Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 50:1 (NA 1999)
Article: New Testament Pseudonymity And Deception
Author: Terry L. Wilder

---

TynBul 50:1 (1999) p. 156

New Testament Pseudonymity
And Deception1

Terry L. Wilder

This study provides afresh an answer to the question: ‘If pseudonymous letters exist in the New Testament, what can be said about their intention and reception?’ Chapter 1 provides a survey of scholarship, which shows the need for the present inquiry.

Three views currently dominate the issue: (1) they were not written to deceive their readers regarding their authorship, but nonetheless their readers were deceived; (2) they were not written to deceive their readers, and they did not in fact do so; and (3) they were written to deceive their readers and they were successful in doing so.

A fourth alternative, standing in contrast to the previous three, is that no pseudonymous works exist in the NT. However, the arguments of this thesis are presented most efficiently by working from the assumption, for the sake of argument, that some letters in the NT are inauthentic. If the dissertation did not proceed from this assumption, it would gravitate toward the issue of whether pseudonymity exists in the NT—i.e. the problem of each disputed letter’s authenticity, an issue which is not this work’s subject matter.

Five primary areas are investigated in the following chapters. First, because scholars often argue that literary property played little or no role in the ancient world, chapter 2 determines whether a concept of intellectual property existed and operated in Graeco-Roman antiquity. An examination of various Graeco-Roman and Christian texts reveals that sometimes in the ancient world pseudonymous documents were written with no intention to deceive (e.g. see Iamblichus’ remarks in de Vita Pythagorica §158, 198 on the pseudo-Pythagorean writings). However, not every pseudonymous writing in antiquity was written in the same spirit. For it is then shown that many writers in Graeco-Roman antiquity, including early Christians, had scruples regarding both literary property and pseudonymity (e.g. see Galen, On His Own Books; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 7.2.24; changes of handwriting

TynBul 50:1 (1999) p. 157

in letters bearing Paul’s name; Revelation 22:18-19; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, VI.11; etc.). In the course of this study, it is argued that, to some degree, the literary standards of the ancients were fairly comparable to those of the modern day.

Second, because some scholars have claimed that the disputed NT letters, if pseudonymous, are without relevant epistolary parallels, chapter 3 compares some Graeco-Roman pseudepigraphal epistles (Jewish epistolary lit...

visitor : : uid: ()