The Tarnished Reputation of Paul and the Concept of Counter Forgeries

In our previous episodes on "literary forgery" in early Christianity, we have never yet talked about the elephant in the room. Why are there so many in the New Testament?

In this episode we will not be going over the old ground of what forgery is (an author falsely claiming to be a famous person) or how it was justified in the ancient world, even among writers who urge high ethical standards (!). We are instead interested in the startling scholarly claim that of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, only eight of them were probably written by the person to whom they are attributed.

In some cases the attributions are made by later readers (the author of Mark does not claim to be Mark); but in many cases the authors themselves make the false claim (2 Peter claims to be written by Peter). We might understand how one or two books like this managed to get into the Christian New Testament. But nineteen?