The Ascension of Authorship traces the history of the idea of the author in the ancient world, beginning with the attribution practices of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. Jed Wyrick explores the testimony of Josephus on the succession of prophetic scribes and their superiority to Greek historiographers, and interprets the formation of the biblical canon in this light.

The Ascension of Authorship also examines the Greek scholarly methodology that questioned traditional connections between names and texts, a methodology perfected by Hellenistic grammarians and inherited by early Christian scholars. Wyrick argues that the fusion of Jewish and Hellenistic approaches toward attribution helped lead to St. Augustine’s reinvention of the writer of scripture as an author whose texts were governed by both divine will and human intent.

Preface ix
A Note on Translations and Transliterations xiii
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1   The Scribes of the Hebrew Bible  21
CHAPTER 2   Attaching Names to Biblical Books 80
CHAPTER 3   The Jewish Critique of Greek Letters 111
CHAPTER 4   Biblical and Homeric Textualization
According to Josephus 136
CHAPTER 5   Peisistratus and Ptolemy 203
CHAPTER 6   Aristotle and Ezra 281
CHAPTER 7   From Canon to Authorship 344
Conclusion 382
Notes 399
Bibliography 461