He must have seen the scribe's pen was bumping up against a crease. Why doesn't he ask why the 5 other creases don't have the same effect on the handwriting?
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andrewcriddlePosts: 3767Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:36 am
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andrewcriddle » Wed Jun 17, 2026 3:52 am
It is at least possible that the writer of the Letter to Theodore after finishing writing deliberately creased the pages so as to produce this effect. (In the antiques trade this sort of deliberate ageing is known as "distressing")
Andrew Criddle
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StephenGoransonPosts: 5756Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 5:10 am
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StephenGoranson » Wed Jun 17, 2026 5:37 am
Andrew is correct about that possibility.
One check would be to compare other (i.e., typeset) pages.
Remember that the front pages are missing, removing previous ownership marks and possibly were available for testing ink and distressing.
The photos of other pages from Voss by Tselikas do not confirm the SA proposal, but tend to confirm Andrew's possibility that the end pages, and not the whole book, were distressed.
SA mentions water damage. But the first extant page, the one that Smith wrote on in pencil (as, elsewhere, with ink recipe, he wrote in pencil the date 1746, the paleographic estimates midrange, hmmm...), a page unprotected by a hard cover, does not show water damage, Plus, Mar Saba cliff are rather dry.
More data against the SA proposal.
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Secret AliasPosts: 26997Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:47 am
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Secret Alias » Wed Jun 17, 2026 8:29 am
This is crazy. This the exact craziness I brought up in the OP.
I am commenting on the physical evidence which never gets brought into the discussions (instead wasting 100s of volumes on Smith's "psychological make up" and "loss of faith").
I've done a few things with this thread. Establishing that Morton Smith was greeted with a few basic facts:
A. The order of Smith's taking of the photographs can be definitely established:
1. The bottom right corners of the two pages (= verso of the printed Vossius Ignatius text/recto page 1 of the manuscript + verso page 2 of the manuscript/recto page 3 of the manuscript) were folded over together and pinned back for so long he had to take a string to hold them down for the initial photograph which was of
verso of the printed Vossius Ignatius text/recto page 1 of the manuscript
2. The tension from the string must have been applied for some time because the next photograph (= verso page 2 of the manuscript/recto page 3 of the manuscript) is flatter than the first.
3. The "single page" photographs that follow all appear flatter and flatter as time goes on.
4. There are four horizontal creases which manifest as "bumps" or "channels" (which we will call "innies" and "outies" because of the effect they have on the sides of the pages) in the pairing of manuscript pages listed above i.e. verso of the printed Vossius Ignatius text/recto page 1 of the manuscript + verso page 2 of the manuscript/recto page 3 of the manuscript
5. Three horizontal creases near the middle of the manuscript
that don't affect the writing whatsoever which are "outies" for the "verso" sides of the pages/"innies" for the recto sides of the pages.
6. One smaller horizontal crease near the spine of the book which is an "outie" for the recto of p. 3 of the manuscript (where it is still blank/no writing) but where shadows of an "outie" on the recto of p. 1 which has affected the writing causing what Quesnell describes when holding the actual pages in his hand as "scratches" or correction by the scribe.
The non-crazy or rational conclusion from the evidence is that considerable time elapsed between the first "moisture" damage (6) which did effect the writing and (5) moisture damage which did not affect the writing but only the appearance of the page.
Similarly the non-crazy or rational conclusion is that the writing must have been inscribed on the page a considerable amount of time before 1953 when Morton Smith took the photos for three new "lumps/channels" to form in the middle of the verso/recto of the manuscript pages.
Perhaps decades before but more likely a century or centuries.
The non-crazy or rational conclusion from the evidence is clearly that Morton Smith did not forge the manuscript.
How and why would he have staged "layered" moisture effects on the manuscript in photographs which he photographed but did not release to anyone/did not draw attention to/did not comment upon/did not care about.
To argue that he intentionally "layered" condensation effects in his forgery that he did not draw attention to is crazy. Not "funny crazy" but crazy, crazy. Serious crazy. Really, really crazy.
It's a deranged position developed from desperation once again to avoid the evidence and go back to empty "Smith bashing" which is the hallmark of the debate from the other wise = don't deal with the evidence, promote gossip, innuendo and distortion.
The facts are there is visible "layering" in the moisture damage: one small bump or lump which visibly affects the handwriting in a serious way and three much larger bumps or lumps which the text visible ignores/is not affected by i.e. where text is spread across the three middle bumps or lumps in ways which demonstrate decades/centuries elapsed between the manuscript's creation and its discovery. End of story.
UPDATE. I should qualify that further. There are four main bumps/lumps that emerge from the center of the binding. These have been documented above. But if we look at the actual photo of the side of the page there are many more of these bumps/lumps that come from the side where we see the string hold down the page:
From the bottom corner I could one bump/lump/crease and then seven more under the string and then the top corner is folded over so we can't count creases any more but I estimate at least two more. So there are ten creases from the side of the page and four main horizontal creases from the spine of the book all, it seems unrelated to one another. How exactly did Smith "induce" random moisture damage to causes these fourteen creases into his forgery or crazy people (and then physical bend the pages to make more)?
I honestly have no clue how someone could replicate natural damage from desert exposure to evaporation/condensation from 100 C climate conditions. Did he also "cause" the worm holes and the discoloration that Quesnell saw between the two pages? This on top of inventing a 17th century scribal vocabulary, imitating Clement's Greek style, Mark's Greek style, smuggling the book etc. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
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