Saturday, March 26, 2011

Bart Ehrman on biblical pseudepigraphy

BART D. EHRMAN takes biblical pseudepigraphy to task at the Huffington Post: Who Wrote The Bible and Why It Matters.

I don't dispute his take on the particular examples he advances, but the problem of ancient biblical and related pseudepigraphy is rather more complicated than it being "lies." And I prefer to translate "pseudepigrapha" as "fictional writings" rather than "writing that is inscribed with a lie." This is not to evade the issue of truth — some pseudepigraphy was lies — but to acknowledge that sometimes more was going on. See my 2006 SBL paper "'Scripture' as Prophetically Revealed Writings" for a more nuanced approach.