Pseudepigrapha

Moderate to liberal scholars claim the Bible contains many pseudonymous writings, both in the OT and NT. They claim Jews and Christians had lax standards of canonicity, or were simply gullible about the claimants.

It’s instructive to compare this claim with some testable examples. For instance, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young claimed to rediscover long lost books of the Bible. Did Christian denominations accept that claim? No. The Mormons “scriptures” have been uniformly rejected outside their cult.

Only Mormons took seriously the claim that he was merely recovering long-forgotten books of the Bible. And even within Mormonism, you have liberal Mormons who reject the official etiology. Even many cradle Mormons aren’t that credulous. Same thing with nominal Muslims who are closet unbelievers.

You also have other would-be prophets like Swedenborg, Sun Myung Moon, Ellen G. White, and Herbert W. Armstrong who produce quasi-scriptures. But their “canon” is only honored within their respective sects or cults.

Muhammad is yet another example. The list is long.

Within Judaism, Menachem Schneerson (the Lubavitcher Rebbe) is a handy example.

These examples illustrate the implacable institutional resistance to the introduction of new books (sometimes under the guise of pseudonymity) to the canon of Scripture.