Loading...In response to the lecture on ancient practices of pseudepigraphy (writing in the name of a famous person when, alas, you are actually someone else), I received this important question, getting to the very basics – the heart and soul of the issue for students of early Christianity.
QUESTION:
Dr. Ehrman, I know you have published and spoken on the topic, but would you mind sharing which NT books are pseudepigraphical?
RESPONSE
Yes indeed, one of the reasons I’m so interested in this topic is that the use of pseudepigraphy, what today we would call “forgery,” was so much more widespread in antiquity than today, probably because there were far fewer people who were literate in the first place and so far fewer experts who could uncover a forgery; and those who could, of course, didn’t have our modern methods of analysis and technologies of data retrieval.
It was very common in the Christian world as well. Before answering the question directly at the end of this post, let me just say something about how widespread the practice was in Christianity from outside the New Testament. Here is how I introduce the matter in my scholarly book Forgery and Counter forgery. The paragraphs are accessible to the non-expert, but I do need to define a couple of terms, to go along with “pseudonymous” (= written under a false name): “anonymous” means written without any name, i.e. the author never says who he is; “orthonymous” means written under the “right” name, that is, the author claims to be who he really is (as I’m doing now); “homonymous” means written under the “same” name, that is, someone writes something in his/her own name but it happens also to be the name of a famous person and so is mistakenly thought to be by that one (so when someone named Stephen King writes a book under the name…Stephen King). It’s not the author’s fault: it just happens to be his name. The term subapostolic times just means “just after the time of the apostles”
Here’s how I open my book (afterward I’ll apply the nomenclature to the New Testament):
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Arguably the most distinctive feature of early Christian literature is the degree to which it was forged. Even though the early Christians were devoted to the truth– or so their writings consistently claimed – and even though “authoritative” literature played a virtually unparalleled role in their individual and communal lives, the orthonymous output of the early Christians was remarkably, even astonishingly, meager. From the period of the New Testament, from which some thirty writings survive intact or in part, only…
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From the period of the New Testament, from which some thirty writings survive intact or in part, only eight go under the name of their actual author, and seven of these derive from the pen of one man. To express the matter differently, only two authors named themselves correctly in the surviving literature of the first Christian century. All other Christian writings are either anonymous, falsely ascribed (based on original anonymity or homonymity), or forged.
Matters begin to change with the second Christian century, even though orthonymity continues to be the exception rather than the rule. It is worth considering, for example, what Pre-Enlightenment scholars accepted as the writings of apostolic and subapostolic times. There were the Homilies and Recognitions of Clement, now known not to be works of the one who was reputedly the fourth bishop of
Rome, but to be forged in his name. There were the writings of the early Pauline convert Dionysius the Areopagite, also forged. There were the letters of Paul himself to and from Seneca, likewise forged.
And there were the thirteen letters of Ignatius of Antioch, six of them forged and the others falsely and severely interpolated. When we move deeper into the second century and on into the third and fourth, we see a heightened interest in the production of “apostolic” works — Gospels by Peter, Thomas, Philip, all forged; Paul’s letters to the Alexandrians and Laodiceans, forged; Jesus’ correspondence with Abgar, forged; Apocalypses of Peter and Paul, forged. We can move backward into writings forged in the names of the greats from antiquity, Isaiah or the Sybil, or forward into the writings forged in the names of orthodox church fathers – Basil, Augustine, Jerome. The list goes a very long way.
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And so, now, to return to the question. How many books in the NT are pseudepigraphic, that is, “forged.” Different scholars will have different opinions, of course. Conservative evangelicals will say that none of them is. That’s one end of the spectrum. I’m very near the other end. Here is my breakdown:
Anonymous Writings (books whose authors never tell us who they were and we still don’t know who they were): Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts (though see below), Hebrews (though see below), 1, 2, 3 John (though see below).
Homonymous Writing (book written by the same name as a famous person): Revelation of John (written by someone named John, but almost certainly not “that” John, the disciple of Jesus, John the Son of Zebedee). I used to think the book of James fit into this category, but now I think the author really wants his readers to think he is *that* James, the brother of Jesus.
Forged Writings (authors intentionally/knowingly claiming to be someone other than who they really are): Acts (this is my view: the author is anonymous but he implicitly claims to be one of Paul’s actual traveling companions, which I think cannot be true); Letters falsely claiming to be by Paul: 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus; then also Hebrews (I’m not so sure about this, but a good case has been made by other scholars that the author is hinting that he is Paul when he definitely was not); James; 1 and 2 Peter; 1 John (again, the author doesn’t claim to be John, but he does claim to be an eyewitness to the life of Jesus, which cannot be right); Jude.
Orthonymous Writings (books written by the person who claims to be the author): seven of Paul’s letters: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon.
And so the grand totals (in terms of numbers) come out like this (depending on which way you go with the ones on the margins). Out of 27 books in the New Testament.
Anonymous writings: 6-9. (All of these have been “falsely ascribed” – that is, thought by later readers/editors to be written by people who in fact did not write them: e.g., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)
Homonymous writings: 1
Forged writings: 10-13
Orthonymous writings: 7
I have to admit, it’s a sobering total.
“Acts (this is my view: the author is anonymous but he implicitly claims to be one of Paul’s actual traveling companions, which I think cannot be true)”
Dr. Ehrman, do you have a view on the probable date of composition of Acts?
Late 80s. It’s highly controversial. A lot of scholars today are putting it much later, to around 120 CE or so.
Referring to the subject of who ACTUALLY wrote what; If, as you say, Paul is the only writer who IS who he says he IS, and Paul actually knew Jesus’s brother, and he knew Peter, AND he ACTUALLY wrote 7 letters or books of the NT, wouldn’t that make those writings VERY VERY important, relatively speaking??
Yup, unusually important!
Hear, hear! Dr. Ehrman, I would love a post on how the author of Acts “implies” that he is Paul’s companion and why that is not likely the case.
I posted on this on the blog — but maybe it was many years ago. I’ll repost! Thanks,
Thank you for making this concise list. We can safely ignore the fundamentalist opinions because in no sense of the word are they scholars– or even honest, for that matter. Willfully ignorant, to be generous? I generated a PDF and printed this. Handy reference. In fact, I need to do that with a lot of your blog posts– nice supplemental material to go with your books!
Do you think the Revelation of John would have made it into the Bible if it hadn’t been written by “John”?
Nope!
Then, in my view, we’re rather lucky that ancient readers were confused! Otherwise, this fascinating work would probably have been lost.
In a related way, the author of 1 Peter might have inadvertently done us a favor by writing in the name of Jesus’s most famous disciple. His views would have been lost, and our knowledge of 1st-century Christianity would be poorer. (In fact, I wish more ancient readers had been convinced that Thomas had written the Gospel of Thomas; if they had, we would presumably have more and earlier copies of the work, and we might be able to say more about what earlier versions of the sayings actually said.)
One reason I like your writings is that I think you do your best to reach your conclusions honestly. I find it frustrating to read something where the author has apparently started with their conclusion and then worked backward to try to justify it.
Great post! Let me slip in an off-topic question. John’s Gospel specifically mentions Caiaphas as the leader of chief priests of the Jerusalem temple. Have you found historical non-Biblical evidence that such a man existed by that name? … Thanks very much!
Yes, they actually discovered his burial box with his name on it some years ago.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you think that since Acts was written late and from an unknown author, that the account of Paul’s experience of the resurrected Jesus was embellished for effect, and that Paul probably experienced something more straightfoward, sober, and ‘down to earth?’
More or less, yes. (He certainly didn’t *think* of it as down to earth, though)
“Acts (this is my view: the author is anonymous but he implicitly claims to be one of Paul’s actual traveling companions, which I think cannot be true)”
I don’t know what I think about the authorship of Acts yet, so I am curious: Why do you think it is unlikely that the author of Acts was a travelling companion of Paul?
I better repost on that!
Dr.Ehrman If I am remembering correctly you said before that author of Book of Acts and Luke are the same . But you said Acts forged. How can both at the same time be true?
Because Luke doesn’t claim to be written by Paul’s traveling companion. It’s anonymous. The only reason for thinking its author was Paul’s traveling comapnion is because a *different* book writtenby the same fellow survives, and it *does* make an authorial claim. But the Gospel of Luke itself does not.
In the ancient world where so much forgery took place, to have the majority of the New Testament correctly attributed might be itself a miracle. And imagine the fortitude of character it required to ascribe the four gospels to no one. A faith that for thousands of years has never tried to say who wrote its core books is one with a solid tradition of integrity.
Perhaps the better question: how many of them are legit? Which ones are real?
I’m afraid I don’t know what you meant by “legit” or “real.” On the latter term, they are all real. That is, they really do exist.
I didn’t realize so much of what we have from Ignatius is forged. In the translation that you did of his letters for Loeb Classical Library, did you only translate the 6 non-forged letters?
Seven. And yes, just those, with an introduction that explains why.
Dr Ehrman.
Given the categorization of these books, how would or what would you look for in any book to deem it true. To be more clear, if two books are not necessarily more or less reliable than the other.
What evidence or criteria would you look for in order to deem a book true or at least more true than the other?
I”m not sure what you mean by “true.” Do you mean “truly written by the alleged author”? Or “what it says about the world and life is true”? On the former, you look at issues connected with writing style, vocabulary, ideas, and possible anachronisms (among other things).
What about the latter?
I would say that has no relation to the question of whether the author really was who he said he was.
Though the notion encroaches upon territory Dr Ehrman has marked out pretty clearly, this information tilts me toward the idea that, while most of the NT is of dubious or false provenance, the entirety of it is mythical. This includes its central character.
I understand the limits of the available materials. It just rattles my chain that so substantial and expansive a charade could proceed from a few words mouthed by an itinerant lower class Jew over a period of three years.
Yeah, I don’t see it that way at all. If I write a historical account of the WWII and claim to be Dwight Eisenhower, my claim would be false but my account might still be accurate. There’s no relation between the two.
So…. where is the line of demarcation here? Why do we believe Paul knew the physical brothers of Jesus, when he is the same man who claimed to have his authority bestowed upon him by a fit of revelation? Where is the nexus between the apparent existence of Pilate and the idea that he had Jesus crucified? I keep reading about the reative pseudopygraphy (sp?) of entire sections, but not much about international forgeries of otherwise genuine writers.
Paul may not have been lying, but he sure seems to have been subject to deficits of sanity and/or integrity.
I’m not sure what you’re asking. About one out of eight people in America have a vision of a deceased loved one, and really think they saw the person. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t trust them when they say that they once met my cousin Sally.
True. But, that 12.5% crowd isn’t trying to start a new religion. Paul definitely had an agenda, centered more or less around his own authority. He claims exclusivities of insight, even over that of Peter. It is as though Paul saw aspects of Christianity that suited his purposes nicely. The cosmic Christ he espouses is known not to exist (if reason and every lucid experience people have ever had guides us) but he revealed his gentile mission to Paul personally. As far as I know, the Jesus of the synoptic gospels never saw himself as anything but a Jewish messiah.
Paul wrote letter after letter to churches far and wide, telling them the right way to act and think. He scuffled with Peter over Jewish law. Paul saw himself as the primary agent of Christianity. Given his ambition and insistence on excessive supernatural revelation, I don’t know why we take anything Paul writes so serious as to use it to prove the existence of a physical human Jesus. Paul doesn’t write of Jesus’ birth, ministry, trial, burial, etc. Unless I am missing something important, he seems not to have known about Jesus as a mortal man.
Paul wasn’t trying to start a new religion either. He saw himself as having come to understand what Judaism really was and was meant to be.
hmmmmm. Judaism 2.0 may have been the program, but the NT innovations of grace, the expressed apocalypticism, and the ‘sufficiency of Christ crucified’ Paul espoused made for a new structure of both belief and practice that stood apart from traditional Judaism more than enough to cause a schism or two. Whatever we call it, Paul saw himself as the head honcho on earth for a new school of thought/faith/practice. That must have motivated his writings. How could it not?
That is perhaps, until he saw the need to bolster his revelation claims by adding encounters with those who supposedly walked with the human Jesus during his ministry. These relationships seem decidedly negligible to Paul, however. He got all his info from scripture and reverie.
For whatever it may be worth, I think you are making excellent points. Christianity as we have it seems to be a Pauline invention– I think a number of people have made a good case for that.
I argue against that view in my book Triumph of Christianity. One good piece of evidence that Paul didn’t invent Christianity is that he was persecuting Christians before he became one. He may have significantly helped it along, but I don’t think he came up with it.
I’d better learn to use words more precisely! Let’s take it as a given that Christianity existed in some form or forms prior to Paul’s conversion experience, whatever that was exactly. Paul left an indelible stamp. Paul took what was given,
and added so much of his own interpretation, his own personality, that one can justly speak of a pre-Pauline
Christianity and a post-Pauline Christianity. Trying this again– whatever Christianity was before Paul, it was certainly
not that after Paul. But no, Paul did not INVENT Christianity, but his influence was profound in SHAPING
Christianity. That was what I was trying to say. Whew! I think I can begin to appreciate what it takes to be a true
scholar! It ain’t easy!
Yup. Paul does indeed seem to have had a huge impact. But my view is that his BIGGEST contribution by far wsa the realization that gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to be followers of Jesus. Hugely important.
Thanks for treating the question, very insightful. How is it that the Gospels continue to be incorrectly attributed – how do proponents defend this?
They defend it by saying they are *correctly* attributed!
In Orthodox Christian circles the claim is that the correct authorship was preserved in the oral tradition that preceded the written Gospels. Orthodox claim that Protestant scholars focus too much on the manuscripts and too dismissively discount the oral. Is there much scholarship on this?
Hmmm, I think a better way to phrase this might be: The Orthodox believe the names of the authors were preserved in the oral traditions that were concurrent with and immediately post-dated the writing of the Gospels.
Yes, indeed, lots and lots of scholarship on oral traditions, in general and about the authorship of the Gospels. I deal with all of that at length in my book Jesus Before the Gospels.
Dr Ehrman –
After internalizing the lens from several readings of Forgery and Counterforgery, it dawned on me (perhaps slowly and dimly…) that the first-person plural pronouns in the Johannine prologue could be read in a mode such that they makes an implicit claim of firsthand eyewitness to Jesus.
Question: Curious, what in your opinion would be the key distinguishing features of the “we-passages” in Acts in contradistinction to the usage of “us/we” in the Logos prologue in John (that therefore militate against labeling John as forgery at this level of the literary layers)?
A couple of possible distinctions came to mind:
– context: the clearly mundane (Acts) vs. the obviously theological (John)
– scope of pronoun: clearly specific/circumscribed first-person plural (Acts) vs. possibly general/poetic first-person plural (John)
The Acts narration does seemingly make an intuitively stronger claim to firsthand presence than the Johannine prologue. That said, to my untrained eye it still seems one might easily read the prologue (at least in English) as intending to intimate a firsthand/eyewitness experiencing of the dwelling incarnation (and perhaps also the beholding of his glory…).
Thanks much!
Yes, that’s the view I take, e.g., of 1 John. With John’s Prologue I think it’s a little bit tricky “we have beheld his glory.” I’m not sure this is claiming that the author has actually seen the historical Jesus, but it may equally be that he has realized his divine greatness (“I see what you mean!” kind of beholding). The We references in Acts are very different beuase of their narrative context: the author clearly is saying he was one of Paul’s traveling comapnions. I’m not *sure* the author of the Prologue was saying that, but I’m completely open to the possiblity and would have no problem with being persuaded!
Why do you think 1 John “cannot be right” when claiming to have been an eyewitness of Jesus?
Because it was almost certainly written after the Gospel of John which is probably from the 90s, long after the eyewitnesses had died.
Would you consider 2 and 3 John also forged?
The author doesn’t claim to be anyone in particular, so he could not be making a *false* claim, so no, I don’t. They *are* “misattributed” though — anonymous works that someone later (other than the author) said were written by someone who in fact did not write them.
Thank you!
So if one were to play Marcion and develop a new canon, removing all the forgeries (both explicit and implied) and rearranging the books of the New Testament in chronological order of when the books were written, would the remainder of the New Testament look something like this?
1 Thessalonians
Galatians
Philemon
Philippians
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Romans
Mark
Matthew
Luke
Hebrews
John
Revelation
2 John
3 John
Marcion didn’t actually get rid of forgeries. He simply embraced the books he considered Scriptural authority. I would agree, though, that none of the books you list is “forged,” if you mean by that what I do, that they author is claiming to be someont he is not. The only question on the list is Hebrews. Some scholars thing that the author is trying to make his readers think he is Paul (mainly because of teh comments about Timothy at the end.) Clare Rothschild has written an entire book on this.
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
Isn’t there a verse in 1 Timothy where the author quotes Jesus from Luke, thus showing his hand that he is writing after Paul’s life? I don’t remember specifics but I would appreciate an enlightenment!
Yup. He doesn’t name Luke, but 1 Tim. 5:18 equates a saying of Jesus otherwise found only in Luke with Scripture.
I guess what I’m confused about is do you believe the books in which you say are forged in the Bible are complete lies and are just the authors opinion ? You’ve mentioned that a woman from Yale made a interesting argument that the forgery in certain chapters were actually not deceptive. I just don’t know where you stand. When you say forged, in your opinion do you believe that a certain chapter like Titus is false or a complete lie?
I don’t think the authors were lying about what they said in the books — they really believed what they said in their books (i.e., they didn’t think they were false statements). But they lied about their identity. If I wrote you a letter and said that Barack Obama was president for two terms, and signed the letter Joseph Biden, I would be lying about who I was, but what I said would be true.
How do you know that they actually believed what they wrote. What if they wanted to be deceivious with their writings ? Maybe they wanted the lies to be labeled under a big name author to stir the pot .
It’s possible. So how do we decide on what is *probable*? Do you have some evidence or reason to think they were trying to be deceitful? My sense is that we normally don’t assume someone was trying to deceive another unless we have evidence or reason. Otherwise it’s just guessing with no basis.
It’s just hard to fathom that every author in the Bible actually believed everything they were writing without being eyewitness’s. I’ve always believed that maybe they wrote things out of hopes or fears , even fabrications to complete story’s. I just comprehend this. You obviously don’t have to respond to every one of my comments . I’m just struggling with all of this.
Don’t you yourself believe lots and lots of things that you were not an eyewitness to? For example, about say that things that happened in the decade before you were born?
One last thing, so what I’m trying to ask you is that I understand that these authors believed what they were saying was true, but for example “Titus” do you believe the actual material that was written in the book it self was truly inspired by God himself? I know the authors lied about their identity but do you believe that the content in these forged books were actual events that God wanted these authors to pen. In my mind I thought you believed that these authors were just writing these lies to make money and to end religious conflicts etc.. I’m sorry I’m just confused.
Are you asking if I myself think the contents of Titus are inspired by God? No, I personally don’t think so. But I really can’t, since I don’t believe in God. Do others who recognize it’s a forgery think so? Yes, some do!
I’m sorry I’m 18 years old and I have religious ocd. I just want to make my self clear , so if these forgers believed what they were saying were true that means they believed they were getting their words penned from God himself. Do you believe that they were getting actual true documents and content from God or were they just writing down their own personal views on Christianity without actually being inspired by the Holy Spirit. That’s why I want to get a grip on your own views on this . If they weren’t actually inspired by God then what they were saying is clearly lies and false. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say here.
You wrote here “In my book I give a long list of motivations for forgery: selling them was one of them, but not the main one. Lots of others. I also differentiate between “motivation” and “intention.” Their motivation may have been to make money, or to discredit an enemy, or to justify a religious practice, or to promote a “correct” teaching, or…. lots of other things. Their intention was to get their reader to believe the lie (so as to accomplish that end).” To me this seems like what they were writing were lies to get their made up view out to the world.
Their views may not have been lies, but their claims to be someone other than who they were were lies.
Again, I don’t think so, since I’m not a believer.
Do any scholars have an educated guess on who wrote the book of Hebrews? I’ve heard that the writing in Greek is brilliant, and definitely not Paul’s. Some have said Priscilla and Aquila, others say a group of well trained people. What’s your view?
We just don’t know. There were lots of Christians at the time and we don’t know the names of 99% of them.