MarkBsnr wrote:
“Basically it comes down to this: since the books of the NT did not come signed (it was considered hubris), the Church in its process of collecting, authorizing and amassing Scripture decided to put names to the books. 200 years or more after they were written. With the chaos of the intervening years, in some cases, they were simply assigned authorship based on what the Church thought at the time: e.g. Hebrews = Paul. It turns out that 1 Peter is unlikely to be Peter and 2 Peter is definitely not Peter because of the time of authorship. There are some studies going on now, and some that have recently concluded. The upshot is that we don’t know the authorship of much of the NT; however the Church has declared them Scripture and that we must believe or else we are not Christian. 2 Peter is Scripture, declared by the Church and therefore it is. Is there more you’d like?”
So, if I understand you correctly, the infallible church that canonized the writings that we know today as the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, i.e. declared said writings to be Holy Scripture, was quite willing to misname said writings and perpetuate such lies for centuries. Do I have that right?
Not exactly. The Church put names in place that they thought was right, to the best of their knowledge. We have in recent times, discovered that some of the books were not, in fact, written by the individuals named. Not a deliberate falsification at all. I'd give them kudos for admitting it in the first place - they are doing their best to find our who DID write them.