“Secret Mark”: Restoring a Dead Scholar’s Reputation

Hershel Shanks reveals his own conclusion about Secret Mark as a result of his study of the opposing arguments.

My earlier contribution to this discussion of the letter containing Secret Mark is headed “Morton Smith—Forger”. My task was to present, as fairly as I could, the argument that the letter is Morton Smith’s modern forgery. I conscientiously tried to do this. But here I must confess that as I read the arguments and researched the issues, I could not help but conclude that Morton Smith was being very badly treated. So here let me state my own candid conclusion.