The Secret Gospel of Mark

By: Allen Ratliff | Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 1:31 AM

Last year’s unveiling of a contemporary translation of the Gospel of Judas sparked a renewed interest in apocryphal texts of Early Christianity. Most of the time when some ‘new discovery’ of an apocryphal, usually Gnostic, Christian text comes to light, there is the same general response. Since the text is always non-canonical (otherwise it wouldn’t be a new discovery, would it?), the Christian religious conservatives spout off about how it’s not accurate to what God wanted in the Bible and doesn’t portray Jesus accurately and so on and so forth. And the Christian religious liberals sit back and ponder and ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ and then life goes on.

One of these controversial apocryphal texts is the Secret (or Mystic) Gospel of Mark. Discovered through 1958-60 (You try to translate ancient Coptic texts in less than a year) by Dr. Morton Smith, the Secret Mark has caused intense discussion over the past forty years. Although there is a faction of biblical scholars who have presented inconclusive evidence to its lack of credibility, most scholars have accepted the Secret Mark as a viable apocryphal text in the history of non-canonical early Christian texts.

The Secret Gospel of Mark was found on the back of a letter from Clement, an early Christian leader, to one of his contemporaries. Clement’s letter, known as the Mar Saba letter, addresses the theme of divine secrecy, a theme which exists in the canonical Mark, in which Jesus holds divine knowledge of heaven, and only the initiated elite disciples of Jesus are able to understand that knowledge, and only then they must be introduced to the knowledge by a special relationship with Jesus. In canonical Mark there are numerous passages where the twelve disciples don’t understand what Jesus is talking about, and only a few understand after Jesus gives special intimate teachings to those few individuals. Clement explains in his letter that the Secret Mark is the book of Mark with the secret parts included, and that only those select few individuals who have gained divine knowledge are able to understand it. He includes two passages of Secret Mark on the back of the letter as examples to his follower. It can only be assumed by his implications that there were at one time more passages of Secret Mark that Clement just didn’t include, but now are lost. Secret Mark therefore is not an entirely new and different gospel from canonical gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Phillip. The Secret Gospel of Mark is the Gospel of Mark with specific additions of divine knowledge, as if canonical Mark was missing key parts that the author did not want to give access to just anyone.

The two Secret Mark additions identified by Clement are both in Chapter 10 of canonical Mark. The first, which Clement indicated were to be inserted between Mark 10:34 and 35, when the disciples John and James ask Jesus if they are the most important of the disciples, reads as such:

"And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says 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 straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, 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 comes 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."

The second addition of Secret Mark is right after canonical Mark 10:46, reading:

"And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them."

What is most intriguing in the discussion is the relationship of Jesus with an unidentified male youth. This relationship has been proposed by Morton Smith himself, and numerous other biblical scholars who have studied Secret Mark, to be of a homosexual nature.

Although Dan Brown has completely blown out of proportion most of the scholarly debate regarding the possible romantic or sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, a discussion on the idea of Jesus involved in homosexual relationships has been mostly absent from popular non-traditional interpretations of the life of Jesus. One notable exception is the play Corpus Christi, where Jesus and Judas Iscariot are portrayed as being romantically involved.

Most scholars who have studied Secret Mark do not discuss its possible homosexual content, but even Clement, the author of the Mar Saba letter, makes it relatively clear that although he does not believe the Jesus and the youth were sexually involved, they could have fallen in love with each other. Which kind of ‘love’ he means they could have fallen into, he does not make clear.

The inclusion of this youth is not surprising. In actuality, it even clarifies other passages throughout the gospels which refer to an unidentified young man. Although most of the passages regarding a young man or youth are in other canonical gospels besides Mark, and hence make it difficult to connect across gospels to the Secret Mark’s youth, there is a passage in canonical Mark which seems completely out of place in the context of the passage. In canonical Mark 14:51-52, it reads:

“A youth, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.”

This young man appears out of nowhere in the narrative of Mark 14, and doesn’t appear anywhere before or after in Mark. That is, unless you include the additions from Secret Mark, which would be included four chapters earlier. It also has been suggested that this resurrection scene is the same as the Gospel of John’s scene with Jesus bringing Lazarus back from death, implying that Lazarus and Mark’s young man are the same person. This would make the relationship between Jesus and the young man even stronger, since the author of John uses Martha (the sister of Lazarus) to say “the one whom you love” to Jesus. And, for those of you who grew up in a Christian household, remember the shortest verse of the Bible? John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” Why is Jesus weeping? Because the one he loves, Lazarus, is dead. It seems pretty irregular for a man-god who regularly heals the sick, casts out demons, and raises the dead to weep for a man who he can easily (and does so soon after) bring the man back to life. Pretty irregular, unless that man had a special relationship with Jesus. Jesus never has that reaction to any of the other miracles be performs. Then what does John 11:36 say, right after Jesus weeps? “Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’”

Now, Jesus was a pretty loving guy. He loved the whole world so much that he died for the sins of the world (or so Christian theology explains). It’s not a big surprise that he loved a person, since he apparently loved everyone. But why is it that the text only indicates specific people whom Jesus loved? And why is it that nearly always it is this vague young man, who may be Lazarus, or may be John the Beloved Disciple, or this obscure young man from Mark? Yes, John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world”, but it doesn’t say that Jesus so loved the world. It says that Jesus loved this young man, whichever one it is. Sure, Mary Magdalene gets a “whom Jesus loved” once or twice, and so does Simon Peter. But this youth/Lazarus/John figure gets the “whom Jesus loved” many times.

Really though, does it matter if Jesus “loved” this young man? Does it matter if Jesus fell in love with a man, and “taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God”? Going back to Dan Brown, does it even matter if Jesus romantically or sexually loved Mary Magdalene, or if he married her?

If you are a Christian and believe in Christianity, you probably believe at least this:
- Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, fulfilling and making obsolete the old Law of the Torah, and becoming the perfect sacrifice as the savior of humanity.
- Jesus gave two commandments: 1) Love God, and 2) Love your neighbor.

When it comes down to it, as long as whatever he was doing was consensual and not with somebody else’s spouse and not with his own family, does it matter whom he “loved”? If Jesus was romantically involved with a man, or romantically involved at all for that matter, does it make his teachings untrue? No, it doesn't. It doesn't make his teachings false, nor does it make his miracles any less miraculous. Most of all, it doesn't change the sacrifice he made for the world.

If anything, if he did everything he did and also had a romantic partner, that makes it that much more impactful. Not only would he have sacrificed his perfect life for his divine cause, which is an incredible (if not impossible) feat for any human, but he would have done it with the knowledge that he would also be leaving his lover (male or female) in order to fulfill that divine mission. Even though his sacrifice could not have been any bigger, making that choice makes it all the more real.



I didn’t think it fit earlier to mention that when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, what does he say?
John 11:43b Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

Yeah, Lazarus. Come out.
Jesus, you can come out, too.
We know we’ll still love you.

Labels: Allen, apocrypha, Christianity, homosexuality, religion

Yahoo! Inc. in China: Pirates and Emperors

By: Collin | Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 11:23 PM

Unrestricted global capitalism is facing a renewed threat, and it could be to the benefit of human rights worldwide. Before the explanation, perhaps a little background:

In 1980, a landmark case visited the United States Supreme Court, the political fallout of which has sparked the ire of huge U.S.-based corporations operating everywhere. Filartiga v. Pena-Irala called upon a centuries-old statute, one passed in 1789 and originally intended to prosecute pirates on the high seas. The Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA, also known as Alien Tort Statute) allows foreign nationals, victims of violations of the "law of nations" (read: international law), to bring suit against their assailants in U.S. courts. The crime needn't be committed in the United States, and neither the plaintiff nor the defendant need be U.S. citizens. In Filartiga, the sister and father of a man who had been tortured and killed in Paraguay brought suit against his torturer and won.

This was the first time the ATCA had been used to prosecute human rights abuses as prohibited by international law. Later, this precedent was used against the California-based oil corporation Unocal, just before it became a subsidiary of Chevron, for its role in vicious human rights abuses in Burma/Myanmar, including rape, torture and forced labor. When Unocal settled the case in April 2005 (overshadowed by its merger), it was the first time an American corporation had been held legally accountable for its participation and complicity in human rights abuses, and it set a solid legal precedent.

Now, Chinese nationals are using the statute to sue Yahoo! Inc. for providing information to the government that lead to the arrest and subsequent beating and torture of political dissidents.

Technology companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google have been chided for their individual and collective role in assisting China's overbearing government in monitoring and censoring the internet. But the companies suggest that they are opening up new avenues to information for citizens while complying with Chinese law.

It's a question that morally-minded businesspeople have struggled with since the advent of international trade. If a country's (or a government's) values don't fit with those of the company in question, would it be better for the company to: a) abstain from doing business in that country at all, tempting the country with its business once policies change? or b) bring business to that country and participate in an active process to "modernize" or "Westernize" or "develop" that country's goals and values? Choice a prevents the company from profiting from the country's markets, but choice b makes the company look like an accomplice in supporting an oppressive regime.

After the cost-benefit analysis, Yahoo! has chosen b, as have the other techno-giants, in deciding to bring more technology to China but agreeing to abide by its laws. And, as one Yahoo! spokesman put it:

“Companies doing business in China are forced to comply with Chinese law,” said Jim Cullinan, a Yahoo spokesman. When government officials present the company with a lawful request for information about a Yahoo user, he said, “Yahoo China will not know whether the demand for information is for a legitimate criminal investigation or is going to be used to prosecute political dissidents.” (link)

It doesn't sound like Yahoo! is making much progress in steering China in any positive direction. This is despite Cullinan's beliefs, as mentioned in the AP story cited above, that "the Internet can promote change and transform lives in that country," and that is why Yahoo! will continue to offer its services to consumers in China.

Well, it's certainly transformed the life of Wang Xiaoning, who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for "incitement to subvert state power" after using a Yahoo! group to email electronic journals that called for democratic reform and an end to single-party rule in China. And it transformed the life of his wife, Yu Ling. Both are named defendants in the case against Yahoo!, who turned over Mr. Wang's records to China in 2002.

The internet giant will hide behind the defense that it was simply complying with China's national law and cooperating with requests made legally by the government there (as Mr. Cullinan has made clear, there is something of a dont-ask-don't-tell policy when China asks Yahoo! to hand over a person's internet records). They'll also say that the human rights abuses--from censorship to torture--were perpetrated by state agents on the order of government officials, and that Yahoo! had nothing to do with them.

The bad news is that Yahoo! will probably get off with maybe a bruise and a finger-wagging. Much more than that seems unlikely, as the defendants have perhaps too much going against them. The good news, though, is that Alien Tort Statute is alive and well, not forgotten, and that it's being wielded as a mechanism of the people to fight the seemingly untouchable corporate juggernauts who consistently work toward profit at the expense of human rights and basic principles of dignity.

Even if Yahoo! wins or the case is dismissed, the fact that this has made it to court at all means the fight continues. While the Bush administration fights the ATCA and its application to corporations, it remains a tool of the formerly defenseless victims of global capitalism who have been relentlessly chewed up and unceremoniously spit out.

Pirates and CEOs beware. Alien Tort lives on.

Labels: China, Collin, corporations, human rights, law, technology, U.S. Supreme Court

Welcome to Standing Vanguard

By: Collin | at 12:36 AM

Welcome to our blog. Just to give you an idea about what you can expect, we've got a team of six college students and recent graduates with varied interests and ideas who will be writing on news items, sociocultural developments, political conjecture and generally all things progressive. The goal here is to provide insightful commentary on anything that piques an author's interest.

We're not here to give you the party line. We're not here to spout conventional wisdom and repeat cliches. We intend to provide new, fresh commentary that will hopefully inform you and maybe give you a new perspective instead of the tired old angles.

Don't hesitate to join the conversation. The comments link on the bottom (it reads, "speak up") is there for a reason. We invite you to use it.

Thanks for coming. Stop by again.