By now the discerning reader may suspect that the evidence in this book has been unfairly stacked against the forgery argument of someone like Stephen Carlson and marshalled toward a defense of Morton Smith. Of course, whether it is or is not “stacked” is ultimately a matter of judgment. But after fifty years of accusation, insinuation, psychoanalysis, gossip, and bad detective work, there remains no evidence for forgery worth the name. The people who wanted, in effect, to ban Morton Smith’s discovery from serious scholarly consideration have largely succeeded, but they have not succeeded because they proved their case. They succeeded because suspicion is easier to circulate than evidence, and because the text itself was always going to offend the right people. That does not mean, of course, that things cannot change. It may be that in the future scholars will finally listen to the muted judgment of the Jerusalem Patriarchate itself. The custodians of the manuscript never seem to have ...