I came across the following passage when looking into the question of whether a certain letter said to be by a famous ancient Roman woman was a forgery. It reminded me questions that have arisen among those debating whether a passage in Josephus is a partial or complete forgery (e.g. the Testimonium Flavianum — the passage about Jesus), or even whether entire New Testament letters are what they claim to be. The bolded highlighting and formatting is my own.
Also not unproblematic—and burdening the discussion with ambiguity—is the not uncommon tendency to handle the term “forgery” too summarily. The alternative between authenticity and forgery is too crude to capture more nuanced realities. It is also prone to introduce unchecked prejudices. The forger is often regarded from the outset as a bungler whose product reveals itself by its qualitative inferiority. While that is indeed possible and often the case, it need not necessarily always be so. The phrase “palpable rhetorical fabrication,” … is marked by its somewhat disparaging tone and is quite characteristic in this respect. On the other hand, this can lead to a situation where proof of quality is accepted as proof of authenticity—though the one by no means guarantees the other.
Finally, it must be remembered that not every literary fiction necessarily stems from an intentional intent to deceive. One need only point to speeches or letters in ancient historical works—though the same applies to rhetorical school exercises. But when a piece that was originally recognizable as fiction in its original context is removed from that context and transmitted as a fragment, it can then pose for later readers precisely the kind of problem whose complexity is no longer adequately addressed by the oversimplified alternative of authenticity or forgery.
Instinsky, Hans Ulrich. 1971. “Zur Echtheitsfrage der Brieffragmente der Cornelia, Mutter der Gracchen.” Chiron 1:177–90. https://doi.org/10.34780/HNT9-299I. pp 183f – ChatGPT translation