What Is Pseudonymity?

The disputes Erhman examines involved rejecting the adoptionist theory of Jesus. The adoptionist view of Jesus holds that he was the Son of God by adoption only. There was no agreed upon view between Christian groups on whether Jesus was a divine or a human being which caused variations within copies of the bible. Erhman states how many scribes who opposed the adoptionist view of Jesus wanted to change their texts in places to emphasize their view that Jesus was human, but at the same time a divine being on earth. These types of textual changes heavily impacted the Gospels by altering the symbolic meanings of Jesus’s teachings and parables so much that they have become doubtful. This caused major concerns because once texts are altered from the original, the words of the texts become different words with different value which affected the grasps of the words by later readers. Bart Erhman’s redaction criticism in his, Misquoting Jesus, offers a significant new idea that contemporary Christian churches can both benefit and learn from. Redaction criticism has revealed that not all books included in the bible have stayed in their original form. From this, knowledge of the unoriginal text can serve as a basis for more thoughtful study into the bible and its history. Debates surrounding

Even early church writers contested the validity of what Luther referred to as an “epistle of straw”, even denigrating it as a leftover from Judaic writers. Even recent commentary writer Sophie Laws referred to “the epistle of James is an oddity. It lacks almost all of what might be thought to be the distinctive marks of Christian faith and practice.” The Luther casts further doubt on the authenticity of this epistle.

Throughout the last century, a raging phenomenon known as the “Authorship Debate”, has come to light. It disputes whether Shakespeare himself wrote the plays and sonnets or if it was someone else writing under a pseudonym. There are countless theories of who the writer might actually be but the main suspects are Shakespeare himself, Edward de Vere, Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, Roger Manners, Sir Walter Raleigh and Mary Sidney Herbert (Pressley).

Although the New Testament writers used the popular language of their day, they often achieved great dignity and eloquence. Convinced of the greatness of their message, they often wrote naturally and directly, as earnest men might

Pseudonymity was practiced in the Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity religion by creating new works under the name of a famous deceased author. Around 200 B.C.E to 200 C.E some Jewish writers created some books that were by some of these biblical figures such as Daniel, Enoch, Noah, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezra, and Moses (Harris, 2014). There were some of these books that were accepted in the Hebrew bible, but some were not. There are many scholars today who think that several books that are in the New Testament that are pseudonymous. Six of the Pauline letters and seven catholic epistles documents are questioned on the authenticity. In the early church, scholars believe that the pseudonymous authors only wrote to perpetuate the thoughts

As we move further into the research of this paper, defining some terms under the viewpoints of the selected authors is necessary. Millard Erickson defines inspiration as “that supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit upon the Scripture writers which rendered their writings an accurate record of the revelation or which resulted in what they wrote actually being the Word of God.” While inspiration primarily concerns the quality of the finished product rather than the process of that period of time in which the entirety of the Scriptures came into being, the divine-human authorship raises the tension as to how those Scriptures came into being. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states: “We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking applies only to the autographic text of Scripture.” The leads to the question “What constitutes an autograph or the autographs?” In general, scholars use the term autographs to refer to the first or original copies of the biblical documents which is the material the author actually wrote himself. One customary definition of the term “autographa” in a theological discussion refers to the unchanging form of text whereby the original document is identical to the final canonical form of a given OT biblical book. Since canon involves the list of all books that belong in a bible or those reckoned as Holy Scriptures which

We agree with the idea that teachers must know how hiding identity can influence a learning experience so that they can make intelligent decisions regarding when hiding identity is apt in peer feedback situations (Howard, Barrett, & Frick, 2010). Without this knowledge teachers could be creating peer feedback activities that result in feedback being shared that is very different than the type that was desired or expected.

Authorship – The epistle of Romans is universally regarded as an authentic letter written by the Apostle Paul (Powell, 222). The book of Romans belongs to a group of letters referred to as the undisputed letters of Paul (Powell, 223). In fact, Paul’s name appears as the very first word in the epistle (NRSV, 2007).

In Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, Bart D. Ehrman, a well-known New Testament scholar and critic, seeks to show that the New Testament is a corrupt document that has been changed through the evolutionary process of scribal alteration, Early Christian theological apologetics and poor scholarship’s. Ehrman begins by speaking of his personal experience with the study of the Bible and textual Criticism. He concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament in which we have no idea of knowing if what we’re reading is even the word of God or just what the scribes wanted to write.

Obvious seems the reason for pseudonymity in Second Temple Apocalypticism—but is it? Najman, writing on Mosaic Law in Second Temple literature, argues pseudepigraphy transfers authority from original texts to interpretive works, creating a process whereby “a ‘new’ law . . . is [instead] characterized as the Law of Moses”; but, is the same true for nonexpanded scripture? In the Letter of Aristeas, a pseudonymous author portrayed himself as Aristeas (Ps-Aristeas), a Ptolemy II court attendant. Wright argues the letter consists of “myth origins for the Septuagint.” Pseudonymity thus established the Septuagint as “an independent scriptural authority for Alexandrian Jews.” Consequently, by writing as a Ptolemaic court Gentile, the Jewish author

However, several factors have to be considered. The considerations are needed to be put in place is to put forgery in the accurate context. In the ancient times when copyright laws are not yet enforced, forgery is an acceptable practice. Taussig argued that committing forgery is not rooted in fraudulence but inferred as an honorable convention. Further, Ehrman synthesized the use of forgery to empower the teachings of an influential individual, synonymous to Paul’s clout in the early Christianity. Having these occurrences in mind, we can then maintain the trustworthiness of the Deutero-Pauline Epistles in the same value as we put on the epistles that were penned by Paul himself. Learning these cogitations, it is important that we look at the message of the epistles and its significance in the formation of the faith tradition. Although the abovementioned epistles are written by different individuals (other than Paul), they have augmented the theology that was taught by Paul. The epistles were written in the context of the audiences that they were intended, because of this, forgery did not connote any negative feedback on its teachings. In this light then, it more important to focus on the message that Deutero-Pauline Epistles convey than to look at

The Old Testament is said to have been written by several people, some who were anonymous. Israel the priest and scriber is known to be an author of the Old Testament along with David (Psalm)

There were many biblical manuscripts produced in the names of ancient canonical figures such as Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Enoch, Ezra, and Moses. The Christian movement did not end this manufacturing of pseudonymous works as many scholars question the authenticity of Ephesians, the Pastoral Epistles, 2 Peter, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and 1 Peter.

When detailing the important figures in the history of Christianity, the most obvious person to begin with is the figure of Jesus. But the question arises: which Jesus are we talking about? The Jesus of Mark's Gospel, who often speaks in the tone of an impassioned outsider? The Jesus who derives his authority from Judaism in Matthew? Or the more cosmological Jesus of John? The diversity of Jesuses within the cannon and there is a different conception of Jesus in Paul's letters, as well as the Gospel of Luke and Acts underlies the fact that the forging of the Christian canon was a process, not a foregone conclusion. "In the earliest Christian movement, there were actually many different writings circulated and many traditions about the sayings of Jesus" (Pagels 1998).

Similarly, Barthes claims in his essay, “The Death of the Author”, that the author loses his identity when the process of writing begins (1466). Hence, Barthes asserts that “writing is the destruction of every voice” (1466). In other words, Barthes denies that the author is the voice of the text, as it was usually believed. In fact, Barthes affirms that the author abandons his identity when creating a work, so that the text is free from personal meaning. Similarly, in the article “Authors, Audiences, and Texts” written by the Emeritus Professor Bernard Dauenhauer, it is established that “a text is not a sign which refers to some already settled signified” (137). In fact, Dauenhauer agrees with Barthes that the text is free from determined