Is it possible that some of the books found in our Bible were actually literary forgeries, deceptively written books snuck into the canon of Scripture, unbeknownst to unsuspecting leaders in the early church?
Understandably, most Christians shrink back in horror or disbelief at the very thought, as such a suggestion might shake their faith in the trustworthiness of Scripture. If such an accusation were true, the consequences for the Christian faith would be significant. Nevertheless, a number of critical scholars today have been exploring that very question, a question that has consumed a lot of ink since the days of the 18th century Enlightenment.
Bart Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics argues that up to 70% of the New Testament material is made up of forged documents. How well do the claims of Bart Ehrman stand up to scrutiny?
Is the “Historical Criticism” of the New Testament a Threat to Christianity?
About seven years ago, I partnered in a discussion with one of my pastors, Hunter Ruch, in front of our congregation, to answer the specific objection raised by critics that the Apostle Paul never wrote 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 3:16 has a very well known verse of the Bible which I memorized years ago, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness (CSB).” The video itself is no longer available, but my aim in that discussion was so that our confidence in the integrity of Scripture might be affirmed.
But not everyone received it that way. After the service, one very distraught gentleman confronted me and asked why I even bothered raising the topic in a church worship service. In his mind, this gentleman believed that we should simply take the Bible for what it says to be true, and that should be the end of it. A full consideration of the evidence was a waste of time.
Apparently, this gentleman did not see the value in studying Christian apologetics. He was also unaware of what is being taught in hundreds of religion departments in secular, and even some Christian universities, to thousands of students on a yearly basis.
His advice to me also indicated that he was unfamiliar with something called “social media,” through Tik-Tok and YouTube Short videos. This gentleman was clearly old enough to have teenage children, and yet as he walked away from me I kept wondering if his child possessed a smartphone with ready access to an Instagram or Facebook account.
The following 2-minute YouTube video was recorded by a credentialed, skeptic-leaning biblical scholar, Dan McClellan, just a few thumb clicks away from any smartphone in the hands of a teenager. How would you respond to this?
The onslaught of skepticism about Christianity in the age of the Internet is relentless. Granted, parents or anyone else can feel overwhelmed when faced with these challenges which seem almost endless. However, there are some basic-level apologetic tools available that can assist believers in having greater confidence in their faith.
Daniel McClellan is an accomplished scholar in the area of “historical criticism,” with some helpful videos, addressing dubious claims in popular preaching today, as well as exposing complete nonsense. But a number of Dr. McClellan’s other claims deserve better scrutiny. Several things that are said here in the particular video shown above are contentious, and a couple of them are worth commenting on.
Dr. McClellan’s second point can be addressed first: Dr. McClellan makes the assertion that Paul could not have authored 2 Timothy because it was written decades after his death.This raises the whole spectre of forgery as to what we find in our Bibles, which will be the subject of this and subsequent blog posts in this series.
On the first point in the video, when many Christians read 2 Timothy 3:16 talking about “all Scripture is breathed out by God,” they often think this is a reference to the Bible as we have it now, the Old Testament and all 27 books of the New Testaments combined. However, Daniel McClellan is mainly right here. With respect to the Old Testament, the Jewish community in the time of Paul was not entirely in agreement with what constituted the boundary for the Old Testament writings. While the 39 books within the Protestant canon of the Old Testament were well established, a debate continued for perhaps another several hundred years or so as to whether or not there were more books within that canon of Old Testament texts. Protestant Christians typically associate these debated extra books with the “Apocrypha.”
Regarding the New Testament, even if you take a very conservative view as to the dating of when 2 Timothy was written, it probably could not have meant to include the whole of the New Testament as “Scripture” as we know it today, as the letters of Paul are generally considered to be the earliest writings found in our New Testament. For example, it is difficult to conceive how Paul might have had the Gospel of John included in his mind as “Scripture,” if it had not been written yet!
Most Christians today retrospectively conclude that 2 Timothy 3:16 can now be taken to mean not just the Old Testament writings as “Scripture,” but the entire collection of New Testament writings as well. Yet this raises the question as to how all the books of the New Testament eventually became regarded as “Scripture,” which theologians define as the development of the “canon” of Scripture or “rule or faith,” long after 2 Timothy was originally penned.
A knee-jerk reaction to Dr. McClellan might be tempting, but he does raise some important questions.
The Development of the New Testament Canon
So, how did we get the exact books which make up our New Testament? An often related question gets asked a lot: “Who chose the books of the New Testament canon?”
It is an understandable question, but it is also a misleading one. Dr. Michael Kruger, the president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, suggests that the idea of who “chose” the books of the New Testament canon “conjures images of some meeting, or council, where people voted on books—some books making the cut, and others left out.” But this simply is not the case. The historical record shows a much more organic process to the development of the canon of Scripture:
“If you had lived in the second century and asked the average Christian on the street, ‘Why did you guys pick Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?,’ I think you would have received some very strange looks. Indeed, I don’t think the question would have made any sense to the average Christian. They didn’t view themselves as choosing anything……”
“….. asking Christians why they chose the Gospels would be akin to asking someone why they chose their parents. No one chooses their parents. They were just kind of ‘there’ from as far back as they can remember.”1
Nevertheless, some people still have questions. I remember a high school friend of mine telling me when he realized that as a young teenager, his parents were not his “real” parents. Instead, he learned that he was adopted at a very young age. It was quite upsetting for him to hear this truth. But it did make me wonder about my own history. When I asked my mom about it, she pulled out a copy of my birth certificate, and that pretty much settled the matter right then and there. All it took was some direct evidence to answer my question.
What evidence then do we have for the New Testament?
Codex Sinaiticus, one of the earliest copies of the Bible, including the New Testament. But how much of it was written by the people who claimed to have written it? (credit: bible archaeology.org)
Bart Ehrman and the Issue of Forgeries(???) in Early Christianity
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, professor Bart Ehrman, who is a professional skeptical scholar like Dan McClellan in the above video, is considered to be one of the most well-known critics of historically orthodox Christianity. In 2011, Ehrman published Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, a book written for a popular audience that addresses the problems associated with the canon of the New Testament. Ehman claims that between 8 and 11 of the 27 books of Christian New Testament were written as “forgeries.” This would include the longest book of the New Testament, the Book of Acts, effectively saying that up to 70% of the New Testament is made up of forged documents.
This is a startling claim for Christians unfamiliar with the modern discipline of New Testament studies, as taught in hundreds and hundreds of universities today. However, anyone studying religion at the college level will probably hear such a claim being made in the classroom. Some variation of this claim has been promoted in academia for roughly 200 years, going back at least to the time of the early 19th century German biblical scholar, Ferdinand Christian Baur. The ubiquitous character of social media in the early first quarter of the 21st century only makes such challenges ever ready and accessible to the modern smartphone user. Even more disturbing, such ideas have even found their way into the church, through the door of “progressive Christianity.”2
Bart Ehrman is a New York Times bestselling author, having published over a dozen books like this which challenge historic, orthodox Christian views of the Bible. His videos on YouTube regularly receive each thousands of views, driven mainly by an audience with a skeptical outlook upon the Bible and rejection of conservative evangelical Christian faith. His Misquoting Jesus YouTube podcast, launched just a year ago, has already received well over a million views on social media.
Despite significant disagreements between scholars like Erhman and conservative evangelical scholars, both Erhman and conservative evangelical scholars reject the misguided notion of so-called “Jesus Mythicism,” an avant garde intellectual movement popular in certain atheistic circles which denies the existence of Jesus of Nazareth as an historical figure. Disagreeable as Dr. Ehrman will sound among conservative Christians, Bart Ehrman is not an extremist. With this background in mind, it is important for Christians to understand the types of arguments which Dr. Ehrman brings to the table. Interestingly, long before Bart Ehrman became a household name in the secular media, the Dr. Kruger mentioned above had Bart Ehrman as a religion professor when Kruger was an undergraduate student at Chapel Hill.
In 2012, Ehrman wrote a more academic treatment of the same topic of New Testament origins, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics., which is the subject of this book review. My aim is to offer an analysis of Ehrman’s primary claims, and address these issues of the canon of the New Testament and its integrity from an historically orthodox Christian perspective.
Last year, I read Bart Ehrman’s popular level book addressing the issues regarding the afterlife in the Bible, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. In that Veracity book review, I identified several presuppositions which undergird Dr. Ehrman’s approach to these topics, framing his overall mode of analysis, and guiding him towards his conclusions. I would urge readers to review that blog post as that will aid the reader to understand the big ideas that Bart Ehrman brings to the table, ideas which also undergird his arguments as found in Forgery and Counterforgery. While it is too much to go into here about where Ehrman gets these from, the two primary presuppositions summarized are:
(1) The Bible is inherently a collection of writings which possess a wide range of differences in these texts. However, not only can these differences not be reconciled with one another, the student of the Bible should not try to harmonize such differences as such harmonizations essentially alter and obscure the true meaning associated with these texts. This inherent contradictory nature of the Bible stems from the fundamental diversity present in the Christian movement from the very beginning of Christianity. This essential and irreconcilable diversity is supported by a thesis proposed by an early 20th century German Bible scholar, Walter Bauer.3
(2) Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. He predicted that a great, cataclysmic end of the world would happen within his generation, but that Jesus’ prediction failed to materialize. The shape and character of our New Testament, as well as that of Christianity more broadly, grew out of the Christian movement’s attempt to rethink the teachings of Jesus, in view of this failure of prophecy. This understanding of the apocalyptic character of Christianity was popularized by the famous early 20th century Bible scholar, Albert Schweitzer.
If you are looking for Bart Ehrman’s quick “hot take” on these points, here are a couple of YouTube “shorts,” videos that rarely last more than 1 minute each, which briefly summarize the key elements to these two ideas which undergird Ehrman’s work. The first video is a quick summary of the Walter Bauer thesis, namely that Christianity was highly diverse, even more-so than what we find in Christianity today, right from the very beginning. The second video argues that the three earlier Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, has Jesus predicting a great, catalclysmic end of the world happening within a generation of Christ’s earliest disciples, as argued by Albert Schweitzer, whereas this apocalyptic message essentially disappears in the Gospel of John, which is generally thought to have been written last, perhaps towards the end of the first century. The implication drawn from this suggests that the great cataclysmic apocalyptic event which Jesus predicted never materialized:
A Thumbnail Sketch of the Walter Bauer Thesis
A Thumbnail Sketch of the Albert Schweitzer Thesis
Both of these governing ideas drive the argumentation which Dr. Ehrman presents in Forgery and Counterforgery. That being said, there are elements of Bart Ehrman’s thesis which deserve careful consideration. Despite my disagreements with Dr. Ehrman, he is nevertheless a very accomplished, world-class scholar, an excellent communicator, and he comes across to me as quite likable in his interviews.
So, I want to try to interact with Dr. Ehrman’s book both fairly and generously, as much as possible. Due to the length of the book, over 600 written pages, which I listened to for nearly 26 hours through an Audible audiobook, this book review will be split up over multiple blog posts, each with a central nugget of digestible thought. I will not even try to critique everything Bart Ehrman says, since that would probably end up being another big book in and of itself!
This first post will be introductory in nature, discussing some of the fundamental ideas in Ehrman’s book, focusing mainly on the difficulty in defining what is a “forgery.” For some readers, this blog post will be sufficient to offer a rough outline of a response to Forgery and Counterforgery.
In the second blog post, we will examine some of the specific arguments used by Ehrman which attempt to demonstrate that forgeries exist within our New Testament. Reading this will give you a flavor of the method Ehrman uses to draw his conclusions.
The third blog post will examine the particular issues associated with the most controversial of the Pauline letters, what is known to be the “pastoral letters,” 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. I will also show how some “progressive Christian” scholars echo some of the same arguments advanced by Dr. Ehrman.
In the fourth blog post, we will consider the concept of allonymity, used by some conservative evangelical scholars to explain how certain pseudepigraphical writings in our New Testament can still be accepted as being authoritative, without succumbing to the negative assessment associated with the category of “forgery.”
In the fifth and last blog post, we will engage in a thought experiment: What if Bart Ehrman is correct about forgeries in our New Testament? What would be the consequences to Christian faith if a number of Ehrman’s arguments proved to be correct? At the end of that post, I will offer a summary response to Forgery and Counterforgery.
Bart Ehrman (Agnostic critic of the Bible)
What is the Definition of “Forgery?”
What is a “forgery?” The definition of “forgery” is a crucial question to address at the outset. A basic definition which Bart Ehrman uses is “a book written with a false authorial claim.” Some object to the use of the term “forgery,” in that it has negative connotations. Some prefer a more neutral, if not obfuscated word to use, such as “pseudepigraphy,” or “pseudonymous.”
A “pseudonymous” writing can have a broad range of meaning associated with it, where such a work may not necessarily suggest morally objectionable intent. For example, consider the use of pen names. Samuel Clemens famously used the pen name “Mark Twain” to sign his literary work, and yet lovers of great literature see the use of a pen name here more in a benign sense, as opposed to a purely deceptive sense. Some associate the concept of “ghostwriting” with this concept of a more benign sense of pseudonymity, whereby a well-known author hires another writer to produce written material which matches the content, and even the vocabulary and style of the well-known author, with the full acknowledgement and permission of that well-known author. Several contemporary and famous Christians authors, including the late Billy Graham and the late Tim LaHaye, have made use of ghostwriters in their many written works. In contrast with these more benign type of writings, Ehrman links his use of the term “forgery” to a more specific sense of pseudonymity, that of “pseudepigraphy,” whereby “a book appears under the name of a well-known person who did not, in fact, write it.”4
The term “counter-forgery” is related to “forgery,” as Ehrman uses it. A “counter-forgery” acts a forged document written as a polemic against another forged document.
Other scholars will challenge Ehrman’s strict, if not completely synonymous link between “forgery” and “pseudepigraphy.” For example, the well-regarded conservative evangelical scholar, D. A. Carson argues:
A literary forgery is a work written or modified with the intent to deceive. All literary forgeries are pseudepigraphical, but not all pseudepigrapha are literary forgeries. There is a substantial class of pseudepigraphical writings that, in the course of their transmission, somehow became associated with some figure or other. These connections between a text and an ancient figure, however fallacious, were judgments made with the best will in the world.5
The late Old Testament and conservative evangelical scholar, Michael Heiser, offers several examples of pseudepigraphy in the Old Testament, whereby a particular name was attached to a book, despite the fact that no “no evidence exists that their namesake did any of the writing.” Such books include Job, 1 and 2 Samuel, and Joshua. Even though the Book of Joshua became associated with the name of the great military leader and successor to Moses, there is no sense of deceit involved. Technically, the Book of Joshua is pseudonymous, in that Joshua did not himself write the book, but there is no indication that ascribing Joshua’s name to the book was meant to deceive.6
Even in the New Testament, we have evidence that certain New Testament books quote from other pseudepigraphical works. In particular, the Book of Enoch, is both quoted and alluded to in Jude and Peter. Early church fathers praised much of the theology as found in the Book of Enoch, while still acknowledging that Enoch could not have possibly written that book itself, even though the name of Enoch is attached to it.7
Likewise, the conservative evangelical and New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington clarifies the distinction between a falsely written versus a genuine letter of the New Testament:
“The real dividing line between a genuine letter and a pseudepigraphon is whether the material comes from the mind of particular person, not whether it fully reflects that person’s grammar and syntax and vocabulary. To this I would add that a genuine letter comes not only from the mind, but also from the hand, of the author, or is inscribed upon the author’s request or behalf.”8
Witherington’s point is that in an age where the art of writing was more of a professional endeavor, when papyrus was less flexible than the use of modern paper, and illiteracy in the Greco-Roman world was very high, the use of secretaries to produce literary work was actually quite common. Authors could give their professional scribes great leeway in their writing, which can account for variances in grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. In other words, an author could “authorize” a secretary to express their ideas in a manner more fitting to the purposes at hand.
Do we have forgeries in our New Testament? Veracity investigates the claims found in Bart Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics.
“Pseudepigraphy” versus “Forgery:” What is the Difference?
It would therefore appear that the definition of pseudepigraphy is the subject of some dispute, as there are cases where such a possible work might have certain suspicions surrounding it, while still being held in high esteem in the Bible, depending on the circumstances. So, are there other cases where an alignment between “pseudepigraphy” and “forgery” are less clear?
For example, there are no known New Testament scholars, conservative or liberal, who dispute that Paul wrote the Book of Romans. Nevertheless, Romans 16:22 explicitly states that “I, Tertius, wrote this letter.” Clearly, Tertius was Paul’s secretary but he was writing under the full supervision of the great Apostle.
Bart Ehrman disputes the claim that the use of secretaries among ancient writers accounts for variations of style and vocabulary as supposed by evangelical Christian apologists, who seek to defend the inspiration of Scripture. But he also acknowledges that in and of themselves, literary style and vocabulary alone is insufficient to fully demonstrate that any particular writing is a forgery. What ultimately matters is the actual content and message of the literary work itself.
The problem is complicated by the fact that there are books in our Bible which lack a clear, undisputed author standing behind the work. The classic New Testament example of this is the Book of Hebrews. One will search the pages of Hebrews looking for the name of the author, but this is nowhere to be found. Some have claimed that Paul wrote Hebrews, while others say Luke wrote it, and some have speculated that a woman, Priscilla, wrote it. We may never know on this side of history who was the genuine author of Hebrews.
Nevertheless, the lack of a clear authorial attribution for Hebrews did not deter the early church from recognizing the book’s apostolic authority and authenticity. It was sufficient enough for the early church to acknowledge that an inspired New Testament book must have been written either by a well-known apostle, such as Paul or Peter, who is claimed to have had a particularly close, earthly encounter with Jesus, either before and/or after the Resurrection of Jesus. Or the early church also acknowledged writings from someone who traveled within that early apostolic circle, such as Luke.
Luke never had a close, earthly encounter with Jesus. But he was a well known traveling companion with Paul. Furthemore, for the early church fathers, the content of any authentic New Testament writing must have been theologically in tune with those early teachings of Jesus and his disciples. This theological consistency and coherency was known as “the rule of faith.” Therefore, even though Hebrews lacked a definitive authorial designation, the theology articulated in that letter was acknowledged to be fully inline with “the rule of faith,” as preached by the early church.
However, how did the early church know if a particular book met such qualifications of authenticity? Is it possible for a deceptively pseudonymous writing of some sort to have been accepted anyway into the New Testament?
Christian Use of the “Noble Lie”
Some speak of the concept of a “noble lie” as a justification for some types of pseudonymous writings, or certain speech acts in general. The Bible famously includes as one of the Ten Commandments the command to not “bear false witness against one’s neighbor.” Telling the truth is an essential moral rule which the Bible unequivocally elevates as being most important. At the same time, we read of the story of Rahab, the prostitute in Jericho, who famously lied to her fellow Canaanites, telling them that the Hebrew spies hiding in her house had already fled the town (Joshua 2). In acknowledgement of this deceitful bravery, which would have cost her life, not to mention the lives of the Hebrew spies she was protecting, if her lie had been discovered, she was nevertheless recognized and celebrated in Jesus’ genealogy (Matthew 1:5).
Jerome, an early church father and the great translator of the Latin Vulgate, believed that in Galatians 2:11-14, when Paul rebuked Peter publicly for not eating with Gentile believers, that this incident was actually a version of the “noble lie.” Ehrman writes about this:
In Jerome’s well-known position, Peter and Paul did not actually have a falling out. They put on a show, in a double act of dissimulation: Peter “pretended” to be subject to Jewish dietary laws for the sake of the brethren, knowing that he was not really subject to them, and Paul, cognizant of the true state of things, “pretended” to rebuke Peter in order to show the gentile Christians that he was on their side so as to keep from giving offense. (Ehrman, p. 453).
Saint Augustine, a contemporary of Jerome’s, was not impressed by Jerome’s interpretation of Galatians 2, as Augustine was known to be skeptical of the concept of the “noble lie.” Nevertheless, other examples of such lying are recorded in Scripture, where those who were in on the lie were celebrated for their actions.The Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh, and protected the lives of baby Hebrew boys, and the Bible honors them in their bravery through the telling of their lie (Exodus 1:15-22). Michal, David’s wife, lied to David’s pursuers, thus saving the life of the future king (1 Samuel 19:11-18).
While some Christians like Augustine balk at the use of the “noble lie,” other Christians have defended its use and honor those who participate in such deceptions. Ehrman even acknowledges that another well-regarded church father contemporaneous to Augustine, John Cassian, disputed Augustine’s rigid view against the “noble lie,” suggesting that even the Bible, as in the case of Rehab lying to protect Hebrew spies, approves of it (Ehrman, p. 538-539).
In more recent times, Corrie ten Boom, in her classic work The Hiding Place, tells about deceiving the Nazi’s who occupied her Dutch town by offering sanctuary to hundreds of Jews fleeing Nazi oppression. Countless other Christians during the Nazi era did the same, saving the lives of many, many Jews. Numerous Christians in the armed forces during periods of war have participated in espionage activities, thus deceiving their enemies, earning accolades from fellow Christians for these acts of bravery. The well-known and highly respected theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer participated in a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler, and was eventually arrested and executed for his deceptive acts.
Imagine you were a Christian living in Nazi-held Europe in the 1940s, and some Jews were seeking refuge from the Nazis, and you put them up for the night in your home. The next day, the Gestapo knocks on the door and asks, “Are there any Jews in your house?”
Would you really respond with something like this?: “Why, yes. There are Jews here. Since I am a Christian, and Christians are not supposed to lie because of the Ninth Commandment, I am compelled to tell you that the Jews are down the hallway on the right. Not the first door on the right, but the second door on the right. If you look over this way, you can see them climbing out of the window right now. If you act quickly, Mr. Gestapo-person, you might still have time to catch them. In giving you all of this information, I now feel satisfied and self-vindicated that I have kept God’s commandment not to lie.”
Hopefully, the absurdity of such a response is apparent. If a Christian quarterback on a football team were to throw a no-look pass, would he need to repent of his deceptive “sin” after the game?
Again, it should be evident that not everything that falls under the category of “deception” would be a violation of the Ninth Commandment. As the late Dr. Michael Heiser has written,
“The command ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’ refers to uttering words, and, in context, in a courtroom setting (the biblical ‘by two or three witnesses things will be known’ idea). …..Undoing or forbidding acts of heroism and courtesy is NOT the purpose of the ninth command. The command was not given to allow evil to proliferate, to have others suffer, to have children lose innocence, or to compel people to be rude.”
True, such an exception could easily be misused to justify the actual sin of bearing false witness against one’s neighbor. Delilah badgered Samson to reveal the truth about the source of his strength, and then deceived Samson by using that knowledge to betray Samson to the Philistines (Judges 16:19).
We should also remember that Ananias and Sapphira deceptively hid the fact that they withheld part of the proceeds of the sale of some property from the church, an example of bearing false witness which resulted in their immediate deaths (Acts 5:1-11). God takes truth-telling seriously. So, it does raise a good question as to when such deception fits into some category, like the “noble lie,” versus an act of deception intent on distorting the truth for self-gain, or some other corrupt motivation. Where is the line between the two?
A good argument can therefore be made to suggest that given the right circumstances, a type of pseudonymous writing might have made its way into the canon of Scripture, under the full inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Here is similar example: For if we have purposely fictitious stories called “parables,” which Jesus used as teaching tools in the Gospels, it would be difficult to completely rule out all fiction in the Bible as being inherently contradictory with the notion of Scriptural inspiration.
On the other hand, there are other cases where the presence of pseudepigraphy within the canon of Scripture would be disastrous for our understanding of the integrity of the Bible. For if an unscrupulous author were able to fake their identity in their written work, taking upon themselves the false claim of being Paul or Peter, for the purpose of misleading their readers, in order to promote an agenda contrary to that of the original apostles, then such pseudepigraphy would compromise our confidence in the Bible as truly being the Word of God. Therefore, discerning the difference between these two categories is essential.
A fragment of the Gospel of Peter found at Akhmim, in 1886. This copy has been dated to about the 8th or 9th century, C.E. The Gospel of Peter was rejected as being apocryphal by the early church, and therefore not appropriate for inclusion in the New Testament. It is most known for a reference to a “talking cross,” following the resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel of Peter is not simply a pseudonymous writing, it is specifically a forgery.
The Prevalence of Forgery and Pseudepigraphy in the Ancient World
There is no doubt among scholars, across the academic spectrum, that the problem of forgery existed within the early Christian movement. Forgery was a serious moral issue more broadly within the world of classical thought across the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus. Ancient authors often complained that other unscrupulous writers would write literary material in the name of another well-known person to give such work credibility and added authority. Nevertheless, we possess a variety of works from the ancient Greco-Roman world which are not regarded as forged, such as the historical writings of Suetonius and Plutarch. In some other cases, certain non-Christian pseudepigraphical works have survived which lack a definitive negative moral taint to them, despite disputes about their authorship.
For example, Aristophanes wrote his early plays under the names of the persons who directed his plays. Xenophon’s Anabasis was written in the third person, a kind of pseudepigraphic writing style, which most scholars today still attribute to the ancient Greek soldier and writer Xenophon. Even Bart Ehrman acknowledges cases where there were concerns to “protect the identity of the real author, in cases in which the safety or other personal concerns were an issue,” such as with the 5th century C.E. Archbishop Nestorius writing in the name of Heraclides in his Liber Heraclidis.9
Within the early Christian movement in particular, we face a similar situation. Numerous writings were clearly forged in the name of well-known Christian figures. Such works include:
-
The Gospel of Thomas
-
The Gospel of James
-
The Gospel of Philip
-
The Gospel of Peter
-
Third Corinthians
-
Paul’s Letter to the Laodiceans
-
The Apocalypse of Peter
-
The Apocalypse of Paul
All of the above writings among certain early Christian readers were assumed to be authentic at various times. However, in each case, the collective mind of the early church ultimately dismissed each one of these documents as forgeries, and therefore, ineligible to be included within the New Testament canon.
This did not mean that all Christians stopped reading such books once the canon was firmly established. As late as the 17th century, some Quakers adopted Paul’s Letter to the Laodiceans and considered that forged document to be on par with the rest of the New Testament. But for all practical purposes, the current list of 27 books of the New Testament remains the standard canon for all historically orthodox Christians.
What were the motivations behind such forgeries? In some cases, an over enthusiastic curiosity to explore unexplained events within the New Testament led to such writings. In other cases, a famous person’s name was used to write a polemical message, leveraging the authority of an apostle to spread a different teaching. Other writings could have been written with the possible intent to express an apostle’s teaching for a new generation of readers, and yet the forgeries were written so long after the death of the apostle that it would have been impossible to securely establish a valid reason for the pseudonymity.
Bart Ehrman’s view in Forgery and Counterforgery is that:
“in every instance of forgery that I discuss, the intention of the forger was to deceive his readers into thinking he was someone other than who he was; his motivation was not only to receive a simple hearing of his views (although certainly that) but also to authorize his views through the authority provided by the status of his falsely assumed authorial name. His goal was to advance his own polemical agenda” (p. 153).
The Progressive Christian Attempt to Justify Forgery in the New Testament Without Calling it “Forgery”
Therefore, when it comes to the books that actually made it into our New Testament, the charge of forgery is quite serious, and yet some progressive Christian scholars do not seem too bothered by this. A number of progressive Christian scholars today will argue that having the presence of certain dubious pseudonymous works in our New Testament is not problematic for our New Testament canon. They would argue that while such works are indeed pseudepigraphy, using the name of a well-known Christian authority in a deliberate attempt to change the teachings of that authoritative person, they would hesitate to use the terminology of “forgery” to apply in such a situation.
Such logic is fallacious. This is one area where conservative Christian scholars can agree with a skeptic like Bart Ehrman. Ehrman convincingly demonstrates that in the classical world, a lie was considered as a lie, and the same type of logic applied to the thinking of the early church. As theologian Michael Kruger states in his review of Ehrman’s work,
“It is fashionable today to suggest a ‘middle way’ where the pseudonymity of some NT books is affirmed and the canonicity of those books is also affirmed. However, Ehrman is absolutely correct that early Christians simply did not see it this way. To them, forgery was a lie, plain and simple. “10
There are legitimate reasons in certain cases, which we will cover in future blog posts, where a genuinely authentic, non-forged New Testament work might still have some characteristics of pseudonymity. However, it can be fairly stated that if someone tried to produce a New Testament writing that sought to twist and distort the teaching of someone like Paul, in an effort to deceive the reading audience, it should indeed be considered as a forgery. If that is the case, it would be better to be honest about the failure of the New Testament canonization of Scripture process.
However, as this review will attempt to do in subsequent blog posts, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate the integrity of the New Testament canon. We can still have confidence that every book of the New Testament is truly the Word of God and not a forgery. But a careful examination of the evidence is required to substantiate the argument.
See you in the next installment of this multi-blog-post book review of Bart Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery.
Notes:
1. See Michael Kruger’s “Canon Fodder” blog. ↩
2. Ferdinand Christian Baur (F.C. Baur) took an even more radical view of the New Testament, particularly that of Paul’s letters. Baur’s research suggested that “only the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans can be confidently used as sources” for Paul’s theology (Albert Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical History, p. 14). “Baur had distinguished three classes of Epistles. In the first he placed, as beyond doubt genuine, Galatians, [1 & 2] Corinthians, and Romans; Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, and Philemon formed the second class, being considered uncertain; the Pastoral Epistles formed the third class, and were regarded as proved to be spurious.” (Schweitzer, p. 25). While the so-called Tübingen school which Baur was associated with has been superseded in the academia, more refined critical views, like that of Bart Ehrman, continue to dominate secular academia. See this discussion on progressive Christianity. For more on the history and role of “historical criticism” in the study of the Bible, see this Veracity blog series. ↩
3. See extended video discussion about the Walter Bauer thesis. ↩
4. Forgery and Counterforgery, Bart Ehrman. p.29ff. Further citations will be in the text as “Ehrman.” ↩
5. See D. A. Carson, “Pseudonymity and Pseudepigraphy,” ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter, Dictionary of New Testament Background: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, as quoted in Michael Heiser, Reversing Hermon: Enoch, the Watchers, and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ, p. 13 ↩
6. See Michael Heiser, Reversing Hermon. p. 13. See also Heiser’s blog post on “Lying and Deception.” ↩
7. See Michael Heiser, Reversing Hermon. p. 216ff. See blog post on head coverings. ↩
8. See Ben Witherington, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John, p. 26 ↩
9. Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery. p. 46-47. In the case of Xenophon’s Anabasis, Ehrman holds the judgment that Plutarch did as well, that this style of writing was “not innocent at all.” But does this mean that Xenophon’s work should be thoroughly discredited? Few historians would agree with that. As to the notion of protecting the identity of the real author, a case could be made this might be why the Book of Hebrews contains no acknowledgement of the author’s name, as various scholars contend that Hebrews was written during a time of persecution. It is reasonable then to assert that the lack of naming the author of Hebrews was done intentionally, in an effort to protect the identity of the author and/or the Christian community or communities such as author was hoping to encourage in a time of persecution. ↩
10. See Michael Kruger’s review of Forged in the Themelios journal. The work of progressive Christian scholar John Barton is an illustrative example of how an attempt is made to say that some unknown writer ascribed the name of Paul to certain letters, in an effort to domesticate or substantially change the message of the great apostle, and yet still suggest that the inclusion of such a work in the New Testament may be of no great consequence, at least among some Christians. “The Pastorals [1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus] have no place in attempting to reconstruct the thought of Paul, but there is nothing to prevent our studying the thought of the Pastorals, and finding it interesting and perhaps persuasive……Are Paul’s letters authoritative because they are by Paul? If so, then establishing that one of them is in fact pseudonymous presumably reduces or even annuls its authority. Or are they authoritative because they are in the Bible? If so, the question of who wrote them might be regarded as irrelevant. For most Christians, the answer is probably a blend of both factors, though this is arguably incoherent.” To be “arguably incoherent” on this latter point is an understatement here. Contra Barton, if the early church truly erred in falsely ascribing a New Testament document as being authentic, this would only bring great shame upon the Christian movement. John Barton, A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths, p. 186-187. See Veracity book review for more details. ↩
Veracity 
What do you think?