Grafton, Forgers and Critics
Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990) 157pp.
Continuing the Secret Mark discussion, one of Morton Smith's students denounced it as the "forgery of the century" and viewed it as a test of the ability of the scholars to self-police. Jacob Neusner, Are There Really Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels? (Scholars Press, 1993): 28. This highlights the interconnection between criticism and forgery, which is the subject of Forgers and Critics by Anthony Grafton.
Grafton's book is a delightful though desultory read about the role, theory, and practice of forgery and criticism in Western history or indeed in any society in which texts have authority (8). In particular, Grafton argues that criticism and forgery are closely related, with forgery being the "criminal sibling" of criticism (127). In fact, Grafton credits forgery for spurring advances in criticism:
And in all cases criticism have been dependent for its development on the stimulus that forgers have provided. Criticism does not exist simply because the condition of the sources creates a need for it. The existence of so many sources created with a conscious intention to deceive, and the cleverness of so many of the deceptions, played a vital role in bringing criticism into being. (123)
Grafton notes that the motives for forgery can affect anyone and are varied, listing examples involving money, ambition, careerism, amusement, love for a heroic figure, malice, support for one's beliefs, and mystification (37-48). On the other hand, the technical requirements that the forger must meet are relatively limited: creating a text that appears old, fabricating an object embodying the text appears aged, concocting a pedigree, corroborating the work with the state the knowledge, and imbuing the find with a sense of significance (49-65). It is often in the last area where the forgery is most vulnerable, as Grafton explains:
But one small regularity may be observed. If any law holds for all forgery, it is quite simply that any forger, however deft, imprints the pattern and texture of his own period's life, thought and language on the past he hopes to make seem real and vivid. But the very details he deploys, however deeply they impress his immediate public, will eventual make his trickery stand out in bold relief, when they are observed by later readers who will recognize the forger's period superimposed on the forgery's. Nothing becomes obsolete like a period vision of an older period. (67)In fact, the details that the forgery goes out of its way to use in order to impress the victim are often the very ones that betray the deception at a later time. For example, Grafton cites the case of Dictys the Cretan who stated that he wrote his work in Cadmean letters (63). Another example in the world of art involves the van Meegeren forgeries of Vermeer, as Denis Dutton explains: "This overall 'modern' feel of the painting gave it a subtle appeal to its initial audience, but for the same reason it reveals to our eyes the painting’s dated origin, as much as any 1930s movie betrays its origins with its hairstyles, make-up, gestures, and language." Denis Dutton, "Authenticity in Art" in The Oxford Handbook for Aesthetics, ed. Jerrold Levinson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Is all this relevant for Secret Mark? The manuscript continues to remain unavailable for physical examination, and, on textual grounds, if the letter of Clement can be authenticated based on Stählin's concordance published in 1936, it can be forged using the same concordance prior to 1958. As Charles Hedrick described it, there is a "stalemate in the academy." However, it has now been almost 50 years since Morton Smith's discovery of the Mar Saba Clementine. Are there signs that it is a period piece of the 1950s?
Ehrman, "Forgery of an Ancient Discovery?" in Lost Christianities
Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Speaking of forgeries, today I received a copy of Bart Ehrman's latest book on lost Christian texts and sects. The first part relates to four forgeries and their discoveries: (1) Gospel of Peter: "Ancient Discovery of a Forgery"; (2) Acts of Paul and Thecla: "Ancient Forgery of a Discovery"; (3) Gospel of Thomas: "Discovery of an Ancient Forgery"; and (4) Secret Mark: "Forgery of an Ancient Discovery?".
It is the last one that particularly interests me, since the only fragments of Secret Mark are quotations in a letter of Clement of Alexandria copied onto the endpapers of a book discovered by Morton Smith in 1958 at the monastery of Mar Saba. Clement, of course, is the author of Hypotyposeis, for which this weblog is named.
After laying out all the suspicious circumstances of the discovery, publication, and contents of Secret Mark and the Mar Saba Clementine, Ehrman does not come to a firm conclusion: "I am not willing to say that Smith ... forged the letter of Clement which he claimed to discover. My reasons should be obvious. As soon as I say that I am certain he did so, those pages cut from the back will turn up, someone will test the ink, and it will be from the eighteenth century!" (p. 89) This echoes Ehrman's comments published earlier this summer that "to argue that Smith fabricated eighteenth century ink would be a bit of stretch." Ehrman, "Response to Charles Hedrick's Stalemate," Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003): 160.
I'm not so sure, however, that dating the ink on the Mar Saba Clementine would be as conclusive as Ehrman seems to suggest. Although accurate forensic techniques exist today for dating modern, slow-drying ball-point pen inks, there are many problems associated with testing ink on medieval documents, as this news release from Brookhaven National Laboratories explains in reference to the Vinland Map case:
Several previous studies challenging the map's authenticity have focused on the chemical composition of the ink used to draw it. Some initial work found anatase, a particular form of titanium dioxide, in the ink. Since anatase only went into commercial production in the 20th century, some concluded that the ink was also a 20th-century product, making the map a forgery. Recent testing, however, only revealed trace quantities of titanium, whose presence may be a result of contamination, the chemical deterioration of the ink over the centuries, or may even have been present naturally in the ink used in medieval times. Another recent study detected carbon, which has also been presented as evidence of a forgery. However, carbon can also be found in medieval ink. Current carbon-dating technology does not permit the dating of samples as small as the actual ink lines on the map.If the ink on the Mar Saba Clementine is to be tested, there is not enough of it to be carbon-dated, leaving us with the less conclusive examination of the ink's chemical composition for consistency with known early modern inks. However, these chemical tests can be fooled by using recipes current in the eighteenth century. Therefore, while a chemical test of the ink might condemn the Mar Saba Clementine as a forgery, it is not clear to me that testing the ink can exonerate the letter if the result is consistent with early modern inks.
There is another problem with the focus on the physical testing of the letter. While physical testing is always important and often crucial to solving the case (e.g. the James Ossuary, the Joash Inscription, the Praenestine Fibula, etc.), critics have been detecting forgeries even when the physical specimens are unavailable. For example, the originals for the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and the Gospel of Thomas are forever lost, but that loss of the originals has not prevented scholars from concluding their spuriousness.
But we have a problem, what if the forger is a superior critic than his peers, as Morton Smith clearly was? As Quentin Quesnell put it: "No argument whatever, based on form and content alone, can eliminate the possibility of contemporary hoaxing. For any such argument can uncover the hoaxer only by detecting his mistakes. But a contemporary might always possess as much information about plausible form and content as the would-be detector, possess the same tools, know as much about the uncovering of earlier hoaxes." Quesnell, "A Reply to Morton Smith," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976): 201 (footnote omitted). (The Quesnell-Smith exchange in CBQ is reprinted by permission online by Bryan Cox.)
There's a way out, and it lies in the word "contemporary" ...
Ancient Letter Collections
Some interesting links about ancient Letter Collections:
- Heather E. Blatt, "Letters in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Renaissance," (Compleat Anachronist, Fall 2001).
- David Trobisch, How to read an ancient letter collection: Prolegomena to a narrative critical study of the Letters of Paul (SBL International conference, Lahti: July 21, 1999).
The James Ossuary Forgery
About a year ago, it was announced in Biblical Archeological Review that an ossuary was discovered that had an inscription identifying it as the limestone box that held the bones of "James, the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus." Despite the initially favorable report on its authenticity in BAR by geologists and epigraphists, the inscription on the artifact was later determined to be a forgery.
After the forgery was uncovered, I was quite dismayed that the initial scientific report of the ossuary had been so unreliable, so I decided to analyze the report from Rosenfeld and Ilani of the Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) published in BAR, vol. 28, no. 6, (Nov./Dec. 2002), p. 29, in greater detail. As it turned out, the actual report merely established the antiquity of the ossuary and its analysis of the inscription was too inadequate to have been relied upon.
The report itself is a single-page letter dated Sep. 17, 2002. Half the report is background/fluff, which does not leave much at all in the rest of the page for a detailed scientific report I'm used to seeing in my reading of various journals. At any rate, here are some of relevant paragraphs, with my comments:
The stone and the patina were examined by magnifying lenses (binocular). We observed that the patina on the surface of the ossuary has a gray to beige color. The same gray patina is found also within some of the letters, although the inscription was cleaned and the patina is therefore absent from several letters. The patina has a cauliflower shape known to be developed in a cave environment.
The first analysis is with magnifying lenses, which visually identifies the patina in various places by color. "Several" of the letters (out of 20) did not have any patina at all. This was attributed to a "cleaning." The patina in some of the other letters ("some" seems less than "several") was identified as being the same as the rest of the box merely by color. The "cauliflower shape" is not asserted to be that of the patina over the inscription, and may just be a general description overall.
Taken at face value, but without reading more into it than it says, it appears that this paragraph merely states that a visual inspection of the patina shows the patina over the box to be consistent with its alleged origin; however, several of the letters are missing the patina but some have a patina that is of the same color that the rest of the box. At this point, the only evidence put forth for the authenticity of the inscription (per se, i.e. not of the box) is that some but not several of the letters have a patina with the same color as that of some of the patina on the rest of the box.
Remains of soil were found attached to the bottom of the outer side of the ossuary. Six samples of the chalk, six samples of the patina from various places on the external wall of the inscription and two samples of the soil, were studied with a SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) equipped with EDS (Electron Dispersive Spectrometer).
Although the report states that six samples of the patina were taken from the same wall as the inscription, the report does not state any samples of the patina within the inscription were analyzed. I conclude that, so far, the only information about the patina in the inscription the GSI that its color is a gray that is consistent with some of the other colors.
Analytic results: [stats omitted]
I omitted the statistics, which were just a listing of percentages of trace elements found in the chalk, patina, and soil samples, much like what you'd find on bottles of mineral water. Unfortunate, no listing of what these numbers are to be compared against is provided; so, they're just raw numbers.
The soil in which the ossuary laid is of the Rendzina type, known to develop on chalks of the Mount Scopus Group.
It would have been nice if they would also have mentioned the range of values consistent with the Rendzina type. Even assuming that they know their soils, it is hardly of any relevance for the authenticity of the inscription rather than the box.
It is worth mentioning that the patina did not contain any modern elements (such as modern pigments) and it adheres firmly to the stone. No signs of the use of a modern tool or instrument was found. No evidence that might detract from the authenticity of the patina and the inscription was found.
Only the second analysis with the spectrometer (EDS) can tell anything about modern elements, but the patina samples subjected to EDS did not come from the inscription. Same for the patina adhering firmly, since only a visual inspection of the patina around the inscription was alleged to have been.
"No signs of the use of a modern tool or instrument was found" is contradicted by their earlier statement that the several of the letter had been cleaned.
As for no evidence detracting from the authenticity of the patina being found, it is noted that the only patina studied in detail did not come (or is alleged to have come) from the inscription. The only evidence of the patina in the inscription given in the report is its color. The rest of the probing simply did not look in the right places to possibly find evidence detracting from the authenticity of the inscription itself. It is hard to find contradicting evidence if you don't look for it.
I conclude that the GSI report, as published in BAR, is so grossly inadequate in assessing the authenticity of the inscription, that one cannot reasonably rely on it.
Scholars need to read all texts -- not just the Bible -- critically.
Eusebius on the Origin of Matthew
Portions of Eusebius, Hist. eccl. on the origin of Matthew:
- 3.24.6 [a report] "Matthew had first preached to Hebrews, and when he was on the point of going to others he transmitted in writting in his native language the Gospel according to himself, and thus supplied by writing the lack of his presence to those from whom he was sent" (Lake).
- 3.39.16 [Papias] "Now this is reported by Papias about Mark, but about Matthew this was said, Now Matthew compiled the reports in a Hebrew manner of speech, but each interpreted them as he could."
- 5.8.2 [Irenaeus] "So Matthew, among the Jews in their own dialect, brought forth a gospel writing when Peter and Paul in Rome were evangelizing and founding the church;"
- 5.10.2-3 "... One of these was Pantaenus, and it is said that he went to the Indians, and the tradition is that he found there that among some of those there who had known Christ the Gospel according to Matthew had preceded his coming; for Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them and had left them the writing of Matthew in Hebrew letters, which was preserved until the time mentioned." (Lake)
- 6.25.4 [Origen] "as learned by tradition about the four gospels, which alone are incontested in the church of God under heaven, that, first, written was Matthew, once publican but later apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it for the believers from Judaism, composed in Hebrew letters;"
Olson, "Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum"
K. A. Olson, "Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 61 (1999): 305-322.
Olson argues that "we have very good reasons that Eusebius wrote the Testimonium" (322), which is the controversial passage about Jesus in Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 18.3.3 §§ 63-64, first "quoted" by Eusebius in three different works.
Olson mainly interacts with John P. Meier's case that the Testimonium is an authentic Josephan passage with obvious Christian interpolations (Marginal Jew, 1991: 1:56-88). Olson perceptively argues that this defense of partial genuineness is methodologically flawed because "If we take any passage ever written about any subject and remove those parts of it in which a favorable connotation about that subject is expressed, it is logically necessary that what remains will be neutral or hostile toward the subject" (308). Another methodological strength is that Olson compares the language of the Testimonium with the suspected writer, i.e. Eusebius, not with the New Testament, finding that even the parts of the Testimonium that Meier considered authentic are riddled with terminology found throughout Eusebius's works, especially "maker of many miracles," "tribe of Christians," and "until this day" (313). Olson thinks that the Testimonium was originally written by Eusbius and later transfered into the Byzantine archetype of the surving manuscripts of that part of Josephus (314, 322).
Two of the phrases, however, "receive with pleasure" and "first men" are demonstrably Josephan, but Olson observes that these two phrases, in fact, were not part of the quotation in Demonstratio evangelica 3.5 § 124, which Olson considered earlier than Historia ecclesiastica 1.11-7-8. Olson also observes that the initial characterization of Jesus as a "wise man" fits the apologetic context for Dem. evang. in refutation of the charge that Jesus was a wizard (310). Thus, Olson argued that the two Josephan phrases must have been added by Eusebius to the Hist. eccl. version "for verisimilitude" (313), who had extensively quoted from Josephus and "would have been familiar with Josephan language" (313).
Though Olson makes a strong case that the Testimonium is much more Eusebian than previously thought, I am not persuaded that the passage itself originated from Eusebius rather than Josephus. For example, Olson's handling of Agapius is less than satisfactory, because two of the three Meier interpolations are missing from the version preserved by Agapius, and the remaining one is less Christianized than the received text of Josephus. Thus, Agapius supplies textual evidence in support of the partial interpolation theory. Olson, however, dismisses Agapius in toto on the grounds that Agapius is not faithful enough of a transmitter to be relied upon, but this is not a sufficient criterion to eliminate Agapius from the stemma. Rather, witnesses are eliminated when they are shown to be dependent on an extant manuscript or an archetype that can be reconstructed without its help (Paul Maas, Textual Criticism, p. 2 § 4), and this dependence is shown by transmitting the errors its archetype. This is not the case here, however, since the Agapius version lacks the recognizable errors of the Byzantine archetype of Josephus, i.e. the Meier interpolations, and, in fact, the three identifiably Eusebian phrases in the Testimonium. Thus, Agapius version is a prima facie witness to an earlier state of the Testimonium than the Byzantine archetype, possibly even earlier than that of Eusebius.
Another problem is the idea that Eusebius would have picked up the style of Josephus and added the two Josephan phrases for "verisimilitude." The motivation is implausible because the verisimilitude explanation assumes that Eusebius intended to thwart critics of its authenticity (else, why add the verisimilitude?). There is no evidence, however, of a contemporary challenge of the authenticity of the Testimonium or that this verisimilitude would be considered an effective response to such critics, who presumably had access to uninterpolated manuscripts of Josephus that must have existed ex hypothesi. Furthermore, if Eusebius can pick up phraseology from Josephus from being very familiar from Josephus as Olson explained, then it is unlikely that the stylistic influence would be limited to the two little phrases in the Testimonium of Hist. eccl. but would work its way into other passages of Eusebius's writings. This explanation, in fact, undercuts Olson's argument that the language of the Testimonium owes its origin to Eusebius, rather than being bits of Josephus that pleased Eusebius so much that he repeated them.
A related problem with Olson's argument stems from his premise that the version of the Testimonium in Dem. evang. is actually older than the one in Hist. eccl. The authority given by Olson for this sequence is from 1904 (307 n.5, citing Gressmann, GCS 11/12). However, more recent scholarship, starting in 1912 with Schwartz (GCS 6.3) and developed by Robert M. Grant in 1980, recognizes that Hist. eccl. was written and published in a series of editions, with the first edition probably finished in 313 and the last in 325, though there is currently a dispute over how extensively the first edition of books 1-7 were revised (see Burgess, "The Dates and Editions of Eusebius," JTS ns 48 (1997): 471-504). Thus the first edition of Hist. eccl. predates Dem. evang., and the direction of change from Hist. eccl. to Dem. evang. is of increasing Eusebianization of the Testimonium, suggesting that the treatment of the Testimonium in Hist. eccl. is also one of Eusebianization of Josephus's original. Furthermore, with this more up-to-date dating of Eusebius's works, the wording of the Testimonium with "wise man" (also supported by Agapius) predates the occasion of the alleged rhetorical motive for "wise man" in Dem. evang. 3.15 § 114).
Therefore, while it is likely that the Testimonium, as we have it today, has been thoroughly Eusebianized, there is still insufficient reason to conclude that it is entirely the creation of Eusebius. This means that Josephus had some notice about Jesus, but not one as positive of Jesus as the one that currently exists.
McGowan, "'First Regarding the Cup ...': Papias and the Diversity of Early Eucharistic Practice"
Andrew McGowan, "'First Regarding the Cup ...': Papias and the Diversity of Early Eucharistic Practice," Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 46 (1995): 551-555.
McGowan challenges the view that the early Christian Eucharist always started with the bread before cup and suggests that a fragment of Papias provides further evidence of a cup-bread order in some Christian circles.
McGowan starts by pointing out two other previously noted cup-bread sequences, Didache 9 and Luke 22:15-20 (Western text omitting the second cup in vv.19b-20), in a Eucharist-like ritual meal (551), as well as the cup-bread order used by the Corinthians implied in Paul's sequence of rhetorical questions (1 Cor 10:16) (552). To these sequences, McGowan adduces the sequence of wine-wheat in Papias's fragment on the millennial productivity (Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 5.33.3) and notices the Eucharistic overtones in it: "Days are coming, in which vines will spring up ... when one of the saints takes a bunch from among them, another bunch will call out: 'I am better, pick me, bless the Lord through me [per me dominum benedic]" (553-554).
This is a perceptive observation, but, oddly, McGowan fails to cite other evidence or commentators that strengthen his case. For example, some commentators of Papias (e.g. Schoedel, Apostolic Fathers, p. 94) have posited that the "oracle of the Lord" behind the millennial saying is Matt. 26:29 ("I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom" NRSV), which Irenaeus had quoted earlier in the context (5.33.1). The connection with the vine is also seen in Didache 9:3 ("the holy vine of your son David").
Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition
A.F.J. Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 17; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992) 156pp.
Klijn presents a convenient collection and distillation of testimonia and fragments of Jewish-Christian gospels. Klijn's book is divided into to main parts: part one presents an analysis of the testimonia, while part two, the bulk of the book, sets forth the ancient-language text of 56 fragments, their English translation, and a commentary.
In part one, chapter 1, Klijn treats the testimonia to Jewish-Christian gospels in chronological order, from Irenaeus to medieval writers (3-26). Of particular interest is Jerome, whose "remarks are not consistent and show a gradual development" (16) and is responsible for much of the confusion about the Jewish-Christian gospels.
In chapter 2, Klijn takes the position that there three distinct Jewish-Christians gospels in use: (1) the Gospel according to the Ebionites known only by Epiphanius, (2) the Gospel according to the Nazoreans known mainly by Jerome, and (3) the Gospel according to the Hebrews, known by Clement, Origen, and Didymus in Egypt (28-30). These names are modern, but in antiquity they were often called by variations on the same name, usually a Hebrew Gospel, Gospel according to the Hebrews, and a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.
Regarding the Gospel according to the Ebionites, Klijn holds that it was originally composed in Greek based on the synoptics but not John with a harmonizing tendency (28-29). The Gospel according to the Nazoreans, on the other hand, is an Aramaic gospel used by the Nazoreans and quoted by Jerome, while the Gospel according to the Hebrews was a Greek gospel current in Egypt (29-30).
In my view, Klijn is correct to state that the origin of the canonical gospels, especially that of Matthew, "cannot be dissociated from" the Jewish-Christians gospels, especially that of the Nazoreans (42), but the fragmentary nature of our knowledge of these gospels will continue to perplex scholarship.
