Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

One obvious question concerning the psuedonymous letters of Paul is how they managed to gain acceptance by early Christians who knew that Paul was long-since deceased?

Does anyone know of a well-regarded text and/or reference that discusses the possible route of transmission for these "forged" documents?

There are two directions to think about regarding pseudonymous works:

1) respectful wish to emulate while dealing with some community difficulty, and

2) politico-theological intention to gain control of the narrative for a significant issue.

(These can sometimes seem similar enough to confuse, but I think the difference is significant and needs to be established when apportioning motivation to particular texts.)

Each explains why the texts involved get absorbed into collections. Once one notices that their collection doesn't include certain texts in circulation, why should one not decide to include something that a fellow community has?