11-02-2006, 08:37 AM
http://www.new-tradition.org/classical.htm
Falsification of the Classical Texts
by Vadim Cherny
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The historical references to the events of Jesus' mission do not necessarily negate the hypothesis that they were fabricated. Doubts as to the authenticity of classical texts arise not only in relation to religious writings--historical literature also may be unreliable to a much greater extent than it is commonly supposed.
Only a small number of works by early authors are extant today. Could some of those works, with significance for Christians, have been tampered with? Quite possibly.
There were workshops specializing in forged texts. How can forged texts be identified? By font? But it was easy to find the one matching ancient manuscripts. Binding? It was easy to replicate. Cross-references to other books? Creative scribes could make insertions step by step in different texts, and the changes were then passed on. Style? Some gifted writers were involved; remember the vague claims that Petrarch ran a large forgery shop. Basically, it is extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to uncover a good literary forgery. We must not suppose that all forgers were as clumsy as the author of the Gospel of Pilate (which, by the way, many people considered authentic), whose story of Pilate's repentance may have been useful to the Church but was totally unbelievable. It was easy in those days with a minimal circulation of books for scribes to supplement the texts with paragraphs, episodes and entire chapters, introducing the required content into earlier texts. Thus, much of the historical literature supporting the Christian story may be inauthentic, inaccurate or just an outright forgery.