2 Peter a "forgery"
Farrell Till jftill@midwest.net
Mon, 02 Mar 1998 20:09:32 -0800 (00888919772, 2.2.32.19980303040932.006f9e64@midwest.net)
At 04:32 PM 3/2/98 -0600, Claire E. O'Connor wrote:
>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.
TILL
Claire, for pity's sake, can't you see the fallacy in your line of thinking?
You are assuming that Paul was aware that the Pentateuch and Isaiah had had
multiple authors. This is a discovery that was made much later than Paul,
and even today biblical fundamentalists are horrified by the mere suggestion
that Moses and Isaiah didn't write every word of the books attributed to
them. So you can't assume that Paul wasn't concerned about forgeries on the
grounds that some of the OT books had had multiple authors. Before you can
so argue, you would have to prove that Paul knew this and didn't care.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net