2 Peter a "forgery"
Claire E. O'Connor claireoc@softdisk.com
Mon, 02 Mar 1998 16:32:34 -0600 (00888899554, 34FB3382.26AB@softdisk.com)
Steven Carr wrote:
>
> Brian Dean <bridean@worldnet.att.net> writes
>
> >BRIDEAN
> >I don't know how credible or believable this is but I heard that the explanation
> >for this is that it was common to pen the name of the founder of a particular
> >small group of people. So whoever wrote 2 Peter would be saying that he
> >was a student of Peter or that he came from the school of thought Peter
> >started. I hear this was common practice at the time since there was no
> >such thing as plagerism or copyright laws at the time.
STEVEN CARR
> It was indeed common to use somebody elses name when writing. It was
> still regarded as forgery and wrong even in the ancient world, see 2
> Thess. 2:2 about letters supposed to be from Paul.
>
> This is entirely different from eg the school of Pythagoras, where
> students of Pythagoras would attribute to Pythagoras things that they
> themselves had developed. That was done as a mark of honour to
> Pythagoras. 2 Peter was attributed to Peter, just to get people to take
> it seriously and obey it.
CLAIRE
In 2 Thess. 2:2, Paul is concerned more about false teachings than
"forgeries". If using someone else's name when writing was always
regarded as wrong, then why were other books of the Bible written that
way? Four different authors of the Pentateuch have been identified, yet
there was a tradition that Moses was the author of these books. There
are three authors of the Book of Isaiah. I disagree with your statement
that it was regarded as "wrong" simply to use someone else's name. There
was already a tradition of doing so long before Peter's and Paul's time.
I hope that the people on this errancy list will notice that my above
statement is not about my "beliefs" and requires no assumptions about
the validity of Christianity. The fact that a tradition already existed
of using someone else's name would be evidence (though not absolute
proof) that it was not necessarily considered "wrong" to use a famous
pseudonym.
STEVEN CARR
> Disputes about 2 Peter were about whether Peter really had written it.
> Nobody who thought that Peter had not written 2 Peter suggested that it
> did not matter who had really written it.
>
> BTW , what 'school of thought' did Peter start? Was there a 'Peter
> Academy' in Corinth, or Rome?
>
> Somebody who wrote 'Acts of Paul' was denounced by fellow Christians
> when caught out, even though he never wrote as though he was Paul. He
> was writing *about* Paul, not in Paul's name, but it was still regarded
> as wrong, even in antiquity.
>
> --
> Steven Carr steven@bowness.demon.co.uk
> Visit the UK's leading atheist Web page
> http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/
CLAIRE
Steven, I have not seen 'Acts of Paul', but I think it could have been
regarded as "wrong" simply because Paul's converts thought that Paul's
teachings were misrepresented in it.
~Claire O'Connor