SECRET GOSPEL GIVES A MISSING LINE FOR MARK 10 

Professor Morton Smith found a letter showing pieces of Mark's gospel that were deliberately kept secret by the Church.  Written by major Church father, St Clement of Alexandria, it is very telling.  One portion speaks of Jesus being asked to raise a dead boy, the youth whom Jesus loved, but the boy is alive in the tomb.  The story tells us that before Jesus even rolled the stone back there was a scream from the tomb as if we are talking about a live burial. Also Jesus goes in and takes his hand so he is not even in his burial cloths or rotting.  And they leave and some mystery takes place between them.  The boy is scantily clad.  Clement is concerned that some see homosexuality in this.  There is something else.

Clement wrote, "And after the words, "And he comes into Jericho," the secret Gospel adds only, "And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them." 

This fits Mark 10:46. Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. 

This looks like something has gone missing.  Why say they go to Jericho and never mention what they did there? Why write that they went to Jericho and left?  It is very odd writing when you consider how difficult writing was in those days.

The secret gospel supplements it.   Then they came to Jericho. And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. 

This hints at estrangement from his mother which fits the earlier statements of the gospel.  Jesus was refusing to receive a sort of sister in law which is why the refusal to meet them caused comment.

Why was this text kept secret and kept out of the standard gospel version?  It shows what the Church actually thought!  At that time the Mary thing had not become mainstream so Jesus and his mother having difficulties was not the sensitive issue it became centuries later.

WRITINGS CONSULTED

Bible Dictionary and Concordance, New American Bible, 1970
Early Christian Writings, Translated by Maxwell Staniforth, Penguin, London, 1987
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
Evil and the God of Love, John Hick, Fontana/Fount, Glasgow, 1979
Handbook to the Controversy with Rome, Karl Von Hase, Vols 1& 2, The Religious Tract Society, London, 1906
He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, Alpha, Cumbria, 2000
Jesus – One Hundred Years Before Christ, Professor Alvar Ellegard, Century, London, 1999
Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984
Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson, Pan, London, 1985
JR Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1988 (from 1891 Edition published by Macmillan and Co. London)
New Age Bible Versions, GA Riplinger, Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation, Tennessee, 1993
On the True Doctrine, Celsus, Translated by R Joseph Hoffmann, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987
The Apostolic Fathers, B Lightfoot and JR Harmer, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1988, from 1891 Edition published by Macmillan and Co. London
The Bible Fact or Fantasy, John Drane, Lion, Oxford, 1989
The Canon of Scripture, FF Bruce, Chapter House, Glasgow, 1988
The Early Church, Henry Chadwick Pelican, London, 1987
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief, Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books, New York, 1985
The First Christian, Karen Armstrong, Pan Books, London, 1983
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, Penguin, London, 1990
The History of Christianity, Lions, Herts, 1982
The History of the Church, Eusebius, Penguin, London, 1989
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Corgi, London, 1982
The Jesus Event, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House, New York, 1980
The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Thorsons, London, 1999
The Jesus Papyrus, Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona, Phoenix, London, 1997
The Lion Concise Book of Christian Thought, Tony Lane, Lion Publishing, Herts, 1984
The Nag Hammadi Library, Edited by J A Robinson, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990
The Newly Recovered Gospel of St Peter, J Rendle Harris, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1893
The Original Jesus, Tom Wright, Lion, Oxford, 1996
The Reconstruction of Belief, Charles Gore DD, John Murray, London, 1930
The Secret Gospel, Morton Smith, Aquarian, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985
The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark by Shawn Eyer Alexandria: The Journal for the Western Cosmological Traditions, Volume 3, 1995
The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992

THE WWW

WERE THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS UNABLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN AUTHENTIC AND UNAUTHENTIC BOOKS? GLENN MILLER
www.christian-thinktank.com/dumdad2.html

THE GOSPEL OF MARCION AND THE GOSPEL OF LUKE COMPARED, CHARLES B WAITE
www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3827/wait2.htm

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE SECRET GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK, SHAWN EYER
www.globaltown.com/shawn/secmark.html

The “Historical” Jesus by Acharya S
www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm