The Motives of Morton Smith

Don't miss Stephen Carlson's series on the motives of Morton Smith, in response to Scott Brown's "The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith," JBL 125 (2006): 351-383. I'll post the links to new installments as they appear.

Part I: Carlson discusses the role of motive in criminal law (misunderstood by Brown), the distinction between motive and intent, and why, in any case, it's inappropriate to use criminal law standards to determine the authenticity of texts in historical criticism.

Part II: "The Gay Gospel Hypothesis". Brown devotes most of his attention to refuting this hypothesis instead of the two stronger ones that follow. Perhaps this is a rhetorical trick, meant to imply that skeptics of Secret Mark are homophobes.

Part III: "The Hoax Hypothesis". This is a good installment, focusing on Brown's "nonfeasance" as he fails to address the the jokes embedded in Secret Mark, and the arguments of Akenson and Carlson in general -- particularly Carlson's demonstration that the confessions in Secret Mark parallel an aspect of Coleman-Norton's denture joke.

Part IV: "The Hoax Hypothesis" (continued). Brown claims that Smith put too much effort into publishing Secret Mark for it to be a hoax. (I wonder what Brown would make of all the hours I wasted in my undergrad years composing prank letters to a friend, in place of studying and doing other productive things.)

Part V: "The Hoax Hypothesis" (continued). Brown claims that for someone who supposedly put so much effort into creating a hoax about a libertine Jesus, Smith almost never referred to his discovery in his subsequent articles about libertinism. But as Carlson says in his book, that just means Smith was smart enough not to become a victim of his own hoax.

Part VI: "The Controlled Experiment Hypothesis". Carlson: "Although I think that Smith could have well have been a little curious at the process in which Secret Mark was accepted, I agree, largely for the reasons canvassed by Brown, that [this] hypothesis is unlikely to be the primary or a major motivating reason behind Secret Mark."

Part VII: Carlson re-emphasizes the pitfall of comparing Secret Mark with Smith's subsequent writings instead of his prior ones.

Part VIII: Secret Mark has the "scale and depth" to qualify as a forgery done to support beliefs and opinions, the crucial factor for Anthony Grafton in Forgers and Critics.

Part IX: Carlson wraps up, emphasizing that circumstantial evidence is stronger in law than in popular misconception, and with a wonderfully rhetorical question: "If Brown had a devastating critique of my position, why didn't he share it in one of the most prestigious journals in the field when he had the chance?"