Modern pseudepigrapha, or modern apocrypha, refer to

pseudepigrapha A pseudepigraph (also :wikt:anglicized, anglicized as "pseudepigraphon") is a false attribution, falsely attributed work, a text whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past. Th ...

of recent origin – any book written in the style of the books of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

or other religious scriptures, and claiming to be of similar age, but written in a much later (modern) period. They differ from

apocrypha Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

, which are books from or shortly after the scriptural period but not accepted into the religion's

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

. Exposing modern pseudepigrapha is part of the fields of

palaeography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

and

papyrology Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...

, amongst others.

Terminology

British biblical scholar Philip R. Davies (1945–2018) defined "modern pseudepigrapha" (singular "pseudepigraphon") in 2002 as "writings in the name of biblical personages composed by contemporary scholars." The term "modern apocrypha" (singular "apocryphon") is closely related to and is often treated as synonymous with "modern pseudepigrapha". But while a pseudepigraphon is by definition a

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...

(a document written with the intention to deceive its readers as to its true origins, or more narrowly, written by someone else than the person the text itself claims to be the author), an apocryphon is not necessarily a forgery; the author can also be

anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

and not intent on deception. In the minority view held by scholars such as Eric Vanden Eykel, even admittedly fictitious 21st-century Christian texts involving ancient biblical figures written by authors using their real names may be considered "modern apocrypha". Some writings, even canonical ones, were originally anonymous, and only later copyists and compilers – either accidentally or intentionally – attributed the wrong authors to them. According to Tony Burke, "scholarly forgery" is "the contemporary creation of a text with the attendant claim of its discovery in an ancient manuscript", a practice which he claims began in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

History

19th and 20th century

The rise of the field of modern

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...

has led to a hunt for ancient manuscripts containing

textual variants in the New Testament Textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to the text that is being reproduced. Textual criticism of the New Testament has included study of its textual variants. Some comm ...

and Old Testament, as well as related Jewish and early Christian writings. Discovery, collection and study of these fragments have been instrumental to – as far as possible – reconstructing the original texts of the Bible and other religious scriptures of high interest, and how they evolved over the centuries. The importance of these fragments has considerably raised their market value, and finding an acquiring them became a multimillion-dollar trade after 1945, when the

Nag Hammadi library The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the Chenoboskion Manuscripts and the Gnostic Gospels) is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Thirteen leather-bound papyrus c ...

and the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

were discovered. Many forgers and fraudsters have sought to exploit this scholarly desire by fabricating manuscripts to sell them for profit. Therefore, inquiring after their

provenance Provenance () is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, p ...

and testing both linguistically as well as materially whether any newly emerging fragments are authentic has become increasingly relevant. The systematic study of modern apocrypha is understood to have begun with the publication of Edgar J. Goodspeed's book ''Strange New Gospels'' (1931), which he later expanded with new chapters, and fully updated with the 1956 book ''Modern Apocrypha'' (subsequent editions were entitled ''Famous Biblical Hoaxes'').

Per Beskow Per Erik Beskow (23 December 1926 in Stockholm − 3 March 2016 in Visby) was a Swedish biblical scholar, theologian, church historian, patrologist and associate professor at Lund University. Biography Per Beskow was born on December 23, 1926, ...

(1926–2016) is considered the second-most famous scholar of modern apocrypha after Goodspeed, starting with his 1985 essay collection ''Strange Tales about Jesus''.

21st century

William Kando fragments

According to a researcher quoted in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' in November 2017, up to 90% of the 75 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments sold since 2002 could be fakes. Most of these fragments are directly or indirectly connected to William Kando, son of antiques dealer Khalil Eskander Shahin (better known as "Kando"), who bought the Scrolls from the Bedouins who found them in 1945. William Kando opened his family's vault in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

in 2000, and ever since has been selling fragments he claims to be authentic remnants of the Scrolls to rich American evangelical Christians who are willing to spend huge amounts of money to find out more about the Bible's origins. After the

Museum of the Bible The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the David Green (entrepreneur), Green family. The museum documents the narrative, histo ...

(MOTB) opened in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

in November 2017, academics were skeptical about the authenticity of the 16 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments displayed there. Researchers at the

Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (), or BAM, is a German research institute in the field of materials science. History The institute's origins start in 1871, the year in which Germany was unified, as the ''Mechanisch-Tec ...

in Germany took several months to test 5 of the MOTB's 16 artefacts, and concluded all five were forgeries that could not have been produced in antiquity. Embarrassed by the finding, the MOTB stated that 'Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency.' Examination of the remaining fragments was still ongoing, with researcher Kipp Davis claiming that at least seven of the total were most likely forged. In March 2020, after lengthy investigations, MOTB confirmed that all the 16 fragments were forgeries.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife

First presented by

Karen Leigh King Karen Leigh King (born February 16, 1954, raised in Sheridan, Montana) is a historian of religion working in the field of Early Christianity, who is the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, and is the oldest endowed chair in the Un ...

at a 2012 scholarly conference in Rome, the unprovenanced Gospel of Jesus' Wife was quickly shown to be a modern fabrication, largely plagiarised from the

Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is a non-canonical Logia, sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate the works ...

Techniques and exposure

In order to attempt to conceal their deception, fraudsters may simply buy ancient

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

, for example online or in an Egyptian

souk A bazaar or souk is a marketplace consisting of multiple small stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, Central Asia, North Africa and South Asia. They are traditionally located in vaulted or covered streets that have doors ...

. This saves them time and effort on producing fake papyrus, and it results in a credible

carbon-14 dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...

when tested in a laboratory. There are also ways of counterfeiting ink and writing to make the text appear ancient. Therefore, papyrologists generally do not rely on testing the material of questionable fragments, but only consider papyri from documented

archaeological excavations In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

and papyri with a verifiable provenance to be authentic. There are

ethical codes Ethical codes are adopted by organizations to assist members in understanding the difference between right and wrong and in applying that understanding to their decisions. An ethical code generally implies documents at three levels: codes of bus ...

to discourage the usage of any unprovenanced finds, because these can be the result of fabrication or

looting Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

. Whenever undocumented papyri appear, the burden of proof is on those who claim they are authentic.

Historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

are often an effective method to expose modern pseudepigrapha. A text can show linguistic

anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

s when compared to known authentic documents from the same historical period, or to be

plagiarised Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of anothe ...

. For example, the text from the so-called Gospel of Jesus' Wife (2012) was found to be copied from the

Examples

Works commonly considered to be modern pseudepigrapha: *

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ The ''Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ'' (full title: ''The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ: The Philosophic and Practical Basis of the Religion of the Aquarian Age of the World and of the Church Universal'') is a book by Levi H. Dowling. ...

(1908) *

The Archko Volume The ''Archko Volume'' or ''Archko Library'' is a 19th-century volume containing what purports to be a series of reports from Jewish and pagan sources contemporary with Jesus that relate to the biblical texts describing his life. The work went thro ...

(1884) *

Book of Jasher (Pseudo-Jasher) The Book of Jasher, also called Pseudo-Jasher, is an eighteenth-century literary forgery by Jacob Ilive. It purports to be an English translation by Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus of the lost '' Book of Jasher''. It is sometimes called ''Pseudo-Jasher ...

(1751) * The Confessions of Pontius Pilate *

The Crucifixion of Jesus, by an Eyewitness ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

(1907) * The Description of Christ * Essene Gospel of Peace (1923) * Gospel of Jesus' Wife (2012) * Gospel of Josephus (1927) * The Gospel of the Holy Twelve (1898) * The Letter from Heaven (1922) * Letter of Benan (1910) * Life of Issa (allegedly discovered by

Nicolas Notovitch Shulim or Nikolai Aleksandrovich Notovich (; August 13, 1858 – after 1934), known in the West as Nicolas Notovitch, was a Crimean Jewish adventurer who claimed to be a Russian aristocrat, spy and journalist. Notovitch is known for his 1894 boo ...

in 1894)''New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings'' by Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. Mcl. Wilson (1 December 1990) page 84 "a particular book by Nicolas Notovich (Di Lucke im Leben Jesus 1894) ... shortly after the publication of the book, the reports of travel experiences were already unmasked as lies. The fantasies about Jesus in India were also soon recognized as invention... down to today, nobody has had a glimpse of the manuscripts with the alleged narratives about Jesus" Price, Robert M. (2003). ''The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?''. Prometheus Books. p. 93. "It remains quite clear that Notovitch's ''Unknown Life of Jesus'' was a hoax." * The Lost Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles * Oahspe (1882) * Urantia Book