Pseudepigrapha

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Pseudepigrapha (from the Greek for false writing) refers to books which claim to be authored by someone other than their actual author. In the Classic world, it was a common practice to publish new works under the names of one's dead predecessors; thus for example, there are a number of works claiming to be by Plato, which most scholars believe were written by his students after his death. In the ancient Hebrew tradition, it was common to write under the name of important historical and mythological figures, especially Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham or Moses. When reading any contemporary collection of these ancient writings (such as the Christian Bible, Torah Scrolls, or various Hebrew books included in the Tanakh) scholars always take this practice into account when attempting to date works.

[edit] Christian Pseudepigrapha

As the Christian Bible began the canonization process, there were a collection of books that had been traditionally included in the Greek translations of the Hebrew Testament, which were not included in the Hebrew tradition. In the first three centuries of the new Christian religion, strong debate was had on the inclusion of these books into the formal Bible. These books are frequently called The Pseudepigrapha, though they are more accurately identified as the Greek Apocrypha.

As the term has come to be used to also refer to works which do not claim some false authorship, but rather it has come to refer to any ancient work written in the style of the accepted biblical works but not accepted by any mainstream Christian church.

The term pseudepigrapha overlaps somewhat with the term apocrypha (from Greek for obscure), but with differences in meaning. In the context of the Old Testament, Protestants generally use the term apocrypha to refer to books accepted by other Christian churches (Catholic or Orthodox), but not by themselves, and the term pseudepigrapha to refer to books not accepted by any major Christian church. By contrast, Catholics do not refer to those books the Protestants do not accept as apocrypha, but rather as the deuterocanon, and then use the term apocrypha for those books Protestants would call the pseudepigrapha. The New Testament situation is simpler, since Catholics and Protestants agree on the canon of the New Testament, and hence in that context the terms apocrypha and pseudepigrapha can be used interchangeably.

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