Category: York Christian Apocrypha

I have been holding off on writing my own assessment of the Secret Mark Symposium because I thought a participant's view would be more valuable. Calogero A. Miceli, a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University in Montreal, offered a report of the event at a forum a few days ago and graciously offered to pass along this summary for Apocryphicity.

On April 29^th, 2011 a symposium was held at York University (Toronto, Ontario) where scholars from across North America gathered to present their opinions and understandings of the Secret Gospel of Mark (as found in the Mar Saba Letter) and of Morton Smith. The event was organized by Tony Burke (York University) and Phil Harland (York University) and since I recently presented a report of the symposium at the following: GRECAT Université Laval-Concordia University 2^nd Annual Workshop on May 4^th, 2011 held at Laval University (Quebec City, Quebec), I was kindly asked by Tony Burke to offer my account of the symposium as a guest-post on his blog ‘Apocryphicity’. I was present for the entire day of the symposium and here I offer a short overview of what happened and what came out of the conference. I will focus very little …

The first York Christian Apocrypha Symposium (featuring the Secret Gospel of Mark) takes place in just a few days. Everything is in place for the event and we hope for it to go off without a hitch. We should have an audience of about 60 people, which is respectable for our first event in the series. I will blog fairly regularly (for a change) over the next few days to let everyone who could not attend know how it is going (or went). To whet your appetites for Friday's papers, visit Timo Paananen's Salainan evankelista blog for a discussion of the symposium and an update on recent on-line scholarship on the text.

Also, we have created a facebook page for the series (search for "York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series"). I hope you will "like" it.

The one-day Secret Mark conference Phil Harland and I are hosting at York University is only weeks away. For those interested, here is the preliminary programme.

The York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series Presents:

Ancient Gospel of Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate

Vanier College, April 29, 2011

9:00-9:15 Introductions: Tony Burke (York University) and Philip Harland (York University)

9:15-12:00 Session 1: The Authenticity Debate

Chair: Tony Burke, York University

The Case for Authenticity

9:15-9:30 “Secret Mark: Moving on from Stalemate,” Charles Hedrick (Missouri State University, Missouri)

This paper will briefly survey the status quo of scholarship on the Letter to Theodore and a Secret Gospel of Mark, and argue that, with the failure of the modern forgery theorists to make their case, research has no choice but to move on to a study the missing manuscript itself by means of the photographs.  The paper, working back from the 18th century, argues that the sudden appearance of a previously unknown 2/3rd century manuscript in 18th century handwriting is not unusual.  During the Renaissance, the classics of Greco-Roman tradition were recovered in versions much later than the time of their original composition—including texts previously unknown.  The Letter to Theodore is taken seriously as deriving from the 2/3rd century, while Ernest Best’s argument that the longer excerpt of Secret Mark is “too much like Mark” to be Mark is found to be unconvincing.  On the other hand, if the excerpts from a Longer Gospel of …

Phil Harland (also of York University and an avid blogger himself) and I have been working over the past several months to plan a one-day conference on the Secret Gospel of Mark. This is intended in the first of a series of symposia on various apocryphal texts, though highlighting the work of North American scholars. All of the funding is in place so we can now make a formal announcement of the event. For information, see the page on my main site (HERE). Registration is very inexpensive (and free if you're a student) and the evening public debate is also free-of-charge. We hope to see a lot of people come out for the event so that we can continue the series for future years.