Forged

by Bart D. Ehrman

  The archaeological digs have revealed no evidence of any public buildings whatsoever, such as shops or storage facilities.29 The market for buying food and other necessities must have been held in tents or booths in open unpaved public areas. The town is on none of the major international trade routes. The Roman roads in the area date from a hundred years after Peter’s life. There is no trace of any pagan or Gentile population in the town. There are no inscriptions of any kind on any of the buildings. Reed concludes that the inhabitants were almost certainly “predominantly illiterate.” Archaeologists have found no building structures or materials associated with social elites from the first century (e.g., plaster surfaces, decorative frescoes, marble, mosaics, red ceramic roof tiles). The houses were roughly constructed out of stone basalt, and mud or clay was used to fill in the gaps; they probably had thatched roofs.

  In short, Peter’s town was a backwoods Jewish village made up of hand-to-mouth laborers who did not have an education. Everyone spoke Aramaic. Nothing suggests that anyone could speak Greek. Nothing suggests that anyone in town could write. As a lower-class fisherman, Peter would have started work as a young boy and never attended school. There was, in fact, probably no school there; if there was a school, he probably didn’t attend; if he did attend, it would have been in order to receive rudimentary training in how to read Hebrew. But that almost certainly never happened. Peter was an illiterate peasant.

  This should come as no surprise, really. As it turns out, there is New Testament evidence about Peter’s education level. According to Acts 4:13, both Peter and his companion John, also a fisherman, were agrammatoi, a Greek word that literally means “unlettered,” that is, “illiterate.”

  And so, is it possible that Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter? We have seen good reasons for believing he did not write 2 Peter, and some reason for thinking he didn’t write 1 Peter. But it is highly probable that in fact he could not write at all. I should point out that the book of 1 Peter is written by a highly literate, highly educated, Greek-speaking Christian who is intimately familiar with the Jewish Scriptures in their Greek translation, the Septuagint. This is not Peter.

  It is theoretically possible, of course, that Peter decided to go to school after Jesus’s resurrection. In this imaginative (not to say imaginary) scenario, he learned his alphabet, learned how to sound out syllables and then words, learned to read, and learned to write. Then he took Greek classes, mastered Greek as a foreign language, and started memorizing large chunks of the Septuagint, after which he took Greek composition classes and learned how to compose complicated and rhetorically effective sentences; then, toward the end of his life, he wrote 1 Peter.

  Is this scenario plausible? Apart from the fact that we don’t know of “adult education” classes in antiquity—there’s no evidence they existed—I think most reasonable people would conclude that Peter probably had other things on his mind and on his hands after he came to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. He probably never thought for a single second about learning how to become a rhetorically skilled Greek author.

  Some scholars have suggested that Peter did not directly write 1 Peter (as I’ve indicated, almost no one thinks he wrote 2 Peter), but that he indirectly wrote it, for example, by dictating the letter to a scribe. Some have noted that the letter is written “through Silvanus” (5:12) and thought that maybe Silvanus wrote down Peter’s thoughts for him. I deal with this question of whether scribes or secretaries actually ever composed such letter-essays in Chapter 4. The answer is, “Almost certainly not.” But for now I can say at least a couple of words about the case of 1 Peter.

  First off, scholars now widely recognize that when the author indicates that he wrote the book “through Silvanus,” he is indicating not the name of his secretary, but the person who was carrying the letter to the recipients. Authors who used secretaries don’t refer to them in this way.

  But why not suppose that Peter used someone else, other than Silvanus, as a secretary? It would help to imagine how this theory is supposed to work exactly. Peter could not have dictated this letter in Greek to a secretary any more than he could have written it in Greek. That would have required him to be perfectly fluent in Greek, to have mastered rhetorical techniques in Greek, and to have had an intimate familiarity with the Jewish Scriptures in Greek. None of that is plausible. Nor can one easily think that he dictated the letter in Aramaic and the secretary translated it into Greek. The letter does not read like a Greek translation of an Aramaic original, but as an original Greek composition with Greek rhetorical flourishes. Moreover the letter presupposes the knowledge of the Greek Old Testament, so the person who composed the letter (whether orally or in writing) must have known the Scriptures in Greek.

  Is it possible, then, that the historical Peter directed someone to write a letter, basically told him what to say, and let him produce it? To that there are two responses. First, it would seem that if someone else actually composed the letter, it would be that person, not Peter, who was the author. But the other person is never named. Even in Paul’s letters that are coauthored (almost all of them) he names the others, even though he probably wrote them himself. In this case, Peter would not have even written the thing. And it should be remembered that there are good grounds for thinking that the letter was written after Peter had died, since it alludes to Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70.

  But even more compelling is this. Where in the ancient world do we have anything at all analogous to this hypothetical situation of someone writing a letter-essay for someone else and putting the other person’s name on it—the name of the person who did not write it—rather than his own name? So far as I know, there is not a single instance of any such procedure attested from antiquity or any discussion, in any ancient source, of this being a legitimate practice. Or even an illegitimate one. Such a thing is never discussed.

  There are plenty of instances of another phenomenon, however. This is the phenomenon of Christian authors writing pseudonymous works, falsely claiming to be a famous person. Ancient scholars would have called a book like that a “falsely inscribed” writing, a “lie,” an “illegitimate” child. Modern people would simply call it a forgery.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Forgeries in the Name of Paul

  WHEN I BECAME A BORN-AGAIN Christian in 1971, I was eager to read and learn all I could about the Scriptures. I had no idea at the time that there was such a thing as biblical scholarship, or that there were books written by real experts who had mastered the relevant ancient languages—Greek and Hebrew, for example—and plumbed all the ancient sources for years on end in order to provide historically accurate accounts. I was just as happy with a good novel about, say, Jesus or Paul as with something serious. And novels, of course, make for easy reading, just the sort of thing I liked.

  During the preceding year one of the best-selling biblical novels of all time had appeared, Taylor Caldwell’s Great Lion of God, a fictional account of the life of the apostle Paul. For eight months it had been on the New York Times bestseller list, and as far as I was concerned, if that many people read it, it must be accurate and informative. So I devoured it. It was only later in life that I realized just how much fiction there was in this “historical” novel. I remember, years after, fervently hoping that I hadn’t gotten too much of my “common knowledge” about Paul from this fantastical account.

  The one episode that stuck with me over the years involved Caldwell’s attempt to explain why Paul was so ripe for conversion to become a follower of Jesus after being such a violent persecutor of the church. The way she mapped out the scenario, roughly, was this. As a very young teenager Paul was extremely zealous for his Jewish faith and strove mightily to keep the Jewish law. But at one point he succumbed to an irresistible temptation. It involved a tryst out at the local lake with a dark-haired slave girl. This sexual encounter created an enormous burden of guilt in the young Paul, which he tried to assuage by becoming even more hyperreligious. As a youn
g man, he heard of the followers of Jesus, who were preaching that salvation can come to people who do not keep the law. Salvation comes simply through faith in Christ. Paul became incensed and got official permission to oppose and persecute them. This was a further way of working out his own personal guilt; by engaging in religious zeal he assuaged his conscience. But he found that the harder and harder he pressed for keeping the Jewish law in all its rigorous details, the more overwhelmed he was with guilt for having broken it.

  Then he had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. He realized for the first time both that he could not really keep the law and that he did not need to. Jesus brought a release from the deeply hidden guilt within him, and out of profound gratitude he threw himself with equal zeal into being a missionary for the church rather than its persecutor.

  Caldwell’s long book was a compelling read, especially for an eager teenager wanting to know more about the truth of his newfound faith. As it turns out, though, the entire plot is a fiction. There is no historical record of Paul’s sexual fling at the local pond and no indication that he felt tremendous guilt over being unable to keep the law, even though a lot of Christians continue to misinterpret Paul that way. We have a reasonable understanding of what Paul thought, since he has left us some letters (all in the New Testament). When he talks about his Jewish life before Jesus, even though he does indicate that he was extremely zealous for the law, he makes it quite clear that it was not because of guilt over being unable to keep it. On the contrary, Paul indicates that as a faithful Jew he was “blameless” in keeping the law (Phil. 3:6). When he became a follower of Jesus, it was not to resolve internal conflict and guilt. It was because he came to realize that Christ’s death was the only thing important for salvation, and everything else, even the law, was as worthless as “garbage” (as he puts it in Phil. 3:8)1

  Taylor Caldwell, of course, had access to Paul’s own writings and could have known what he actually said about his life before Jesus. But probably the reality of his life didn’t make as good a story as the idea of the tryst with the slave girl. Having the true account from the horse’s mouth (or in this case the Great Lion’s) has never stopped people from telling fictional accounts about Paul.

  Ancient Fictions About Paul

  OF ALL THE CHRISTIANS who have ever lived, probably no one has had more stories told about him than Paul. We still have a number of ancient legendary accounts, just as we have for Peter. In the case of Paul we have a record of someone actually being caught red-handed fabricating stories about him and being punished for it. Ancient people saw fabrications about historical figures (i.e., made-up stories) much as they saw forgeries (false authorial claims): they were pseuda, “falsehoods” or “lies,” and they normally were not tolerated.

  Many of the ancient fabricated accounts can be found in a book that has survived the ravages of time only in bits and pieces, called the Acts of Paul. The narrative describes the missionary activities of Paul, his preaching, and his amazing miracles. Probably the most famous part of the story involves Paul’s conversion of a wealthy young woman named Thecla, who abandons her fiancé to become Paul’s devoted follower.

  Paul is said to have arrived in the city of Iconium and to have been welcomed into the house of a Christian named Onesiphorus. There he preaches a sermon. But it is a sermon quite unlike anything Paul himself teaches in his own letters in the New Testament, where his message always concerns the need to believe in Jesus’s death and resurrection for salvation. Here, in the Acts of Paul, the apostle’s message is one of sexual abstinence. Only the pure in heart and body, preserved through remaining sexually chaste, can inherit the kingdom. This applies not only to single people, but also to those who are married. Sex is forbidden.

  Thecla, who lives next door, happens to be sitting in her second-floor window and overhears the sermon. She is engaged to a wealthy and prominent man, but decides on the basis of what she has heard to abandon her wedding plans and follow Paul. Her mother and her aggrieved fiancé try to dissuade her, but to no avail. Rejected and angry, they turn her over to the authorities to be burned at the stake for violating social custom. She miraculously escapes and becomes Paul’s follower. The rest of the story is about her adventures with Paul and her persecutions.

  In another city she resists the sexual advances of an aristocrat and once more is condemned to death. This time she is to be thrown to the wild beasts. She is upset, though, that she might die before she has been baptized into her new faith. Seeing a vat of water filled with man-eating seals (whatever those might be), she throws herself in and declares herself baptized. God performs another miracle, and Thecla escapes intact. Finally she reunites with the apostle Paul, informs him of her desire to spread the word of the gospel, and is authorized by him to do so.

  I’ve given just a brief sketch here of this fairly long and interesting story. The full account was very popular among some Christian groups in the early centuries. And it caused quite a stir among church leaders who were offended by the significant role it gave to Thecla as someone who could baptize (herself!) and preach the gospel, even though she was a woman. By the second century, most churches reserved such ministerial duties for men. But these stories, through no less significant a figure than Paul, seemed to authorize women to engage in them. Moreover, the “gospel” of Paul in this text is all about sexual abstinence and the avoidance of marriage. In other churches it was taught that the family was important, that the male leaders of the churches should be married, that their wives should have babies and be submissive to their husbands in all things. The alternative perspective of the Thecla story led to some serious divisions in the church.2

  We know this because the first time an ancient author mentions the story, it is in order to oppose it. The writer was the famous Christian theologian, defender of the faith, and misogynist Tertullian, who around 200 CE wrote a treatise on baptism. In this treatise he attacks women who used the story of Thecla as a justification for practicing baptism since, for Tertullian, only men should be allowed to baptize. Tertullian argues that this story of Thecla was fabricated and had no historical value. In fact, he says the author of the story was an elder (“presbyter”) in a church of Asia Minor. He was caught fabricating the account, was put on trial in the church, and was relieved of his duties. Thus, for Tertullian, the story cannot be used to authorize women’s baptism practices.3

  Scholars frequently cite this brief but fascinating passage from Tertullian in order to show that forgers were not welcomed in the church. I wish that were the point of the story, since I think it is true that forgers were not welcome. But unfortunately, the story is not about a forger. It is about a fabricator. This Asia Minor presbyter did not write a book claiming to be Paul; he wrote a book with fabricated stories about Paul. At the same time, it is true to say that he was treated as forgers were also generally treated. He was severely reprimanded for not speaking the truth.

  With good reason a number of scholars have argued that the presbyter did not actually invent these stories about Thecla, but simply retold them, editing them for his own purpose. In other words, the stories were floating around in the oral tradition for a long time before the end of the second century, when he produced his account. This may well be the case, as we will see later in this chapter when we return to the stories. But in any event, somebody made up the stories, since they are not historical. The author or editor who wrote them down was found out. And the consequences were not good.

  Noncanonical Writings Forged in the Name of Paul

  IF CHRISTIANS MADE UP stories about Paul, did they also make up writings allegedly by Paul? This is the question we asked about Peter in Chapter 2, and the answer here will be the same. There are numerous forgeries in the name of Paul from the early church, all of them, so far as we can tell, written to “authorize” certain views in the name of this great author. Some of these forgeries survive; we know of other forgeries that once existed, but have since been lost.

  FORGERIES P
ERPETRATED BY MARCION

  You might think that someone of Paul’s stature would have been a unifying influence on the early church. As it turns out, nothing could be farther from the truth. At about the time the presbyter of Asia Minor was propounding stories about Paul that led to splits over the role of women in the church, an even bigger menace to the church’s unity was coming from a completely different direction. It involved the teachings of one of Paul’s greatest early admirers, the second-century teacher and theologian Marcion.4

  It is unfortunate that we no longer have any of Marcion’s own writings. They were deemed heretical (“false teachings”) and destroyed. What we do have are the writings of his opponents, including especially the already-mentioned Tertullian, who wrote a five-volume refutation of Marcion’s teachings. We still have this work, and it is a gold mine of information about one of the most divisive persons in the history of the early church.

  Marcion came from the city of Sinope on the southern coast of the Black Sea. His father was reportedly a bishop of the local church, and so Marcion was raised, in the early second century, in a Christian household. His family was from the upper class, and he himself became an entrepreneur as a young man, apparently in the shipbuilding business. After he amassed a good deal of wealth, he left Asia Minor for the capital city of the empire, Rome, where he joined the church and participated actively in its ministry. Scholars have traditionally dated Marcion’s time in Rome as 139–144 CE.

  It was in Rome that Marcion developed his distinctive theological ideas. Marcion was especially attracted to Paul’s idea that a person is made right with God not by doing the requirements of the Jewish law (the “works of the law,” as Paul puts it), but only by having faith in Christ’s death and resurrection. Paul, in such books as Galatians and Romans in the New Testament, emphasizes that no one can be right with God through the works of the law. He preached his “gospel” (literally, the “good news”) to Gentiles, telling them that Christ’s death could bring a reconciliation with God for all who have faith.