Book Reviewed: The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over Its Authenticity by Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau

The controversy surrounding the discovery of the Secret Gospel of Mark (five stars) While cataloging material in the library of the monastery of Mar Saba located in Israel in 1958, Biblical scholar Morton Smith discovered a quotation from a letter of Clement of Alexandria (150-215 CE) copied in the end pages of a 17th century collection of the letters of Ignatius. After more than a decade of collaborative analysis, Smith published his conclusions in 1973 setting off a firestorm. In 1975, a Jesuit scholar, Quentin Quesnell, claimed the letter had been forged and implied that Smith was the forger. Since then, the pages containing the letter have been removed from the book of the Mar Saba monastery and possibly destroyed. This letter suggested that there existed a longer version of the Gospel of Mark, referred to as the "Secret Gospel" and this version included additional teachings meant for advanced Christians. One of the notable additional passages describes Jesus raising a young man from the dead and then spending the night with him teaching him the "mystery of the kingdom of God." This story is reminiscent of the young man who flees naked at the arrest of Jesus in the gospel of Mark (Mark 14:51-52). This discovery is subjected to much debate with some interpreting it as having homoerotic undertones, though others argue it represents a more spiritual or mystical initiation. Many scholars also argue that the style and context fit well within early Christian traditions and Clement's known works. These practices are possibly linked to Gnosticism and other esoteric traditions practiced during the first three hundred years in the early Christian communities in Alexandria. Historically much of the gnostic and apocryphal manuscripts were destroyed by the bishops of early Christian church. Some scholars have come to see the Secret Gospel as an earlier version of the gospel of Mark that existed long before the other three gospels came into existence. Since Mark is the first of the four New Testament gospels. This is a very plausible explanation. The manuscript discovered by Smith has never been subjected to review because it is reportedly lost or unavailable for examination. Some scholars believe the Secret Gospel of Mark reflects genuine early Christian traditions that were suppressed as orthodoxy developed. They argue that the letter's references to secret teachings that align with known practices of mystery religions and esoteric sects within early Christianity. The authors conclude that there is no forgery in Morton Smith’s discovery.