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Pseudepigraphy is the ascription of false names of authors to works.

These at least are the basic and original meaning of the terms.

There have probably been pseudepigrapha almost from the invention of full writing. For example ancient Greek authors often refer to texts which claimed to be by Orpheus or his pupil Musaeus but which attribution was generally disregarded.

In Biblical studies pseudepigrapha refers particularly to works which purport to be written by Biblical persons or about Biblical matters, often in such a way that they appear to be works which ought perhaps to have been included in the Bible.

Many such works were also known as Apocrypha. But Protestants applied the word Apocrypha also to texts found in the Roman Catholic which were not found in Hebrew manuscripts, those texts which Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical. Accordingly there arose in Protestant Biblical scholarship an increased use of pseudepigrapha for works that appeared to represent themselves as though there ought to be part of the Bibical canon but which stood outside both the canon recognized by Protestants and Catholics and also outside the canon the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and which Protestants generally meant when they referred to the Apocrypha.

The term accordingly is now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics for the clarity it brings to discussion.

To confuse the matter, some churches accept books as canonical which Roman Catholics and almost all Protestant demoninations consider pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority and some churches reject books that both Roman Catholics and Protestants accept. The same is true of some Jewish sectsIn the last two centuries the Jewish community has divided into a number of religious denominations; also called "branches" or "movements". Each denomination has a different understanding of what principles of belief a Jew should hold, and how one should.

There is a tendency not to use the word pseudepigrapha when describing works later than about 300 C.E. when referring to Biblical matters. For later periods scholars are more likely to speak of legendA legend (Latin, legenda "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and or midrashMidrash (pl. Midrashim) is a Hebrew word referring to a method of reading details into, or out of, a Biblical text. The term "midrash" also can refer to a compilation of Midrashic teachings, in the form of legal, exegetical or homiletical commentaries on.

Examples of Old TestamentThe Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures constitutes the first major part of the Christian Bible, usually divided into the categories law, history, poetry (or wisdom books) and prophecy. All of those books were written before the birth of Jesus. Canon o pseudepigrapha are the Ethiopian Book of EnochThe Book of Enoch is an Old Testament pseudepigraphal apocrypha attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. Scholars date its composition to the 2nd century BC. The title is mentioned in the Bible ( Jude 14), but there is debate over whether Jude, JubileesThe Book of Jubilees expands and reworks material found in Genesis to Exodus 15. 22 to recast the traditions of Judaism in the light of traditionalist concerns of the 2nd century BCE. It claims to present "the history of the division of the days of the La (but both of these are considered canonical in the Abyssinian ChurchThe Abyssinian Church was created, as the chronicle of Axum relates, when Christianity was adopted in Abyssinia in the 4th century. 330 Frumentius was made first bishop of Ethiopia by Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Cedrenus and Nicephorus err in dat of Ethiopia), the Life of Adam and Eve and the Pseudo-Philo. Examples of New Testament pseudepigrapha (but here also likely to be called New Testament Apocrypha) are the Gospel of Peter, Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, and Acts of Thomas.

Many writings of New Testament pseudepigrapha are either considered fradulent or too heavily influenced by Gnostic beliefs to have been included in the canon of the Bible. One such book is the Odes of Solomon which are a collection of early christian (first to second century) hymns and poems, originally written in the Syriac language.