The Mar Saba letter' is a Greek document which scholar Morton Smith reported in 1973 that he had discovered in the library of the Mar Saba monastery in 1958. The letter, addressed to one Theodore, discusses a "Secret Gospel of Mark" and quotes two excerpts from this gospel, one of which mentions "the mystery of the kingdom of God." Clement begins by commending Theodore's actions against the Carpocratians, a heretical sect. He then turns to address questions posed by Theodore regarding the Gospel of Mark, a secret variant of which the Carpocratians claim to have. Clement admits to knowledge of a second secret or mystical version of the gospel, written by Mark for "those being perfected". However, he asserts that the version promoted by the Carpocratians is not an accurate representation of this; they have corrupted the original with their own false additions. To illustrate this, two ostensibly genuine excerpts from the gospel are supplied. The letter breaks off abruptly as Clement begins to explain the passages.
Through detailed linguistic investigations, Morton Smith argued that Clement's discovery could likely be genuine. He indicated that the two quotations go back to the original Aramaic version of Mark, which served as a source for the canonical Mark, but the quotations also reference the Gospel of John. According to Smith, the historical Jesus was a magus possessed by the Spirit. Jesus baptises the resurrected dead man in a possible same-sex act, and the libertinism of Jesus was then later suppressed by James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul.
From a BBC documentary "Jesus the Evidence"
Read:
Scott G. Brown: Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery (Studies in Christianity and Judaism)
Morton Smith: The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark
Robert Conner: The Secret Gospel of Mark
Morton Smith: Jesus the Magician
Free ebooks on that topic: https://issuu.com/banga/docs
Amazon Review:
"Mark's Other Gospel brings a stiff dose of temperate reflection and rationality to a subject long in critical need of it. The book, a redaction and expansion of Scott Brown's doctoral dissertation, cuts a logical path through the thickets of 30 years of scholarly "folklore," removing "the weak, the misinformed, the fanciful, and the intellectually dishonest arguments" of which there have been more than a few.
There are a number of reasons to praise this work. Here are a few of the more outstanding:
First is the intellectual point of departure of the book. In large part, work on the "Secret Gospel" has been agenda-driven. Most critics of Smith's discovery and his interpretation of its significance have merely written in support of their "religious commitments" (to use Brown's very diplomatic terminology). Additionally, the majority have more or less closely followed Smith's interpretation of the evidence to the detriment of their own analyses. In contrast, Brown has had the temerity and good sense to step unencumbered from under Smith's shadow and address the textual evidence afresh, and has done so without disparaging the erudition or intelligence of Morton Smith.
This approach has yielded rich rewards. Using a form of narrative analysis not contemplated when Smith published, Brown produces an examination of the text of Mark that moves well beyond the relatively superficial elements of vocabulary and syntax to reveal deeply embedded methods of Mark's narrative technique. The results of his study strongly confirm the authenticity of Clement's letter and the Markan fragments it contains, and offer a persuasive scenario for the composition and preservation of both.
A further item of note is the clarification of mustikos, one of the words used by Clement to describe the nature of the longer gospel. Referencing the works of Clement, Brown demonstrates that the word is better (though still not adequately) translated "mystic" rather than "secret." Although the reading of the longer gospel was limited to those whose knowledge was being perfected, Clement clearly did not understand it to be either secret or apocryphal. A number of translators, the present writer included, must stand corrected on this point.
Although other interpretive issues involving the gospel(s) of Mark, the gospel(s) of John, and the tradition behind them remain incompletely resolved, this book represents an enormous step toward that solution. Mark's Other Gospel is the standard by which all future work on the Clement letter and the gospel text it preserves will be evaluated."
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/59876577/jesus-was-a-usurper-and-john-the-baptist-was-the-true-christ-a-heretical-compilation
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/59876571/archons-hidden-rulers-through-the-ages
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