BE:
-I didn't quote Morton Smith.  I quoted The Complete Gospels (the
-full citation is Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels,
-New York: HarperCollins, 1994, p.411), and only verses 8-9 of
-chapter 1.
-
-You want the linen cloth lines?  Here they are:
-
-  Six days later Jesus gave him an order; and when evening had
-  come, the young man went to him, dressed only in a linen cloth.
-
-  [Secret Mk 1.10-11, in The Complete Gospels, 411]
> FWIW,  the  passage  is included as 14:51 in my copy The Complete
> Bible, an American Translation, first copyright 1928, rev.  1948,
> translated  by  Edgar  Goodspeed  &  published  by  the   Chicago
> University Press.
Are you sure?  Mark 14.51-52 NRSV says,
  A  certain  young  man  was following him, wearing nothing but a
  linen cloth.  They caught hold of him, but  he  left  the  linen
  cloth and ran off naked.
This  passage  makes  two  references  to a linen cloth; but it is
plain that it is  not  the  same  passage  as  SMk  1.10-11.   The
discovery  of  SMark  was  made  in  1958,  ten  years  after your
Goodspeed was revised.
I  don't  have  Goodspeed  here,  but I do have two versions which
bracket your Goodspeed--NRSV (above,  and  dated  1988),  and  KJV
(dated 1611, as follows):
  And  there  followed  him  a  certain  young man, having a linen
  cloth cast about HIS naked BODY; and the  young  men  laid  hold
  on him;
  And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
  [Mark 14.51-52 KJV]
The KJV provides a more graphic (perhaps lurid)  translation;  but
the  point is the same: the passage makes it look as though Jesus'
young associates were scaring off an unwanted homosexual attack.
Mark 14.51-52 is clearly not the same as SMark 1.10-11.
Rather, it looks more like a  redaction  by  early  Christians  of
SMark.
In  the  SMark passage the young man "went to him" after receiving
an order from Jesus.  There is no hint that  he  was  scared  off.
This   definitely  suggests  consent  and  hence  an  assignation,
implying a relationship.
In  our Mark, however, the relevant words are "was following him",
suggesting   some   kind   of   harassment,   and   therefore   no
relationship.   Our  Mark  does  not  say  that  Jesus gave him an
order.  Our Mark further adds the idea that Jesus' associates made
the young man run off naked when they saw the harassing behaviour,
underscoring the idea that there was no relationship  between  the
young man and Jesus.
Mark 14.51 therefore looks like a coverup of the original SMark to
allay fears that Jesus was a homosexual.
Thanks  for  noting  this.
This is evidence that SMark was not merely a parallel  version  of
our Mark (as suggested in the Complete Gospels)--but may have been
the   original,   later  subjected  to  redaction  for  propaganda
purposes.
This is especially important for clarifying the role of the  young
man at the tomb in our Mark 16.6-8.  If the young man there is the
same  as the young man in these other passages, the implication is
that the original speech made by the young man at the tomb was not
a resurrection/go-to-Galilee  speech  (added  later  by  Christian
redactors), but was some kind of homosexual speech.  No wonder the
women recoiled from it at Mark 16.8.
Bob
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