Pseudepigrapha

Pseudepigrapha (from Greek pseudepigraphos, “falsely ascribed”), Jewish and Christian writings that appeared in the latter days of the Old Testament and continued well into Christian times; they were attributed by their authors to great religious figures and authorities of the past.

Pseudepigrapha exist in the canon of the Old Testament, for example, Ecclesiastes (associated with Solomon), the Song of Solomon, and Daniel. Protestants and Jews, however, customarily use the term Pseudepigrapha to describe those writings that Roman Catholics would term Apocrypha—that is, late Jewish writings that all scholars consider extracanonical. Among such works are the Book of Jubilees, the Psalms of Solomon, the Fourth Book of Maccabees, the Book of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Ezra, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, all of which are ascribed to canonical worthies of the Old Testament, date from intertestamental times, and have not been preserved in their original Hebrew or Aramaic. Fragments of other, hitherto unknown Pseudepigrapha, preserved in Hebrew or Aramaic, have turned up among the Qumran material (see Dead Sea Scrolls).

See also Apocrypha; Bible; Biblical Scholarship.