Pseudepigrapha (from the Greek words pseudos = lie and epigrapho = write) is a text or a number of texts whose claimed authorship or authenticity is incorrect. In some cases, especially for books belonging to a canon, the question of whether a text is pseudepigraphical can be a matter of heavy dispute.

Pseudepigraphy is the ascription of false names of authors to works.

These at least are the basic and original meaning of the terms.

There have probably been pseudepigrapha almost from the invention of full writing. For example ancient Greek authors often refer to texts which claimed to be by Orpheus or his pupil Musaeus but which attribution was generally disregarded.

In Biblical studies pseudepigrapha refers particularly to works which purport to be written by Biblical persons or about Biblical matters, often in such a way that they appear to be works which ought perhaps to have been included in the Bible.

Eusebius of Caesarea HE 6,12 indicates this usage dates back at least to Serapion whom he records to have said: But those writings which are falsely inscribed with their name (ta pseudepigraphs), we as experienced persons reject, ...

Many such works were also known as Apocrypha. But Protestants applied the word Apocrypha also to texts found in the Roman Catholic which were not found in Hebrew manuscripts, those texts which Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical. Accordingly there arose in Protestant Biblical scholarship an increased use of pseudepigrapha for works that appeared to represent themselves as though there ought to be part of the Bibical canon but which stood outside both the canon recognized by Protestants and Catholics and also outside the canon the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and which Protestants generally meant when they referred to the Apocrypha.

The term accordingly is now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics for the clarity it brings to discussion.

To confuse the matter, some churches accept books as canonical which Roman Catholics and almost all Protestant demoninations consider pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority and some churches reject books that both Roman Catholics and Protestants accept. The same is true of some Jewish sects.

There is a tendency not to use the word pseudepigrapha when describing works later than about 300 C.E. when referring to Biblical matters. For later periods scholars are more likely to speak of legend or midrash.

Examples of Old Testament pseudepigrapha are the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, Jubilees (but both of these are considered canonical in the Abyssinian Church of Ethiopia), the Life of Adam and Eve and the Pseudo-Philo. Examples of New Testament pseudepigrapha (but here also likely to be called New Testament Apocrypha) are the Gospel of Peter, Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, and Acts of Thomas.

Many writings of New Testament pseudepigrapha are either considered fradulent or too heavily influenced by Gnostic beliefs to have been included in the canon of the Bible. One such book is the Odes of Solomon (http://www.miseri.edu/users/davies/thomas/odes.htm) which are a collection of early christian (first to second century) hymns and poems, originally written in the Syriac language.