Subject: Re: Addendum on Secret Mark

From: "GLENN WOODEN" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:50:53 AST4ADT

Bart and others interested in Smith and the letter of Clement of 
Alex:

Last year at this time there was an extended discussion about this 
very topic on B-Greek.  At that time Professor Edward Hobbs posted a 
lengthy article in which he relates various discussions and events 
surrounding Smith's claims about the said document.  With Hobbs' 
permission (I have sent a request to him) I will forward that post to 
this list, hopefully soon.  The long and short of it is: scholars 
concluded that it was a forgery; and Smith was not amused!

Glenn Wooden
Acadia Divinity College
Wolfville N.S.
Canada

[email-masked]

---

From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 13:46:38 -0400 (EDT)

Glenn,

    Yes, I was on B-Greek at the time and recall the interchange.  What
I'm wondering about is the actual *place* of the text in question.  (I
should point out in fairness to both Smith and the discussion, that the
forgery question was raised but it has not been answered to the
satisfaction of all; before everyone jumps on that bandwagon, they should
reread Smith's longer treatment of the question in his _Clement of
Alexandria..._; I was inspired to do so by the discussion, and despite my
propensity to think he forged it, have to say that his analysis is
*extremely* compelling -- the sort of thing that loses almost everything
in translation.  If he did forge this thing, it's one the most amazing
feats of scholarship in the 20th century; and he would have done so at a
remarkably young age.)

   In any event, does anyone else know where the ms itself is?

-- Bart D. Ehrman

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 14:03:05 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 26 Apr 1996, Bart Ehrman wrote:

> despite my

This sounds much like the matter of the Brazilian Paraiba inscription 
which Cyrus Gordon pronounced authentic (it recounts some Phoenecians 
blown off course while attempting to circumnavigate Africa, ending up 
in what is now Brazil).  Gordon's point there was that there were certain 
grammatical peculiarities in the inscription (found in 1898) which were 
not known within northwest Semitic until the Ugaritic materials had been 
discovered.  Nevertheless, most scholars still considered the Paraiba 
inscription to be a forgery, which seems peculiar.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~