scholarly work.

Morton was himself a homosexual. The homosexual overtones of the work make it highly suspicious. Did Smith manufacture a document that supported his sexual orientation?

[polonius]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

This is what I have read:

Most scholars that I have read believe this to be fake, by M.S. himself. The document was never found; all we have is M.S.'s word and a photograph. It is telling that M.S. himself does not use the "document" in his own scholarly work.

Morton was himself a homosexual. The homosexual overtones of the work make it highly suspicious. Did Smith manufacture a document that supported his sexual orientation?

RESPONSE: Where did you find the claim "most scholars" Or is the reading selection questionable?

How do account for the fact that the same information about the young man running off naked is also in the regular Gospel of Mark?