Forgeries in the New Testament?

Bart Ehrman is a skeptic when it comes to the Bible. One of his arguments is that most of the books in the New Testament were forged. He has said a large number of books in the early church were written by authors who falsely claimed to be apostles in order to deceive their readers into accepting their books and the views they represented. This is one challenge that Jonathan Morrow is taking on in his book Questioning the Bible.

He starts by saying authorship is usually determined by several factors. First, there are external factors such as comments by other writers or historical corroboration. In addition, there are internal factors like the claims of the author, his style, and theology. He also says it's important to notice if the document was disputed by those closest to its composition, also known as historical proximity. He notes that the twenty-seven documents contained in the New Testament are the earliest Christian writings in existence and therefore the closest to the resurrection event.

One of his key points is that Christians in the first century were able to write well. The earliest Christians were Jewish and highly valued reading, writing, and explaining the Hebrew Scriptures. So, the earliest Christians were not ignorant peasants unaware of the literary practices of the day.

Regarding forgeries, Morrow makes three points. First, forgeries certainly existed in the ancient world, but they were rejected when discovered. Secondly, forgeries did occur among some early Christian writings, but Christians rejected them when they were discovered. Third, and most importantly, there is no reason to think that a known forgery made it into the New Testament canon. Church fathers understood that the apostles were the authorized agents of the new covenant message and documents. Therefore, if the writings were not apostolic in origin, they were not regarded as authoritative.

The author asks a couple of key questions which I would like to save for next time – Do forgeries now exist in the New Testament canon? Who wrote the four Gospels?