mini-review of carlson's gospel hoax

On the Saturday evening of the recent SBL conference, I found myself at my hotel room with nothing to do. I had just bought my wagonload of books that afternoon, so I picked up Stephen Carlson's The Gospel Hoax, expecting to read a chapter or so and then drift off into much-needed sleep. But I simply couldn't put the book down. I read the whole thing straight through, riveted by the book to my bed, reveling in the revelations of this real-life detective novel.

Carlson's book is a thorough, utterly convincing case for the forgery of the Secret Gospel of Mark by its discoverer, Morton Smith. There, I said it. I feel like I should have warned the reader of "plot spoilers" in advance, but of course it says as much in the subtitle and one doesn't warn of "plot spoilers" in reviewing an academic book anyway. But this is no ordinary academic book--it combines the rigour of academic writing with the ethos of a detective novel. It is hard to imagine anything that Carlson has left out in his analysis. He patiently explains how Smith had the means, motive, and opportunity to produce the Secret Gospel and the text in which it is embedded, the letter of Clement of Alexandria to Theodore.

This is an absolute must-read for anyone in the scholarly guild. It is important for clarifying our sources for the study of Christian origins and for exposing potential weaknesses in the system of scholarly research, but it's also just a good, fun read. It's one of those books I wish I had written. Or, at the very least, that Stephen Carlson had written in my name... :-)