Unfortunately, we have a number of otherwise conservative Bible scholars and Christian apologists who feel the need to hedge their bets. In this post I'm going to comment on some statements by Craig Blomberg on pseudepigrapha, from his Can We Still Believe the Bible?
In fact, when it comes to postbiblical Jewish apocalypses, every known example is pseudonymous (173).
i) But isn't that observation counterproductive to his thesis? Why were no Intertestamental pseudepigrapha canonized? Did their pseudonymity ipso facto disqualify them from consideration?
To my knowledge, almost no Intertertestamental pseudepigrapha are named after Jews who lived during the Intertestamental Period. Why is that? Does that mean there were no acknowledge prophets during the Intertestmental period? If any Jew from that period presented himself as a prophet, Jewry at large would dismiss his claims out of hand.
ii) Conversely, canonical writers like Amos, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (to name a few) were known to their contemporaries. Even if a later reader is coming to their works long after the prophet and his original audience lived and died, their works have a chain-of-custody.
By contrast, if a "prophecy," attributed to some luminary who lived and died centuries before, suddenly emerges out of the blue, that's inherently suspect. If it's authentic, where did it come from? If it originated in the distant past, why is it only coming to light just now? Nothing in the present connects it to the past. It wasn't discovered.
Plenty of other examples exist in ancient Jewish, Greek, and Roman circles for attributing a document to an author whom people would have known was no longer living, doing so as a way of crediting them for being a key resource or inspiration for the ideas contained in the newer work. Far from being deceptive, it was a way of not taking credit for the contents of a book when one's ideas were heavily indebted to others of a previous era (169).
i) That sounds almost admirable. But how does Blomberg know that's what motivated the pseudonymous author? In the nature of the case, the author couldn't maintain his pseudonymity if he named his real source. He'd had to drop the pose to credit the source. Since, therefore, the pseudonymous facade precludes him from naming his sources, what internal evidence is there from the document itself that his intention was not to take credit for the contents?
ii) Moreover, we have examples in Scripture (e.g. 1-2 Chronicles; Gospel of Luke) where the author explicitly names or alludes to sources of information. He doesn't resort to a pseudonymous guise. He's upfront about sources.
In addition, Blomberg footnotes his claim as follows:
Particularly frequently cited are Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.5 ("that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter's whose interpreter Mark was. For even Luke's form of the Gospel, men usually ascribed to Paul") and Mishnah, Berakot 5.5 ("a man's representative is himself") (262n102).
i) But doesn't that undercut rather than underwrite Blomberg's claim? Mark's Gospel isn't pseudonymous. Even if Peter is Mark's primary informant, the Gospel isn't named after Peter. Likewise, Paul is not the named author of Luke's Gospel.
ii) A problem with the Mishnaic quote is the failure to distinguish between a man's designated spokesman and someone who presumes to speak on behalf of another. Assuming (ex hypothesi) that some NT letters are pseudonymous, that's not because an apostle authorized them to speak for him.
On the other hand, it is an open question whether ancient Jews or Christians ever deemed the practice of pseudonymity acceptable for canonical Scripture (170).
i) Which is one of the problems. For instance, Paul signs his letters to authenticate his letters–a practice he began with 2 Thes 3:17. And that was apparently to forestall forgeries (2:2).
In that case, how could a deutero-Pauline epistle be morally innocent rather than inherently deceptive?
ii) Likewise, by OT criteria, a hallmark of a false prophet is speaking in God's name when God has not commissioned him and spoken to him. By that yardstick, a pseudonymous prophecy is ipso facto false prophecy.
iii) By the same token, Paul makes a big deal about his divine commission and direct revelation (Galatians 1-2). That's the basis of his apostolic authority. A deutero-Pauline epistle would lack those key credentials. The same considerations apply to 1-2 Peter.
iv) In addition, the author of 1 John claims to be a member of Christ's inner circle. An eyewitness to the ministry of Christ. (1 Jn 1:1-5). How can a pseudonymous author honestly feign that experience?
v) Why would anyone pay attention to Jude unless it was, in fact, written by one of Christ's stepbrothers?
vi) If NT pseudonymity was an accepted practice, why is Hebrews anonymous rather than pseudonymous?
David Aune conveniently summarizes…six different kinds of ancient pseudepigraphy: (1) works that are partly authentic but have been supplemented by later authors, (2) works written largely by later authors but relying on some material from the named authors, (3) works that are more generally influenced by the earlier authors who are named, (4) works from a "school" of writers ideologically descended from the named authors, (5) originally anonymous works later made pseudonymous for one of these previous reasons, and (6) genuine forgeries intended to deceive (172).
Take the case of Jude. Is there any reason to think (1)-(5) are applicable to Jude?
All the candidates for NT pseudonymity are letters. But that's easier said than done. As Bauckham explains:
All letters, including pseudepigraphal letters, must specify both the sender(s) and the recipient(s). In the case of pseudepigraphal letters the supposed author, named in the parties formula, is not the real author. But it is important to notice also, since the point is sometimes neglected, that the supposed addressee(s), specified in the parties formula, cannot be the real readers for whom the real author is writing. The supposed addressee(s) must (except in some special cases to be considered later) be a contemporary or contemporaries of the supposed author. Not only does the "I" in a pseudepigraphal letter not refer to the real author, but "you" does not refer to the read readers. The readers of a pseudepigraphal letter cannot read it as though they were being directly addressed either by the supposed author or by the real author (except in the special cases to be noted later); they must read it as a letter written to other people, in the past.
The authentic real letter (type A) is a form of direct address to specific addressee(s). The pseudepigraphal letter, it seems, can only be this fictionally. The real author of a pseudepigraphal letter can only address real readers indirectly, under cover of direct address to other people.
The problem for the author in this case is that he wants his pseudepigraphal letter to perform for him and his readers something like the function which an authentic real letter from him to his readers would perform. He wants, under cover of his pseudonym, to address his real readers, but his genre allows his letter to be addressed only to supposed addressees contemporary with the supposed author. Thus, he needs to find some way in which material that is ostensibly addressed to supposed addressees in the past can be taken by his real readers as actually or also addressed to them.
However, in themselves these two expedients (AP6 and BP) only enable the pseudepigraphal writer to address a general readership in general terms. They do not enable him to do what Paul did in his authentic letters, that is, to write material of specific relevance to specific churches in specific situations.
One way to do this was to address supposed addressees who were ancestors or predecessors of the real readers in a situation supposed not to have changed, in relevant respects, up to the present, so that the real readers are still in the same situation as the supposed addressees once were (type AP3). "Pseudo-Apostolic Letters," The Jewish World Around the New Testament (Baker 2010), 129-31.
An obvious obstacle to that strategy is the brevity of the NT era. Except for the Apostle John (according to tradition), the Apostles and stepbrothers of Christ were dead by the 60s. So how could a pseudonymous letter, directed at the author's contemporaries, be plausibly addressed to their Christian predecessors or ancestors? How many Christian generations does the NT era allow for?
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