Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 12:12am
Who was that naked man with Jesus?
Column: A Heretic in Babylon
Who was the naked man with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night he was arrested? This seemingly bizarre incident in The Gospel According to Mark has stumped Christians for almost 2,000 years. Ostensibly, it would not have stumped first-century Christians. Mark would not have reported this incident unless he knew that his reading audience would understand what it meant. Unfortunately for us, some Christian copyist long ago removed the key to understanding Mark's odd footnote, just as he excised the original resurrection narrative (see last week's column).
That's not all that was censored from Mark. Something is missing in Mark 10:46, which now reads, "And they came to Jericho; and as they were leaving Jericho ... " Huh? Where's the story about what Jesus did in Jericho? A letter by the early Church father Clement of Alexandria (which the scholar Morton Smith claims to have discovered among the ancient texts of the monastery of Mar Saba) fills in the missing passage: "And the sister of the youth Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them." But those words alone don't tell us why Jesus refused to meet with the women. Nor do they tell us why the words were removed. But Clement goes on to quote the entire missing passage, and it's easy to see why any Christian copyist would have wanted to censor it:
"And they came into Bethany, and a certain woman, whose brother had died, was there. And coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightaway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth came to him, wearing a linen cloth over [his] naked [body]. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."
Scholars are still debating whether this passage is authentic or whether it is a forgery; whether Clement wrote the words (and if he did, are they authentic to Mark's Gospel?), or whether Morton Smith himself wrote them. This debate over the Secret Gospel of Mark has been going on in academia since 1973, when Smith published his research. Many scholars now believe the words to be authentic, but they don't have the means to prove it. The original manuscript of Clement's letter mysteriously disappeared years ago.
Scholars can study the photograph of the manuscript that Smith published, but they cannot carbon-date the paper or the ink without having the actual manuscript. Worse, Morton Smith is not among the living, so he can't defend himself or his research.
While many contemporary scholars believe that the document is probably historical, they cannot prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And even if they could prove that Clement's letter was authentic, that wouldn't necessarily prove that the passage he quoted was once part of Mark's Gospel.
As for the possibility that Morton Smith forged this manuscript, Brad D. Ehrman, in his recent book "Lost Christianities" discusses various forgeries that scholars have perpetrated over the years, so Smith wouldn't be the first academician to defraud the public. Still, it's hard to believe that a highly respected scholar and professor of ancient history at Columbia University would risk his career and reputation by creating such a forgery ... unless he had a very important, and very personal, reason for doing so.
Which brings us to the potentially shocking content of the "Secret Gospel" itself. There is, of course, a fairly innocent explanation. The text claims that Jesus conducted secret, nocturnal initiation ceremonies in which he taught special disciples the "mysteries" of the kingdom of God. Inasmuch as the non-secret version of Mark tells us that Jesus taught select disciples in secret, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to discover that he conducted secret initiation ceremonies as well. We know very little about the initiation ceremonies of the ancient Greek and Roman mystery religions precisely because those ceremonies were conducted in secret, and their liturgies were never written down. Likewise, wearing a white linen cloth over a naked body was the dress de jour for baptisms and initiation ceremonies in Jesus' time.
For all of that, we cannot deny the homoerotic overtones of this passage from Secret Mark. Scholars will also point out the parallels between this story in Secret Mark and the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in The Gospel of John, and in John's many references to the "disciple whom Jesus loved."
Oh, dear god! If you think the Church freaked out over "The Da Vinci Code" and the "Jesus Family Tomb," imagine the reaction if this little item ever reached the eyes of the people in the pews. Even I, heretic that I am, have kept this ticking time bomb a secret for the past 30-plus years. I've done so because I personally believe that Jesus was 100 percent celibate, and don't like any suggestions to the contrary. So, just like orthodox Christians, I have a vested interest in the outcome of this story.
However, in the interest of full disclosure (something that's going around in Christian academia these days), I thought it was finally time to come clean. Anyway, I just had to clear up the mystery of the naked man in the Garden of Gethsemane for you because, whether you admit it or not, I know it's been driving you crazy for years. So, who was that man? Maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe the right question is, what was he? He was either an initiate, and Jesus was conducting a nocturnal initiation ceremony when he was so rudely arrested, or ... well, I'm not going there. At least not this Easter season.
Happy Easter.
— — —
Richard Hooper is a former Lutheran pastor and author of "The Crucifixion of Mary Magdalene," "The Gospel of the Unknown Jesus" and "Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings." His email is {email Richard@sanctuarypublications.com}Richard@sanctuarypublications.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Richard Hooper.
That's not all that was censored from Mark. Something is missing in Mark 10:46, which now reads, "And they came to Jericho; and as they were leaving Jericho ... " Huh? Where's the story about what Jesus did in Jericho? A letter by the early Church father Clement of Alexandria (which the scholar Morton Smith claims to have discovered among the ancient texts of the monastery of Mar Saba) fills in the missing passage: "And the sister of the youth Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them." But those words alone don't tell us why Jesus refused to meet with the women. Nor do they tell us why the words were removed. But Clement goes on to quote the entire missing passage, and it's easy to see why any Christian copyist would have wanted to censor it:
"And they came into Bethany, and a certain woman, whose brother had died, was there. And coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightaway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth came to him, wearing a linen cloth over [his] naked [body]. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."
Scholars are still debating whether this passage is authentic or whether it is a forgery; whether Clement wrote the words (and if he did, are they authentic to Mark's Gospel?), or whether Morton Smith himself wrote them. This debate over the Secret Gospel of Mark has been going on in academia since 1973, when Smith published his research. Many scholars now believe the words to be authentic, but they don't have the means to prove it. The original manuscript of Clement's letter mysteriously disappeared years ago.
Scholars can study the photograph of the manuscript that Smith published, but they cannot carbon-date the paper or the ink without having the actual manuscript. Worse, Morton Smith is not among the living, so he can't defend himself or his research.
While many contemporary scholars believe that the document is probably historical, they cannot prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And even if they could prove that Clement's letter was authentic, that wouldn't necessarily prove that the passage he quoted was once part of Mark's Gospel.
As for the possibility that Morton Smith forged this manuscript, Brad D. Ehrman, in his recent book "Lost Christianities" discusses various forgeries that scholars have perpetrated over the years, so Smith wouldn't be the first academician to defraud the public. Still, it's hard to believe that a highly respected scholar and professor of ancient history at Columbia University would risk his career and reputation by creating such a forgery ... unless he had a very important, and very personal, reason for doing so.
Which brings us to the potentially shocking content of the "Secret Gospel" itself. There is, of course, a fairly innocent explanation. The text claims that Jesus conducted secret, nocturnal initiation ceremonies in which he taught special disciples the "mysteries" of the kingdom of God. Inasmuch as the non-secret version of Mark tells us that Jesus taught select disciples in secret, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to discover that he conducted secret initiation ceremonies as well. We know very little about the initiation ceremonies of the ancient Greek and Roman mystery religions precisely because those ceremonies were conducted in secret, and their liturgies were never written down. Likewise, wearing a white linen cloth over a naked body was the dress de jour for baptisms and initiation ceremonies in Jesus' time.
For all of that, we cannot deny the homoerotic overtones of this passage from Secret Mark. Scholars will also point out the parallels between this story in Secret Mark and the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in The Gospel of John, and in John's many references to the "disciple whom Jesus loved."
Oh, dear god! If you think the Church freaked out over "The Da Vinci Code" and the "Jesus Family Tomb," imagine the reaction if this little item ever reached the eyes of the people in the pews. Even I, heretic that I am, have kept this ticking time bomb a secret for the past 30-plus years. I've done so because I personally believe that Jesus was 100 percent celibate, and don't like any suggestions to the contrary. So, just like orthodox Christians, I have a vested interest in the outcome of this story.
However, in the interest of full disclosure (something that's going around in Christian academia these days), I thought it was finally time to come clean. Anyway, I just had to clear up the mystery of the naked man in the Garden of Gethsemane for you because, whether you admit it or not, I know it's been driving you crazy for years. So, who was that man? Maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe the right question is, what was he? He was either an initiate, and Jesus was conducting a nocturnal initiation ceremony when he was so rudely arrested, or ... well, I'm not going there. At least not this Easter season.
Happy Easter.
— — —
Richard Hooper is a former Lutheran pastor and author of "The Crucifixion of Mary Magdalene," "The Gospel of the Unknown Jesus" and "Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings." His email is {email Richard@sanctuarypublications.com}Richard@sanctuarypublications.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Richard Hooper.