For the sake of completeness I will mention two relevant books, both by Bart D. Ehrman, which deal extensively with this subject, although I did not in fact use them in any of the previous posts.
Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics
The first book is written at a popular level and deals only with literary forgeries within the canon of the New Testament.
The second book is directed at Ehrman's scholarly peers. The body is littered with untranslated snippets of Greek from the texts under discussion, and the footnotes bristle with quotations in German or occasionally French. He again covers the canonized forgeries, but he goes far beyond that to deal with forgeries in Christian polemics during the first four centuries of the church.
On the canonical books of the New Testament his conclusion is that at best 8 of the 27 books are by the author whose name is attached. Seven of those are epistles from Paul which are considered authentic. The other one (ironically one of the most challenged books) is Revelation where the author simply states that he is named John (a very common name) and that he is an elder. There is no claim in the text to be the apostle John as many of the book's supporters supposed. The four gospels and Acts are anonymous and do not name any author in the text although the church with no evidence ascribed them to people from the apostolic age. The rest are all pseudonymous forgeries falsely claiming to be written by Paul (e.g. Ephesians, Colossians, Titus), by Peter and by James and Jude.
The forgeries go on and on outside the canon. Have you ever read 3 Corinthians? For centuries after the generation of the apostles books were being written in their names on every side of the various controversies, and also in the names of supposedly authoritative figures such as Clement from the generation immediately after the apostles.
Ehrman also writes of "counterforgeries." It is a delicious irony that many of these forgeries warn against forgeries and in many cases were written under a false name to refute an earlier forgery.
Many conservative scholars are unable to deny that these works are not by the named authors, but they have sought to come up with a more acceptable term than forgeries especially for the ones within the canon.. Commonly the argument is made that in ancient times it was not considered a lie for a disciple to write a new work and attribute it to his master.
Ehrman remorselessly explodes all such claims. The ancients, both pagan and Christians, stigmatized works with false authorial claims as "lies" or "bastards." And yet it was done on all sides.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that the people who gave us the New Testament and the church were mostly inveterate liars.
Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics
The first book is written at a popular level and deals only with literary forgeries within the canon of the New Testament.
The second book is directed at Ehrman's scholarly peers. The body is littered with untranslated snippets of Greek from the texts under discussion, and the footnotes bristle with quotations in German or occasionally French. He again covers the canonized forgeries, but he goes far beyond that to deal with forgeries in Christian polemics during the first four centuries of the church.
On the canonical books of the New Testament his conclusion is that at best 8 of the 27 books are by the author whose name is attached. Seven of those are epistles from Paul which are considered authentic. The other one (ironically one of the most challenged books) is Revelation where the author simply states that he is named John (a very common name) and that he is an elder. There is no claim in the text to be the apostle John as many of the book's supporters supposed. The four gospels and Acts are anonymous and do not name any author in the text although the church with no evidence ascribed them to people from the apostolic age. The rest are all pseudonymous forgeries falsely claiming to be written by Paul (e.g. Ephesians, Colossians, Titus), by Peter and by James and Jude.
The forgeries go on and on outside the canon. Have you ever read 3 Corinthians? For centuries after the generation of the apostles books were being written in their names on every side of the various controversies, and also in the names of supposedly authoritative figures such as Clement from the generation immediately after the apostles.
Ehrman also writes of "counterforgeries." It is a delicious irony that many of these forgeries warn against forgeries and in many cases were written under a false name to refute an earlier forgery.
Many conservative scholars are unable to deny that these works are not by the named authors, but they have sought to come up with a more acceptable term than forgeries especially for the ones within the canon.. Commonly the argument is made that in ancient times it was not considered a lie for a disciple to write a new work and attribute it to his master.
Ehrman remorselessly explodes all such claims. The ancients, both pagan and Christians, stigmatized works with false authorial claims as "lies" or "bastards." And yet it was done on all sides.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that the people who gave us the New Testament and the church were mostly inveterate liars.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
