As a sample of his work from his NT intro, here is what Brown writes in chapter 25 of his Intro to the NT:
PSEUDONYMITY AND THE DEUTEROPAULINE WRITINGS
Before we enter the problematic terrain of deuteroPauline letters, i.e., those that bear Paul’s name but possibly were not written by him, let us discuss the difficult concept of pseudepigraphy (literally, but often misleadingly, “false writing”) or pseudonymity (“false name”)1-terminology employed in bibli cal discussions with special nuance.
(A) Pseudonymous Composition in General
It may be clearer here to speak of “writer” rather than “author.” Normally, for us, “author” means not simply the one responsible for the ideas contained in a work but the one who actually drafted its wording. Ancients were often not that precise and by “author” may have meant only the authority behind a work. We are not totally unfamiliar with such a distinction, for we encounter the phenomenon of “ghost-writers,” particularly in the instance of entertainers who wish to write an autobiography but need the help of a skilled writer to cast their story in a correct or attractive way. Now more frequently, however, even a ghost-writer has to be acknowledged in the form of “The Autobiography of John/Jane Doe with the cooperation (or assistance) of John Smith.” That phenomenon is close to one ancient use of scribes (p. 4 1 1 above) and may be encountered in a genuine Pauline letter if Paul dictated the ideas and someone like Silvanus phrased them in writing. It is not what scholars mean by pseudonymity in reference to the NT works.
Unfortunately some confuse pseudonymous compositions (works that claim to be written by someone who did not write them) with anonymous compositions (works that do not identify by name their writer), especially in the instance where the writer has been externally identified. The Gospels, for instance, are anonymous; they do not identify their authors (see, however, John 2 1 :24); the attributions to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that appear in titles stem from the (late?) 2d century and are not part of the original works. Anonymous too are Acts, Heb, and I John (ll-Ill John claim to be written by '“the presbyter”). The pseudonymous works of the NT, i.e., those whose very wording identifies an author who may not have composed them, are ll Thess, Col, Eph, I-II Tim, Titus, Jas, I-ll Pet, and Jude. (The self-identification of the author is not reasonably disputed in the seven Pauline letters already discussed and in Rev [the prophet John].) In this Chapter I am leaving aside books not accepted into the biblical canon (Appendix II below).
586 §25. Pseudonymity and DeuteroPauline Writings
Modem readers also encounter writing under an alias or pen name, a method adopted for various reasons. In the 19th century Mary Anne Evans wrote under the male name George Eliot because it was difficult for women to get serious writing accepted. In the 20th century more than one author of mysteries has written under several names, sometimes with a particular fictional detective featured respectively by each "name;’ e.g., John Dickson Carr and Carter Dickson are names for the one male author; Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine are names for the one female author. Writing under an alias is objectionable when deception is intended (e.g., composing a new Sherlock Holmes story and selling it as a recently discovered, unpublished original by Arthur Conan Doyle) but not when one is publicly continuing to write in the style of the now defunct original author (e.g., Sherlock Holmes scripts used in movies featuring him active during World War II).
In NT research some who first proposed that letters attributed to Paul were really pseudonymous hinted that the purpose might be fraudulent, but that connotation has largely disappeared from the discussion.2 Most often what is being suggested is that one of the Pauline “school” of disciples took it upon himself to write a letter in Paul’s name because he wanted it to be received authoritatively as what Paul would say to the situation addressed. Such a situation makes sens’e if one supposes that Paul was dead and the disciple considered himself an authoritative interpreter of the apostle whose thought he endorsed. Attribution of the letter to Paul in those circumstances would not be using a false name or making a false claim that Paul wrote the letter. It would be treating Paul as the author in the sense of the authority behind a letter that was intended as an extension of his thought-an assump tion of the great apostle’s mantle to continue his work. Indeed, such attribu tion could serve to continue the apostle’s presence, since letters were consid ered a substitute for personal face-to-face conversation (J. D. Quinn, ABO 6.564). Mutatis mutandis the same may be said of other proposed instances of NT pseudonymity: Those who considered themselves in the school of James (of Jerusalem), or of Peter may have written letters in their author ity’s name.
Justification for positing this type of pseudepigraphy is found in the OT.
Books of law written 700 or 800 years after Moses’ time were written in his name since he was the great lawgiver. Psalms (even those with titles attribut ing them to others) were collected in a Davidic psalter since David was famed as a composer of psalms or songs. A book like Wisdom written in Greek ca. 100 Be was attributed to Solomon, who had lived 800 years before, since he was the wise man par excellence. Prophets in the school of Isaiah continued writing 200 years after the prophet’s death and had their compositions included in the Book of Isaiah. Apocalypses, both canonical and non canonical, tended to invoke the name of famous figures from the past (Daniel, Baruch, Enoch, Ezra) as seers of the visions now being narrated, long after their lifetime. In the centuries just before and after Jesus’ time pseudepigraphy seems to have been particularly frequent even in Jewish works of a nonapocalyptic nature: the Prayer of Nabonidus, Odes of Solomon, Psalms of Solomon.
(B) Problems about Pseudonymity
True as all that may be, when we posit the pseudonymous character of NT works (as I shall), difficulties remain that should not be overlooked; and readers are asked to keep them in mind in the next Chapters. I have cited OT examples of pseudonymity where centuries separated the person from the writings; consequently they are not really parallel to works written within a few years of Paul’s life. We speak of disciples of Paul or adherents to the Pauline school of thought as pseudonymous writers, but we do not know their precise identity. (Silvanus, Timothy, Titus, and even Luke have been suggested for the various works). How close did one have to be to the historical Paul to write in his name? At times was it simply a matter of know ing Paul’s writings and using an earlier letter as a basis for further composi tion? (That suggestion has been made to explain the writing of II Thess in dependence on I Thess, and of Eph in dependence on Col.) Some scholars would date the Pastorals to AD 125 or later when Paul would have been dead a half century or three quarters. How long after the master’s death could one still claim authority to write in his name, especially when other Christian writers of the postapostolic generation were writing in their own names? How are canonical pseudonymous works different from apocrypha written in the name of NT figures but rejected by the church as noncanonical?6
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588 §25. Pseudonymity and DeuteroPauline Writings
Is the audience (church) addressed to be taken as historical? For instance, if pseudonymous, was II Thess written to the church at Thessalonica as I Thess was, or did the writer simply copy that address since he was using I Thess as a guide for his motif? How in the l st century would a wider audience have received a letter seemingly addressed to the problems of the church at Thessalonica? Did the audience who first received a pseudony mous letter know that it was actually written by another in Paul’s name? Would the letter’s authority have been diminished if that were known? Did the writer think that such knowledge made any difference? (II Pet makes the author’s apostolic identity of key importance, e.g., 1 : 1 6.) Would the later church have accepted these letters into the canon had it known they were pseudonymous?? The percentage of scholarly opinion holding that the writer was not the claimant varies for each work, and so there remains the obliga tion to ask and answer the question: What difference does a decision on the question of pseudepigraphy make in how this letter/epistle is understood?
What are the criteria for determining genuineness and pseudonymity? They include internal data, format, style, vocabulary, and thought/theology.8 Already on pp. 4 1 1 , 498, 55 1 above we saw some problems with these crite ria; but since scholarship is almost evenly divided on whether Paul wrote II Thess, we can test them more practically in the next Chapter.