Antiquitopia

I am reviewing (looking over, not writing an official review) of Morton Smith's book, Jesus the Magician, for a project on Magic, Popular Religion, and the New Testament I am working on.  Whatever you think of Smith, you have to admit that he can be a hoot to read. Commenting on a saying attributed to Jesus by the Rabbis ("From filth they came and to filth they shall return"), Smith writes, "The saying may be early--it resembles many of the Q sayings in being antithetical, vague, and pompous...." (Smith, Jesus the Magician , 46) If anyone wanted a primer on what Morton Smith thought of Q, one could not be any more succinct!

Morton Smith wrote a controversial book on Jesus:   Jesus the Magician .  I don't want to go into the details of his argument, which, ultimately, teaches one a lot of interesting and important things about the terminology of magic, and how magic was perceived and understood in the ancient world, though perhaps rarely discussed anymore for "historical Jesus" studies.  Perhaps it is more important for understanding the nachleben of stories of Jesus, how Jesus was perceived by friends and enemies in the second century onwards in Jewish, Christian, and other sources (such as the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri, etc.), though Smith wouldn't see it the same way.   Anyway, to get to an insightful quote about Jesus in ancient Galilee, and the quests for the historical Jesus that divide the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith, and place all of the "mythological material"--not just myths about Christ, but mythological presuppositions that Jesus may make in ...

Mark Goodacre, who as of late seems to scour YouTube for video clips of controversial finds, has posted a clip of Morton Smith discussing Secret Mark, which has been making additional waves in scholarship lately. I have decidedly not publicly defended or refuted anyone's claims on Secret Mark, and do not expect to get anything out of me anytime soon. Those who pay close attention to my CV--the nocturnal initiates--will know why. Here is the clip on Jesus' potential nocturnal initiation ceremonies: Be sure to click on the link above to get Mark Goodacre's comments.

Jim Davila posts that Morton Smith's translation of Hekhalot Rabbati is available online here . It is in .pdf format. I have had a copy of this for years; indeed, for years it has circulated among Columbia graduate students. My copy has Alan Segal's marginal corrections. I, of course, made my own marginal notes. A few years ago, however, Alan lost his copy (I think), and so we had to run copies of my copy for a class. And so we sent out copies of Smith's translation with Alan's notes, with my notes on that, and presumably a new set of notes on those notes would be made by students in that class. The whole notes on notes on notes sounds very Rabbinic.

I recently discussed or really just brought attention to the Smith-Scholem correspondence discussed in the Nation, in which Guy Stroumsa thinks there is proof that Morton Smith could not have forged Secret Mark. Peter Jeffrey, I believe from the department of music at Princeton (correct me if I'm wrong), wrote a book on Secret Mark called The Secret Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery . He obviously thinks Smith did forge it. He has posted a whole slew of reactions to his book here .

Jim Davila has drawn attention to a fairly lengthy and informative article in the Nation about the publication of the ongoing correspondence between Gershom Scholem and Morton Smith by Guy Stroumsa. Stroumsa thinks this evidence will finally demonstrate that Smith could not have forged Secret Mark (and the Clementine letter in which it is embedded). There is a scurry of interest over Smith and Secret Mark as of late. Stephen Carlson has argued that it was an elaborate hoax by Smith (based upon handwriting analysis). There was even a panel on the whole issue at SBL this year. As a member of Smith's former institution, Columbia University, and a former Morton Smith Fellow (and, therefore, a monetary beneficiary of the fund Smith left the University), I am naturally interested in these discussions (even though I skipped out on the panel at SBL). The Nation article gives the full background of Smith, the supposed discovery the Clementine letter, and the history of the debate. Her...