Subj : Re: Bible
To   : Curtis Johnson
From : John Wilson
Date : Wed Nov 08 2000 03:34 am

-=> Curtis Johnson wrote to John Wilson <=-

 CJ> here is the discovery by Morton Smith of a letter by Clement in
 CJ> which he quotes texts that Clement claimed were part of the
 CJ> original Gospel of Mark and which were to be read only among a
 CJ> secret inner circle.

 JW> A very interesting book. "New Testament Abstracts" carried a lot
 JW> of commentary/reviews of his book, mostly putting it down and
 JW> sometimes impling that Dr. Smith was pulling a leg...

 CJ>  Clement's letter itself seems to be accepted as genuine
 CJ> by heavy-duty scholars.  I don't think Smith was trying to pull a
 CJ> leg--he'd spent two decades trying to tease out the implications
 CJ> of his find.  Even soft-core true believers would likely to be
 CJ> unsettled by the straightforward implications of the letter.
 CJ>  Head of Columbia U's New Testament Studies dept. and on the
 CJ> board of _Biblical Archeology Review_, Smith had impeccable
 CJ> credentials.

 That's very interesting and an update on what I've read (by some 20 years
 :-), for which thanks. *I* found Smith's work to be plausable and *very*
 interesting. I was slightly surprised and pleased to read the
 respectful references to him in Pagels's book.
 
 `soft-core true believers' :-) Buzzing my head over *that* phrase :-)
 
 CJ>  I have the first edition (the Robinson one).  I'm not sure what
 CJ> you mean by "new edition":

   I'm not exactly sure m'self. I recall dimly that a new edition of
   Robinson's was out...

 CJ>  A fully annotated edition would, of course, be welcome.

 JW> Interesting how quickly the Church assumed a hierarchical
 JW> authoritarian position...and the Gnostics didn't...is there a
 JW> lesson here? :-)

 CJ>  Pagels thought organization v. lack of organization a major
 CJ> factor in the defeat of the Gnostics.

 Proved it to me. Her dissing of Tertullian makes me weanna read more of
 him, but I'm already 426 years behind in my reading schedule...

 (Wotta bunchs scoundrels everybody is....

 Everybody but thee and me....and I'm not really sure 'bout thee... :-)





 
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