The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery

New
Hardcover
2007
$88.14

In 1958, Bible scholar Morton Smith announced the discovery of a sensational manuscript-a second-century letter written by St. Clement of Alexandria, who quotes an unknown, longer version of the Gospel of Mark. When Smith published the letter in 1973, he set off a firestorm of controversy that has raged ever since. Is the text authentic, or a hoax? Is Smith's interpretation correct? Did Jesus really practice magic, or homosexuality? And if the letter is a forgery ...why? Through close examination of the discovered manuscript's text, Peter Jeffery unravels the answers to the mystery and tells the tragic tale of an estranged Episcopalian priest who forged an ancient gospel and fooled many of the best biblical scholars of his time. Jeffery shows convincingly that Smith's Secret Gospel is steeped in anachronisms and that its construction was influenced by Oscar Wilde's Salome, twentieth-century misunderstandings of early Christian liturgy, and Smith's personal struggles with Christian sexual morality.

Synopsis

In 1958, Bible scholar Morton Smith announced the discovery of a sensational manuscript-a second-century letter written by St. Clement of Alexandria, who quotes an unknown, longer version of the Gospel of Mark. When Smith published the letter in 1973, he set off a firestorm of controversy that has raged ever since. Is the text authentic, or a hoax? Is Smith's interpretation correct? Did Jesus really practice magic, or homosexuality? And if the letter is a forgery ...why? Through close examination of the discovered manuscript's text, Peter Jeffery unravels the answers to the mystery and tells the tragic tale of an estranged Episcopalian priest who forged an ancient gospel and fooled many of the best biblical scholars of his time. Jeffery shows convincingly that Smith's Secret Gospel is steeped in anachronisms and that its construction was influenced by Oscar Wilde's Salome, twentieth-century misunderstandings of early Christian liturgy, and Smith's personal struggles with Christian sexual morality.

$88.14

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Edition: 1
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 02 Jan 2007
ISBN 10: 0300117604
ISBN 13: 9780300117608

Media Reviews

The discussion of the 'Secret Gospel' has involved a generation of scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity. Jeffery's book-argued with enormous erudition, careful judgment, sensitivity, and balance-sets the discussion on an entirely new footing. -Harold W. Attridge, Yale Divinity School -- Harold W. Attridge Peter Jeffery's book proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Morton Smith forged the discovered text. It demonstrates that he had the scholarly expertise, the wit, the sense of humor, and above all the motivation to do so. -Adela Yarbro Collins, Yale Divinity School -- Adela Yarbro Collins

Author Bio

Peter Jeffery is Scheide Professor of Music History, Princeton University, and a Benedictine Oblate of St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.