The controversial text that Smith discovered was a Greek manuscript written on the endpages of a 17th-century book.
In his November/December 2010 First Person, editor Hershel Shanks described a recent scholarly article by Dr. Francis Watson, “Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark,” in the Journal of Theological Studies arguing that the “Secret Mark” letter, which Morton Smith claimed to have found at Mar Saba monastery, closely tracked and confirmed Smith’s previously proclaimed views. A critical response to Watson’s article by Smith’s former student Allan J. Pantuck, points out that in other cases Smith changed his views in light of his analysis of “Secret Mark.” We present here Dr. Watson’s rejoinder, “Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Response to Allan J. Pantuck.”
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