The Secret Gospel of Mark

The Secret Gospel of Mark offers a groundbreaking account of one of the most hotly debated documents in Christian history. In 1958, at the ancient Christian monastery of Mar Saba just outside Jerusalem, Columbia University scholar Morton Smith claimed to have unearthed a letter written by the Christian philosopher Clement of Alexandria. This letter contained an excerpt from a previously unknown version of the canonical Gospel of Mark, recounting a story of Jesus’s apparent sexual encounter with a young, resurrected disciple.

In recent years, an influential group of researchers has alleged that no Secret Gospel or letter of Clement existed in antiquity, and that the manuscript Morton Smith “found” was a modern forgery—created by none other than Smith himself.

In The Secret Gospel of Mark, Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau delve into the controversy surrounding this document. They argue that the Secret Gospel of Mark is neither a first-century alternative gospel nor a twentieth-century forgery by the scholar who announced its discovery. Instead, this account is intimately bound up with the history of Mar Saba, one of the oldest monasteries in the Christian world.

In this fascinating work, Smith and Landau present the realities and misconceptions surrounding not only the now-lost manuscript but also its brilliant, enigmatic, and acerbic discoverer, Morton Smith.