Forgery in Antiquity Archives - Page 7 of 7

Ancient Secretaries (Part 1)

I have received some comments and emails about my claims about Silvanus as a secretary (or rather, NOT as a secretary) for the book of 1 Peter, and realized it would help if I could give some more detail about what we know about secretaries in the ancient world. The following is from an excursus in my forthcoming Forgery and Counterforgery; it will come in two parts, the first today and the second, hopefully, tomorrow. If you've read my book Forged, the substance of what follows will be familiar; this is the slightly more whomped up version of what I discuss there. ************************************************************************************************************************ Now that we have explored six of the Deutero-Pauline epistles, we are in a position to consider the hypothesis widely invoked by advocates of authenticity to explain how a letter allegedly by an author should differ so radically from other writings he produced. The notion that early Christian authors used secretaries who altered the writing style and contributed to the contents of a writing– thereby creating the anomalies that arouse the critics‘ [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:18:23-04:00August 3rd, 2012|Book Discussions, Forgery in Antiquity, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, New Testament Manuscripts, Paul and His Letters|

Forgery. Another Deceived Deceiver (Part 2)

HERE'S THE SECOND HALF OF WHAT I STARTED TO POST YESTERDAY: THE IRONIES OF THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS (A FOURTH CENTURY BOOK CLAIMING TO BE WRITTEN BY THE APOSTLES THREE HUNDRED YEARS EARLIER ); DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE GREEK -- IT MAKES SENSE WITHOUT READING IT. MY POINT IN THIS BIT IS THE IRONY OF IT ALL. The alleged authors – the apostles of Christ, including Paul and James -- claim that the books of the New Testament were theirs: ἡμέτερα δέ, τοῦτ’ ἔστι τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης (8.47.85). And so the author gives a list of which books those are, a list that includes all of the books that eventually became the New Testament, with the exception of the book of Revelation. Strikingly, after listing the Gospels and the letters of Paul, James, John, Jude, and Peter, the author indicates that the New Testament is also to include the two letters of Clement and, to cap it all off, the Apostolic Constitutions themselves. The list ends with “our Acts of the Apostles” αἱ Πράψεις ἡμῶν τῶν [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:18:23-04:00August 1st, 2012|Book Discussions, Forgery in Antiquity, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Forgery. Another Deceived Deceiver (Part 1)

ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM MY FORTHCOMING SCHOLARLY DISCUSSION OF FORGERY AND COUNTERFORGERY, WHERE IN THE INTRODUCTION I CONTINUE MY ANECDOTES OF FORGERIES THAT CONDEMN FORGERIES AND DECEIVERS WHO GET DECEIVED, THIS TIME BY LOOKING AT A CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE (SEE MY EARLIER POST ON THE DUPED HERACLIDES) This ironic phenomenon has its rough parallels in the later Christian tradition. To begin with, we might look at a work universally recognized as pseudepigraphic, the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, a so-called “church order” allegedly written by none other than the apostles of Jesus (hence its name), but in reality produced by someone simply claiming to be the apostolic band, living three hundred years after they had been laid to rest in their respective tombs. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. If you don't belong -- JOIN!! We will be considering other aspects of this text in a later chapter. For now it is enough to note that the book represents an edited composite of three earlier documents still extant independently, the third-century Didascalia [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:18:23-04:00July 31st, 2012|Book Discussions, Forgery in Antiquity, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Forgery and Deceived Deceivers

I mentioned in my previous blog that I am reading through the page proofs of my scholarly book Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. And I suggested that I might give a few extracts to give some idea of what the book looks like. Much of the book is hard hitting scholarship that only inveterate philologists could love (or like). I can give a taste in later posts, if anyone's interested. But I start off on a light note, in part to get people interested (even scholars have to be interested!). I open with the following anecdote. If you've read my popular book Forged, the final part will sound familiar. This is how I would (and do) do the same bit for a more scholarly audience. (I have not included the footnotes here) ************************************************************************************************************************ Heraclides Ponticus was one of the great literati of the classical age. As a young man from aristocratic roots he left his native Pontus to study philosophy in Athens under Plato, Speusippus, and eventually, while [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:18:23-04:00July 30th, 2012|Book Discussions, Forgery in Antiquity, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

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Ancient Secretaries (Part 1)

Forgery. Another Deceived Deceiver (Part 2)

Forgery. Another Deceived Deceiver (Part 1)

Forgery and Deceived Deceivers