Thursday, November 1, 2012

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

כל־האדם

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Calendar-in-a-Year

http://kolhaadam.wordpress.com/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-calendar-in-a-year/
 
by Joseph Ryan Kelly
 
Those who want to take the study of the Bible seriously will not limit their reading to the Bible alone. The Bible was not written in a vacuum but within historical and cultural contexts that contributed to its shape and content. By reading about this period of history and the cultures within it, the student learns much about the Bible that cannot be learned from reading the Bible alone. The best source material for learning about the contexts that informed and shaped the writing of the Bible is the literature that was written around the same time, by the same or similar cultures, and/or within the stream of tradition to which the Bible belongs.
 
One such body of literature is The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, a collection of Jewish and Christian literature written subsequent to the literature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, some written contemporaneous with or subsequent to the literature of the New Testament. This literature helps to fill in the historical and conceptual gap between the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament, showing the ongoing development of the Jewish tradition and of the emerging development of the early Christian tradition.
 
The standard collection of this body of literature was edited by James Charlesworth and originally published by Yale University Press (see here and here). While scholars are working to develop supplemental material, the Charlesworth collection will remain the standard collection of this literature for the foreseeable future. In 2010, this collection was republished by Hendrickson Publishers in paperback format, and the set can be acquired from numerous booksellers at an affordable price (approx. $40 from Eisenbrauns, Chritianbook, Amazon).
 
This more affordable price tag will no doubt facilitate a new generation of Bible students acquiring this resource. In an effort to facilitate the reading of this resource, I have developed a reading schedule that, if followed strictly, will move one through each volume in five months. If you aim to complete the readings in a year, this calendar provides a comfortable two-month cushion for reduced readings on weekends, holidays, or vacations. The titles of the individual texts are abbreviated in the calendar according to The SBL Handbook of Style (74-75). Click on the picture below for a pdf of the entire reading schedule. Happy reading!
 
Click to Enlarge
 

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OT Pseudepigraph
 
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past."[1] The word "pseudepigrapha" (from the Greek: ψευδής, pseudēs,"lying" or "false" and ἐπιγραφή, epigraphē, "name" or "inscription" or "ascription"; thus when taken together it means "false superscription or title";[2] see the related epigraphy) is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" (sometimes Latinized as "pseudepigraphum"); the Anglicized forms "pseudepigraph" and "pseudepigraphs" are also used.
 
Pseudepigraphy covers the false ascription of names of authors to works, even to authentic works that make no such claim within their text. Thus a widely accepted but an incorrect attribution of authorship may make a completely authentic text pseudepigraphical. Assessing the actual writer of a text locates questions of pseudepigraphical attribution within the discipline of literary criticism.
 
In Biblical studies, the Pseudepigrapha are Jewish religious works written c 200 BC to 200 AD, not all of which are literally pseudepigraphical.[3] They are distinguished by Protestants from the Deuterocanonical (Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha (Protestant), the books that appear in the Septuagint and Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible or in Protestant Bibles.[3] Catholics distinguish only between the Deuterocanonical and all the other books, that are called Apocrypha, a name that is also used for the Pseudepigrapha in the Catholic usage.
 
On a related note, a famous name assumed by the author of a work is an allonym.
 
Classical and Biblical studies
 
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. Already in Antiquity the collection known as the "Homeric hymns" was recognized as pseudepigraphical, that is, not actually written by Homer.
 
Literary studies
 
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 Bibliotheke 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".
 
Biblical studies
 
In Biblical studies, pseudepigrapha refers particularly to works which purport to be written by noted authorities 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 indicates this usage dates back at least to Serapion, bishop of Antioch[clarification needed] whom Eusebius records[4] as having said: "But those writings which are falsely inscribed with their name (ta pseudepigrapha), we as experienced persons reject..."
 
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 they were not accepted in either the Tanach or the New Testament.
 
But Protestants have also applied the word Apocrypha to texts found in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox scriptures which were not found in Hebrew manuscripts. Roman Catholics called those texts "deuterocanonical". Accordingly, there arose in some Protestant Biblical scholarship an extended use of the term pseudepigrapha for works that appeared as though they ought to be part of the Biblical canon, because of the authorship ascribed to them, but which stood outside both the Biblical 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. Accordingly, the term pseudepigraphical, as now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics (allegedly for the clarity it brings to the discussion), may make it difficult to discuss questions of pseudepigraphical authorship of canonical books dispassionately with a lay audience. To confuse the matter even more, Orthodox Christians accept books as canonical that Roman Catholics and most Protestant denominations consider pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority. There exist also churches that reject some of the books that Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants accept. The same is true of some Jewish sects.[clarification needed]
 
There is a tendency not to use the word pseudepigrapha when describing works later than about 300 AD when referring to Biblical matters. But the late-appearing Gospel of Barnabas, Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, the Pseudo-Apuleius (author of a fifth-century herbal ascribed to Apuleius), and the author traditionally referred to as the "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite", are classic examples of pseudepigraphy. In the fifth century the moralist Salvian published Contra avaritiam under the name of Timothy; the letter in which he explained to his former pupil, Bishop Salonius, his motives for so doing survives.[5] There is also a category of modern pseudepigrapha.
 
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 in these cases also likely to be called New Testament Apocrypha) are the Gospel of Peter and the attribution of the Epistle to the Laodiceans to Paul. Further examples of New Testament pseudepigrapha include the aforementioned Gospel of Barnabas, and the Gospel of Judas, which begins by presenting itself as "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot".
 
Biblical Pseudepigrapha
 
The term Pseudepigrapha commonly refers to numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 200 BC to 200 AD.[3] Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical.[3] It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is dubious (though disputed). Such works include the following:[3]

See also

 
 
 
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Pseudepigrapha are works produced after the closing of the Hebrew Bible canon but before production of the Christian canon that are not accepted as canonical by Jews or all Christians today. Some of these works may have Christian authors, but books in this list are predominantly Jewish in character and origin.

See also

 
 
 
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