In Bart D Ehrman’s book “Was the New Testament Forged?” He discusses the premise that the Gospels and letters from the other apostles such as the Apostle Paul were not actually written by them. This does not imply that they were ghost written for Paul with his letters but simply created by someone else at a later time and then attributed to him. You pick up your Bible and open to the New Testament and there are the four Gospels that begin it in Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Were they actually written by those four disciples? Probably not. We have as evidence that they were written in a sophisticated form of Greek by probably illiterate Palestinian fishermen. Did these men speak Greek or Aramaic? When were they written? Probably they were recorded 50 or so years after the event. When you pick up a book today you can turn to the title page and it lists the author and copyright information. Did this information exist back then? No. First off each scroll (book) had to be hand written on parchment on scrolls by scribes rather than in the handwriting of the presumed author. Works were attributed to let’s say Mark or Mathew but were not written in their hand. Suppose we have a letter by Paul to the Corinthians. How was it delivered? Since the majority of the people were illiterate it was given to a spokesperson and read to the people as a letter by Paul. If there were several of these to be read to different groups every one of them would have been hand written probably by different scribes. Did Paul sign the bottom saying in effect, “This letter was written by me Paul and I approve this message.” No. Rather it would be delivered by someone who stated, “Here is a letter from Paul you need to read this to the congregation.” Possibly it would be attested to if Paul was there but suppose Joshua Ben Fred had a great idea and wanted it accepted what would stop him from saying, “This is by Paul please read it to the group.” One of the examples given is the physician Galen walking through a market and being shown a copy of Galen’s commentaries for sale only he had never written it.
Using the term forgery does not refer to someone copying a letter by Paul and then trying to sell it as Paul’s such as copyrighted books in China or in one case a copy of the last Harry Potter book that went on sale in China which was not the actual book. These things happen now and they happened then. When the New Testament was finally assembled and approved of centuries later what proof was there that the finally approved books were in fact written by the people they were attributed to? They may have been or not been. They had simply been passed down over the centuries and were regarded as being what they were claimed to be. Remember until Gutenberg started mass producing books that were all identical in form the necessary documentation simply didn’t exist.
We seem to regard theological documentation as carved in stone and attested to. It wasn’t. New ideas might come along and simply be added. Scrolls were not the best way to pass on information but were much easier to write on than a bound book. When the New Testament was put together how was it assembled? Committees of learned men would vote on which books they thought were genuine and which they didn’t. Some passages were obviously fraudulent such as one story where Paul takes a smoked dead fish and by touching it brings it back to life and it swims away. At least it would be fraudulent to us though people back then might be amazed at the powers he had and readily accept it. Happily it was not included.
One reviewer stated:
http://news.discovery.com/history/bible-new-testament-forgery-110518.html
and wrote “According to the biblical scholar, at least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries, while only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul were probably written by him.
"Virtually all scholars agree that seven of the Pauline letters are authentic: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon," says Ehrman.
Individuals claiming to be Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians, he adds.
Contradictory views, discrepancies in the language and the choice of words among the books attributed to Paul are all evidence of this forgery, the author asserts.
For example, Ehrman’s analysis of the book of Ephesians shows that the text, filled with long Greek sentences, doesn’t match with Paul’s peculiar Greek writing style, made of short sentences.
Moreover, the content of what the author says "stands at odds with Paul’s own thought, but is in line with the Ephesians," writes Ehrman.
The biblical scholar, who also challenges the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, disputes the assumption that the Apostle Peter wrote the Epistles of Peter or anything else.”
In Wikapedia we get the following opinion: The Pauline epistles are the fourteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, although many dispute the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews as being a Pauline epistle.[1]
Seven letters are generally classified as “undisputed”, expressing contemporary scholarly near consensus that they are the work of Paul: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Six additional letters bearing Paul's name lack academic consensus: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus. The first three, called the "Deutero-Pauline Epistles," have no consensus on whether or not they are authentic letters of Paul. The latter three, the "Pastoral Epistles", are widely regarded to be pseudepigraphical works, though certain scholars do consider Paul to be the author.[2] There are two examples of pseudonymous letters written in Paul’s name apart from the alleged New Testament epistles: These are the Epistle to the Laodiceans and 3 Corinthians. Since the early centuries of the church, there has been debate concerning the authorship of the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, and modern scholars reject Pauline authorship.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Pauline_epistles
Certainly Ehrman’s book is controversial but he is not alone in his thinking as can be seen in other references. For a true history of Christianity his analysis is important as another point of view. It disputes the dogma presented by the canon of the New Testament by asking what is it based on what may not be the opinion of the people to whom it is attributed. Theological thought changes through the centuries and while faith in the story of Jesus may certainly have validity in your life there may be some aspects that have been changed since that time and do not reflect the true views of his original followers.
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