Pseudepigrapha (Greek pseudos = "false", "epi" = "after, later" and grapha = "writing (or 'writings')", latterly or falsely attributed, or down right forged works, describes texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded in actuality. Typically, writers have employed the technique of publicly ascribing a false authoriship other than their own to a well-known figure so as to attain greater interest or credibility for their work. The authenticity or value of the work itself, which is a separate question for experienced readers, often becomes sentimentally entangled in association. For instance, few Hebrew scholars would insist that the Song of Solomon was written by the king of Israel, or ascribe the Book of Enoch to the prophet Enoch, and few Christian scholars would insist today that the Second Epistle of John was written by St. John. Nevertheless, in some cases, especially for books belonging to a religious canon, the question of whether a text is pseudepigraphical elicits sensations of loyalty and can become a matter of heavy dispute: though the inherent value of the text may not be called in question, the weight of a revered or even apostolic author lends authority to a text. This is the essential motivation for pseudepigraphy in the first place. Authorship is the act of creating a work, idea or theory. ... Jump to: navigation, search Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ... Jump to: navigation, search Song of Solomon is also the title of a novel by Toni Morrison. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Book of Enoch is a work attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. ... In the Book of Genesis, Enoch or Hanoch (חֲנוֹךְ Initiated; dedicated; disciplined, Standard Hebrew Ḥanoḫ, Tiberian Hebrew Ḥănôḵ) is a name shared by two individuals named in the Genealogies of Genesis and subsequent Jewish, Christian, and Islamic writers. ... Jump to: navigation, search Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ... The Second Epistle of John (normally just called 2nd John or 2 John) is a book of the Bible New Testament. ... Jump to: navigation, search St John the Evangelist, imagined by Jacopo Pontormo, ca 1525 (Santa Felicità, Florence) John the Evangelist (? - c. ... In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ...

Pseudepigraphy also covers the false ascription of names of authors to works, even to perfectly authentic works that make no such claim within their text. Thus a widely accepted but incorrect attribution of authorship may make a perfectly authentic text pseudepigraphical. Jump to: navigation, search The word author has several meanings: The author of a book, story, article or the like, is the person who has written it (or is writing it). ...

On a related note, a famous name assumed by the author of a work is an allonym.

These at least are the basic and original meanings 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 attributions were generally disregarded. The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. ... Jump to: navigation, search The head of Orpheus, from an 1865 painting by Gustave Moreau. ... Musaeus was the name of three Greek poets. ...

Biblical studies

In Biblical studies, pseudepigrapha refers particularly to works which purport to be written by individuals mentioned in either the Old and New Testaments or by persons involved in Jewish or Christian religious study or history. These works can also be written about Biblical matters, often in such a way that they appear to be as authoritative as works which have been included in the many versions of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Eusebius of Caesarea Historia ecclesiae 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... The Bible (From Greek βιβλια—biblia, meaning books, which in turn is derived from βυβλος—byblos meaning papyrus, from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported papyrus) is the sacred scripture of Christianity. ... Eusebius of Caesarea (~275 – May 30, 339) (often called Eusebius Pamphili, Eusebius [the friend] of Pamphilus) was a bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and is often referred to as the father of church history because of his work in recording the history of the early Christian church. ... Serapion, or Sarapion (Fl. ...

Many such works were also referred to as Apocrypha, which originally connoted "secret writings", those that were rejected for liturgical public reading. An example of a text that is both apocryphal and pseudepigraphical is the Odes of Solomon, pseudepigraphical because it was not actually written by Solomon but instead is a collection of early Christian (first to second century) hymns and poems, originally written not in Hebrew, and apocryphal because not accepted neither in the Tanach nor the New Testament. Jump to: navigation, search Apocrypha is a Greek word (απόκρυφα, neuter plural of απόκρυφος), from αποκρυπτειν, to hide away. ... 11th century Targum Tanakh [תנ״ך] (also spelt Tanach or Tenach) is an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew Bible, based upon the initial Hebrew letters of each part: Torah [תורה] (The Law; also: Teaching or Instruction), Chumash [חומש] (The five, also Pentateuch or The five books of... Jump to: navigation, search The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Testament or Greek Scriptures is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written after the birth of Jesus. ...

But Protestants have also applied the word Apocrypha to texts found in the Roman Catholic scriptures which were not found in Hebrew manuscripts. Roman Catholics called those texts "deuterocanonical". Accordingly, there arose in Protestant Biblical scholarship an extended use of the term pseudepigrapha for works that appeared as though they ought to be part of the Bibical canon, because of the authorship ascribed to them, but which stood outside both the canons recognized by Protestants and Catholics. These works were also outside the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and to which Protestants had generally applied the term Apocryphal. The term accordingly as now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics, allegedly for the clarity it brings to discussion, may make it difficult to discuss questions of pseudepigraphical authorship of canonical books dispassionately with an unsophisticated audience. Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Jump to: navigation, search Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ... The deuterocanonical books are the books that Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy include in the Old Testament that were not part of the Jewish Tanakh. ... A canon refers to a list or collection of books and scriptures accepted by an ecclesiastic communion as authoritative or divinely inspired. ...

To confuse the matter, some churches accept books as canonical, that Roman Catholics and almost all Protestant denominations 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. These are matters more appropriately discussed at Apocrypha. Jump to: navigation, search A church building is a building used in Christian worship. ... Jewish denominations: Over time, the Jewish community has become divided into a number of religious denominations, also called branches or movements. Each denomination has a different understanding of what principles of belief a Jew should hold, and how one should live as a Jew. ... Jump to: navigation, search Apocrypha is a Greek word (απόκρυφα, neuter plural of απόκρυφος), from αποκρυπτειν, to hide away. ...

There is a tendency not to use the word pseudepigrapha when describing works later than about 300C.E. when referring to Biblical matters. But see Gospel of Barnabas, Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, and the author traditionally referred to as the "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite"—a classic example of pseudepigraphy. There is also a category of modern pseudepigrapha. Jump to: navigation, search The Gospel of Barnabas is a work purporting to be a depiction of the life of Jesus by his disciple Barnabas. ... The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is a 7th-century apocalypse that shaped the eschatological imagination of Christendom throughout the Middle Ages. ... Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as pseudo-Denys, is the name scholars have given to an anonymous theologian and philosopher of the 5th century, who wrote a collection of books (Corpus Areopagiticum) falsely ascribed to the Dionysius mentioned in Acts 17:34. ... Jump to: navigation, search Modern pseudepigrapha or modern apocrypha are terms sometimes used to refer to any book written in the style of the books of the Bible, and claiming to be of similar age (pseudepigrapha), but written in a much later (modern) period. ...

Examples of Old Testament pseudepigrapha are the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, Jubilees, both of which are 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, the attribution of the Epistle to the Laodiceans to Paul, and Acts of Thomas, which few would claim was actually written by Thomas. Another example of New Testament pseudepigrapha would be the Shepherd of Hermas. Jump to: navigation, search The Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures (also called the Hebrew Bible) constitutes the first major part of the Bible according to Christianity. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Book of Enoch is a work attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. ... The Book of Jubilees expands and reworks material found in Genesis to Exodus 15. ... The Abyssinian Church was created, as the chronicle of Axum relates, when Christianity was adopted in Abyssinia in the 4th century. ... The Life of Adam and Eve is a Jewish pseudepigraphical writing, the original of which was perhaps written around 70 BCE. The texts that have survived are later variants written in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Armenian, Georgian and Coptic (fragments only). ... Pseudo-Philo is the name commonly used for a Jewish pseudepigraphical work in Latin, so called because it was transmitted along with Latin translations of the works of Philo of Alexandria but is very obviously not written by Philo. ... The category of New Testament apocrypha reminds the modern reader of the wide range of responses that were engendered in interpreting the message of Jesus of Nazareth during the first several centuries of the Common Era, as mainstream Christianity emerged. ... The Gospel of Peter was a prominent passion narrative in the early history of Christianity, but over time passed out of common usage. ... Jump to: navigation, search Wikisource has original text related to this article: Epistle to the Laodiceans The Epistle to the Laodiceans is a short work found in some editions of the Vulgate, known only in Latin, purporting to be the epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans mentioned in the Epistle... The early 3rd century text called Acts of Thomas is arguably the most Gnostic of the New Testament apocrypha, portraying Christ as the Heavenly Redeemer, independent of and beyond creation, who can free souls from the darkness of the world. ... The Shepherd of Hermas is a Christian work of the first or second century which had great authority in ancient times and was considered by some as one of the books of the Bible. ...