Pseudepigrapha (from Ancient Greek pseudes = "false", epigraphe = "inscription"; see the related epigraphy) are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c Epigraphy (ἐπιγραφολογία from Greek ἐπιγραφή — "inscription" is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created "^[1] For instance, few Hebrew scholars would ascribe the Book of Enoch to the prophet Enoch, and few liberal Christian scholars would insist today that the Third Epistle of John was written by John the Evangelist,^[2] or that the Second Epistle of Peter was written by Saint Peter. The Book of Enoch is any of several works that attribute themselves to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah and son of Jared ( Enoch ( Hebrew:; Tiberian: Ḥănōḵ, Standard: Ḥanokh, Ashkenazi, Jiddish: jHenosch Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings The New Testament Third Epistle of John (often referred to as 3 John) written in the form of an Epistle, is the 64th book of the Bible. Saint John the Evangelist (d ca 110 יוחנן " The LORD is merciful" Standard Hebrew Yoḥanan, Tiberian Hebrew The Second Epistle of Peter is a book of the New Testament of the Bible, traditionally ascribed to Saint Peter, but in modern times widely regarded as ^[3] Nevertheless, in some cases, especially for books belonging to a religious canon, the question of whether a text is pseudepigraphical or not elicits sensations of loyalty and can become a matter of heavy dispute. Canon law is internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Anglican Communion of churches The authenticity or value of the work itself, which is a separate question for experienced readers, often becomes sentimentally entangled in the association. Though the inherent value of the text may not be called into question, the weight of a revered or even apostolic author lends authority to a text: in Antiquity pseudepigraphy was "an accepted and honored custom practiced by students/admirers of a revered figure". ^[4]This is the essential motivation for pseudepigraphy in the first place.

Pseudepigraphy covers the false ascription of names of authors to works, even to perfectly authentic works that make no such claim within their text. An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created Thus a widely accepted but incorrect attribution of authorship may make a perfectly authentic text pseudepigraphical. Assessing the actual writer of a text brings questions of pseudepigraphical attributions within the discipline of literary criticism. Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. In a parallel case, forgers have been known to improve the market value of a perfectly genuine 17th-century Dutch painting by adding a painted signature Rembrandt fecit. Forgery is the process of making adapting or imitating objects statistics or documents (see False document) with the intent to deceive. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15 1606 &ndash October 4 1669 was a Dutch painter and etcher.

On a related note, a famous name assumed by the author of a work is an allonym.

These are the basic and original meanings of the terms.

In Biblical studies, the Pseudepigrapha are Jewish religious works written c 200 BC to 200 AD, not all of which are literally pseudepigraphical. ^[5] They are distinguished from the Deuterocanonica (Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha (Protestant), the fourteen books that appear in the Septuagint and Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible or in Protestant Bibles. " Deuterocanonical books " is a term used since the sixteenth century in the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Christianity to describe certain books and passages The Septuagint (ˈsɛptuədʒɪnt or simply " LXX " is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the The Vulgate is an early Fifth Century version of the Bible in Latin, and largely the result of the labours of Jerome, who was commissioned by ^[5]

Contents 1 Classical and Biblical studies 1.1 Literary studies 1.2 Biblical studies 1.2.1 Biblical Pseudepigrapha 2 Notes 3 References 4 External links

Classical and Biblical studies

There have probably been pseudepigrapha almost from the invention of full writing. The history of literature is the historical development of Writings in Prose or Poetry which attempt to provide Entertainment, enlightenment For example ancient Greek authors often refer to texts which claimed to be by Orpheus or his pupil Musaeus but which attributions were generally disregarded. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Orpheus ( Greek: Ὀρφεύς ˈɔrfiəs ( OHR-fee-uhs) or /ˈɔrfjuːs/ ( OHR'-fews) in English is a figure from Greek mythology born in For people surnamed Musaeus see Musäus. Musaeus is also a spider genus ( Thomisidae) Already in Antiquity the collection known as the "Homeric hymns" was recognized as pseudepigraphical, that is, not actually written by Homer. The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek Hymns "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the

Literary studies

In secular literary studies, when works of Antiquity have been demonstrated not to have been written by the authors to whom they have traditionally been ascribed, some writers apply the prefix pseudo- to their names, showing the reader that they are in the know. Thus the encyclopedic compilation of Greek myth called Bibliotheke is often now attributed, not to Apollodorus, but to "pseudo-Apollodorus" and the Catasterismi, recounting the translations of mythic figure into asterisms and constellations, not to the serious astronomer Eratosthenes, but to a "pseudo-Eratosthenes". The Bibliotheca (in English: Library) in three books provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic Legends The Bibliotheca (in English: Library) in three books provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic Legends Catasterismi ( Greek Καταστερισμοί, "placings Eratosthenes of Cyrene ( Greek; 276 BC - 194 BC was a Greek Mathematician, Poet, athlete, Geographer and Catasterismi ( Greek Καταστερισμοί, "placings The prefix may be abbreviated, as in "ps-Apollodorus" or "ps-Eratosthenes".

Biblical studies

In Biblical studies, pseudepigrapha refers particularly to works which purport to be written by noted authorities in either the Old and New Testaments or by persons involved in Jewish or Christian religious study or history. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin These works can also be written about Biblical matters, often in such a way that they appear to be as authoritative as works which have been included in the many versions of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Eusebius of Caesarea indicates this usage dates back at least to Serapion, bishop of Antioch) whom Eusebius records^[6] as having said: "But those writings which are falsely inscribed with their name (ta pseudepigrapha), we as experienced persons reject. Serapion was Patriarch of Antioch ( 191 - 211) He is known primarily through his theological writings . . . "

Many such works were also referred to as Apocrypha, which originally connoted "secret writings", those that were rejected for liturgical public reading. An example of a text that is both apocryphal and pseudepigraphical is the Odes of Solomon, pseudepigraphical because it was not actually written by Solomon but instead is a collection of early Christian (first to second century) hymns and poems, originally written not in Hebrew, and apocryphal because not accepted in either the Tanach or the New Testament. For a book included in some editions of the Septuagint, see The Book of Odes. See also Old testament, Septuagint, Targum, Peshitta The Tanakh (תַּנַ"ךְ (taˈnax or; also Tenakh or Tenak is

But Protestants have also applied the word Apocrypha to texts found in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox scriptures which were not found in Hebrew manuscripts. Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. Families of churches Eastern Christians have a shared tradition but they became divided ( Schism) during the early centuries of Christianity in disputes about Roman Catholics called those texts "deuterocanonical". " Deuterocanonical books " is a term used since the sixteenth century in the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Christianity to describe certain books and passages Accordingly, there arose in some Protestant Biblical scholarship an extended use of the term pseudepigrapha for works that appeared as though they ought to be part of the Bibical canon, because of the authorship ascribed to them, but which stood outside both the Biblical canons recognized by Protestants and Catholics. A Biblical canon or canon of scripture is a list or Set of Biblical books considered to be authoritative as Scripture by a particular religious These works were also outside the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and to which Protestants had generally applied the term Apocryphal. Accordingly, the term pseudepigraphical, as now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics (allegedly for the clarity it brings to discussion), may make it difficult to discuss questions of pseudepigraphical authorship of canonical books dispassionately with an unsophisticated audience. To confuse the matter even more, Orthodox Christians accept books as canonical, that Roman Catholics and most Protestant denominations consider pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority. There exist also churches that reject some of the books that Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants accept. The same is true of some Jewish sects.

See also Apocrypha for more information.

There is a tendency not to use the word pseudepigrapha when describing works later than about 300 CE when referring to Biblical matters. But the late-appearing Gospel of Barnabas, Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, the Pseudo-Apuleius (author of a fifth-century herbal ascribed to Apuleius), and the author traditionally referred to as the "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite", are classic examples of pseudepigraphy. The Gospel of Barnabas is a substantial book purporting to be a depiction of the life of Jesus by his disciple Barnabas, who in this work is one of the Pseudo-Apuleius refers to the author of a Herbarium or De herbarum virtutibus; it is a medical herbal of the 5th century A A herbal is a book often illustrated that describes the appearance Medicinal properties, and other characteristics of Plants used in Herbal medicine. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as Pseudo-Denys, is the anonymous theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century whose Corpus Areopagiticum In the fifth century the moralist Salvian published Contra avaritiam under the name of Timothy; the letter in which he explained to his former pupil, Bishop Salonius, his motives for so doing survives. Salvian, (or Salvianus) was a Christian writer of the 5th century born probably at Cologne, some time between 400 and 405 ^[7] There is also a category of modern pseudepigrapha. Modern pseudepigrapha or modern apocrypha are terms sometimes used to refer to Pseudepigrapha of recent origin &ndash any book written in the style of the books of

Examples of Old Testament pseudepigrapha are the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, Jubilees (both of which are canonical in the Abyssinian Church of Ethiopia); the Life of Adam and Eve and the Pseudo-Philo. In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page The Book of Enoch is any of several works that attribute themselves to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah and son of Jared ( Jubilee The Book of Jubilees (ספר היובלים sometimes called the Lesser Genesis ( Leptogenesis) is an ancient Jewish religious work considered The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (in transliterated Amharic: Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan) is an Oriental The Life of Adam and Eve is a Jewish pseudepigraphical writing Pseudo-Philo is the name commonly used for a Jewish pseudepigraphical work in Latin, so called because it was transmitted along with Latin translations of Examples of New Testament pseudepigrapha (but in these cases also likely to be called New Testament Apocrypha) are the Gospel of Peter and the attribution of the Epistle to the Laodiceans to Paul. New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings of the early Christian church that give accounts of the teachings of Jesus, aspects of the life of Jesus accounts The Gospel of Peter was a prominent passion narrative in the early History of Christianity, but over time passed out of common usage An Epistle to the Laodiceans, purportedly written by Paul of Tarsus to the Laodicean Church, is mentioned in the canonical Epistle to the Colossians Further examples of New Testament pseudepigrapha include the aforementioned Gospel of Barnabas, and the Gospel of Judas, which begins by presenting itself as "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot". The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel purported to document conversations between apostle Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ.

Biblical Pseudepigrapha

The term Pseudepigrapha commonly refers to numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 200 BC to 200 AD. ^[5] Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. ^[5] Such works include the following. ^[5]

• Letter of Aristeas
• Book of Jubilees
• Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah
• Psalms of Solomon
• 3 Maccabees
• 4 Maccabees
• Sibylline Oracles
• Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)
• Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)
• Assumption of Moses
• Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch)
• Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)
• Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
• Life of Adam and Eve

Notes

References

External links

• "Online Critical Pseudepigrapha" Online texts of the Pseudepigrapha in their original or extant ancient languages
• Smith, Mahlon H. "Pseudepigrapha" entry in Into His Own: Perspective on the World of Jesus online historical sourcebook, at VirtualReligion. net
• Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha official website

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