Mark's Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery (review)

This volume is the first full-length monograph to deal seriously with a longer version of the Gospel of Mark since a fragment of the manuscript, copied in an eighteenth-century hand onto the end pages of Isaac Voss's 1646 edition of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, was discovered in 1958 by Morton Smith at the monastery of Mar Saba and published in 1973 as the 'Secret Gospel of Mark.' Smith's discovery and interpretation of the text generated a spate of controversy, a smoke-screen of allegations and innuendo so outrageous and scurrilous that it has been difficult for students, scholars, and the interested reading public to enter the conversation and assess the debate – to see what the fuss is all about – much less discover what difference this 'other gospel' might make for understanding the beginnings of Christianity. Scott G. Brown's fine book thus makes a real contribution to scholarship. First, he provides a transcript of the Greek text and an English translation of both Clement's 'Letter to Theodore' and citations of the fragments of the 'Longer Gospel of Mark.' Then, Brown offers a thorough, balanced, level-headed, and much-needed rethinking of the document, treating the history of scholarly assessments of the text, including whether or not Clement's letter and the gospel fragments are authentic or a forgery (ancient or modern); and if the former, whether these fragments constitute an 'apocryphal' pastiche of the canonical gospels, a pre-canonical version of Mark, a 'secret' gnostic gospel, a catechetical supplement for baptism, or (as Brown argues) a longer, esoteric version of Mark's Gospel.

Brown advances the following thesis: 'the longer Gospel of Mark was designed to lead readers of the shorter [canonical] version to a more profound appreciation of the essential message of the Markan narrative by elaborating and elucidating important themes and symbolism pertaining to discipleship and christology, including elements which are deliberately ambiguous or obscure in the shorter version, especially the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11) and the appearance and naked flight of the young man in Gethsemane (14:51–52).' He develops this thesis, first, by discussing the Longer Gospel of Mark's relation to other gospels (particularly the canonical Gospels of Mark and John), concluding that 'the evidence indicates that longer Mark was an Alexandrian expansion of the canonical gospel [of Mark] by an author who had independent access to oral traditions [that were] also used in the Gospel of John.' Then, on the basis of a careful analysis of Markan literary techniques (what Brown describes as 'a hybrid of composition criticism and narrative criticism,' one that pays close attention to the reading process), he examines the text's use of 'intercalation' and 'framing stories,' arguing that the excerpts which Clement cites from the Longer Gospel of Mark serve both to frame the teaching on discipleship in Mark 10:35–45 and to introduce a frame for the 'passion narrative' (which has consequences for the reader's perception of the story of the young man in Mark 14:51–52, which marks a transition in that narrative, as well as for the young man in the tomb in Mark 16:1–8, which concludes the narrative). And so, inasmuch as whoever created these excerpts had, in Brown's words, 'a remarkable feel for canonical Mark's narrative and theological designs,' he concludes that the author of the Longer Gospel 'was the same person who wrote the canonical gospel' of Mark, most likely 'within a few years' of the canonical gospel's composition.

Mark's Other Gospel is a valuable literary and theological study of a text often rejected and long neglected by scholarship. By presenting a sobering critique of how biblical scholarship tends to treat discoveries thought to threaten the dominant paradigm of Christian origins, as well as a compelling analysis of how those discoveries might enable us to think Christian origins differently...