Scholars have long wondered at a curious passage in the canonical Gospel of Mark (undisputedly the oldest of the canonical gospels) which seems to hint that a detail or two might have been left out: “Then they came to Jericho. As he was leaving Jericho with his disciples…” (Mark 10:46). But what happened in Jericho on Jesus' whistle-stop tour of the provinces? Did Jesus simply pass through and then leave without doing or saying anything to anyone? If the visit was so irrelevant to Jesus' mission, why is it even mentioned? The gap suggests a mission portion of Mark’s Gospel. The Letter of Clement’s, who had access to the complete version of Mark’s gospel, places the events in Jericho.
Both what is missing and why is supplied by Morton Smith, the Columbia University professor scholar whose 1958 research expedition culminated in the discovery of a copy of a letter in the 1646 edition of letters of Ignatius of Antioch (a 2nd century church writer) at the monastery of Mar Saba, twelve miles south of Jerusalem. The letter consists of 3 pages of Greek manuscript bound in as end-papers. This letter contains quotes from what Saint Clement of Alexandria (c.156-211) refers to as “The Secret Gospel of Mark.” Professor Smith writes, “Based on this letter we can conclude that “The Secret Gospel of Mark” was the older and more complete, and the version we have is an edited version with the troubling passages left out by the Church fathers. The portions supplied by Clement in this letter found by Professor Morton Smith fill in the gap at Mark 10:46.
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