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Pseudepigrapha: Etymology
Pseudepigrapha: Etymology
Pseudepigrapha
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Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or
Contribute "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed
Help author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to
Community portal a figure of the past.[1]
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In biblical studies, the term pseudepigrapha typically refers to an
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assorted collection of Jewish religious works thought to be written c. 300
Tools BCE to 300 CE.[citation needed] They are distinguished by Protestants
What links here from the Deuterocanonical books (Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha
Related changes (Protestant), the books that appear in extant copies of the Septuagint
Special pages from the fourth century on,[2] and the Vulgate but not in the Hebrew
Permanent link Bible or in Protestant Bibles.[3] The Catholic Church distinguishes only
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between the deuterocanonical and all the other books, that are called
Wikidata item
Cite this page biblical apocrypha, a name that is also used for the pseudepigrapha in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
the Catholic usage.[citation needed] In addition, two books considered
Languages canonical in the Orthodox Tewahedo churches, viz. Book of Enoch and
Afrikaans Book of Jubilees, are categorized as pseudepigrapha from the point of view of Chalcedonian
اﻟﻌرﺑﯾﺔ Christianity.[citation needed]
Català
Čeština Contents [hide]
Cymraeg
1 Etymology
Deutsch
2 Classical and biblical studies
Español
Esperanto
2.1 Literary studies
ﻓﺎرﺳﯽ 2.2 Old Testament and intertestamental studies
Français 2.3 New Testament studies
Frysk 2.3.1 Pauline epistles
한국어 2.3.2 Other Pseudepigrapha
Bahasa Indonesia 2.3.3 Authorship and pseudepigraphy: levels of authenticity
Interlingua 2.4 The Zohar
Italiano 2.5 Ovid
עברית 3 As literary device
Nederlands
4 See also
日本語
Norsk bokmål
5 Citations
Polski 6 Sources
Português 7 External links
Română
Русский
Simple English Etymology [edit]
Slovenčina
The word pseudepigrapha (from the Greek: ψευδής, pseudḗs, "false" and ἐπιγραφή, epigraphḗ, "name" or
Srpskohrvatski /
српскохрватски "inscription" or "ascription"; thus when taken together it means "false superscription or title";[4] see the related
Suomi epigraphy) is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" (sometimes Latinized as "pseudepigraphum").
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اردو
粵語
Classical and biblical studies [edit]
中文 There have probably been pseudepigrapha almost from the invention of full writing. For example, ancient Greek
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authors often refer to texts which claimed to be by Orpheus or his pupil Musaeus of Athens but which
In other projects attributions were generally disregarded. Already in Antiquity the collection known as the "Homeric Hymns" was
Wikimedia Commons recognized as pseudepigraphical, that is, not actually written by Homer.[citation needed] The only surviving Ancient
Roman book on cooking is pseudepigraphically attributed to a famous gourmet, Apicius, even though it is not
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clear who actually assembled the recipes.
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Printable version Literary studies [edit]
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.
Thus the encyclopedic compilation of Greek myth called the Bibliotheca is often now attributed, not to
Apollodorus of Athens, 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 prefix may be abbreviated, as in "ps-Apollodorus" or "ps-Eratosthenes".[citation needed]
The first four historical books of the New Testament are supplied with titles, which however ancient,
do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred texts. The Canon of Muratori, Clement of
Alexandria, and St. Irenaeus bear distinct witness to the existence of those headings in the latter
part of the second century of our era. Indeed, the manner in which Clement (Strom. I, xxi), and St.
Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. III, xi, 7) employ them implies that, at that early date, our present titles to the
gospels had been in current use for some considerable time. Hence, it may be inferred that they
were prefixed to the evangelical narratives as early as the first part of that same century. That
however, they do not go back to the first century of the Christian era, or at least that they are not
original, is a position generally held at the present day. It is felt that since they are similar for the
four Gospels, although the same Gospels were composed at some interval from each other, those
titles were not framed and consequently not prefixed to each individual narrative, before the
collection of the four Gospels was actually made. Besides as well pointed out by Prof. Bacon, "the
historical books of the New Testament differ from its apocalyptic and epistolary literature, as those
of the Old Testament differ from its prophecy, in being invariably anonymous, and for the same
reason. Prophecies, whether in the earlier or in the later sense, and letters, to have authority, must
be referable to some individual; the greater his name, the better. But history was regarded as
common possession. Its facts spoke for themselves. Only as the springs of common recollection
began to dwindle, and marked differences to appear between the well-informed and accurate
Gospels and the untrustworthy ... become worth while for the Christian teacher or apologist to
specify whether the given representation of the current tradition was 'according to' this or that
special compiler, and to state his qualifications". It thus appears that the present titles of the
Gospels are not traceable to the Evangelists themselves.[9]
The earliest and best manuscripts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all written anonymously.[10]
Furthermore, the books of Acts, Hebrews, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John were also written anonymously.[10]
Ovid [edit]
Conrad Celtes, a noted German humanist scholar and poet of the German Renaissance, collected numerous
Greek and Latin manuscripts in his function as librarian of the Imperial Library in Vienna. In a 1504 letter to the
Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius[21] Celtes claimed to have discovered the missing books of Ovid’s Fasti.
However, it turned out that the purported Ovid verses had actually been composed by an 11th-century monk
and were known to the Empire of Nicaea according to William of Rubruck. Even so, many contemporary
scholars believed Celtes and continued to write about the existence of the missing books until well into the 17th
century.[22]
Citations [edit]
1. ^ Bauckham, Richard; "Pseudo-Apostolic Letters", Journal of Biblical Literature, Vo. 107, No. 3, September 1988,
pp. 469–94.
2. ^ Beckwith, Roger T. (2008). The Canon of the Old Testament (PDF). Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub. pp. 62,
382–83. ISBN 978-1606082492. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
3. ^ a b c Harris, Stephen L. (2010). Understanding The Bible . McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-0-07-340744-9.
4. ^ Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott (1940). "ψευδεπίγραφος" . A Greek-English Lexicon. Trustees of Tufts
University, Oxford. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
5. ^ Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae 6,12.
6. ^ Charlesworth, James. Odes of Solomon Archived 2004-04-14 at the Wayback Machine
7. ^ Salvian, Epistle, ix.
8. ^ a b c d D., Ehrman, Bart (2011). Forged : writing in the name of God : why the Bible's authors are not who we
think they are (1st ed.). New York: HarperOne. ISBN 9780062012616. OCLC 639164332 .
9. ^ Farley (Archbishop of New York), Imprimatur John Cardinal (1913). Charles George Herbermann, Edward
Aloysius Pace, Condé Bénoist Pallen, John Joseph Wynne, Thomas Joseph Shahan (eds.). The Catholic
Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, and History of the Catholic
Church, Volume 6. New York: The Encyclopedia Press. pp. 655–56.
10. ^ a b D., Ehrman, Bart (2005). Misquoting Jesus : the story behind who changed the Bible and why (1st ed.).
New York: HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0060738170. OCLC 59011567 .
11. ^ a b Just, Felix. "The Deutero-Pauline Letters"
12. ^ a b Sanders, E. P. "Saint Paul, the Apostle". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online
Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 20 May 2013.
13. ^ Joel Willitts, Michael F. Bird: "Paul and the Gospels: Christologies, Conflicts and Convergences" p. 32
14. ^ Lewis R. Donelson: "Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles", p. 42
15. ^ Joosten, Jan (January 2002). "The Gospel of Barnabas and the Diatessaron". Harvard Theological Review. 95 (1):
73–96.
16. ^ Powell, Mark A. Introducing the New Testament. Baker Academic, 2009. ISBN 978-0-8010-2868-7
17. ^ Scholem, Gershom and Melila Hellner-Eshed. "Zohar". Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and
Fred Skolnik. Vol. 21. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007. 647–64. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale.
18. ^ Jacobs, Joseph; Broydé, Isaac. "Zohar" . Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk & Wagnalls Company.
19. ^ Scharfstein, Sol (2004). Jewish History and You II . Jewish History and You. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing
House. p. 24. ISBN 9780881258066.
20. ^ "Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai – Lag BaOmer at" . Ou.org. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
21. ^ Christopher S. Wood (2008). Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art. University Of
Chicago Press. p. 8.
22. ^ Angela Fritsen (2015). Antiquarian Voices: The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti
(Text and Context). Ohio State University Press.
Sources [edit]
Cueva, Edmund P., and Javier Martínez, eds. Splendide Mendax: Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries in
Classical, Late Antique, and Early Christian Literature. Groningen: Barkhuis, 2016.
DiTommaso, Lorenzo. A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research 1850–1999, Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 2001.
Ehrman, Bart. Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
Kiley, Mark. Colossians as Pseudepigraphy (Bible Seminar, 4 Sheffield: JSOT Press 1986). Colossians as a
non-deceptive school product.
Metzger, Bruce M. "Literary forgeries and canonical pseudepigrapha", Journal of Biblical Literature 91
(1972).
von Fritz, Kurt, (ed.) Pseudepigraphica. 1 (Geneva: Foundation Hardt, 1972). Contributions on
pseudopythagorica (the literature ascribed to Pythagoras), the Platonic Epistles, Jewish-Hellenistic literature,
and the characteristics particular to religious forgeries.
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