The book's editor, Guy Stroumsa, argues that the “correspondence should provide sufficient evidence of his [i.e., Smith’s] intellectual honesty to anyone armed with common sense and lacking malice.” He thinks it shows “Smith’s honesty”, and that Smith could not have forged the Clement letter, for, in the words of Anthony Grafton, the “letters show him discussing the material with Scholem, over time, in ways that clearly reflect a process of discovery and reflection.” Pierluigi Piovanelli has however contested Stroumsa's interpretation.