In the first century, the Apostle Paul wrote:
"Now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as it from us, as though the Day of Christ had come." (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2)
While we don't know exactly how some had concluded that the Day of Christ had already come and gone or even how some didn't believe Jesus had even come in the flesh (2 John 1:7) when he was just in town, we do know the problem of fake letters aplenty had to be addressed by someone of genuine and recognizable authority, whether it was actually them or someone writing as if they were.
Let's first consider that 2 Thessalonians, a book that worries about fake letters, itself is considered by many scholars to be pseudepigraphy, false writing, forged and a deep fake along with several other letters in the NT attributed to both Paul and Peter but not written by them.
According to the biblical scholar, at least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries, while only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul were probably written by him.
"Virtually all scholars agree that seven of the Pauline letters are authentic: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon," says Ehrman.
"Individuals claiming to be Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians, he adds. Contradictory views, discrepancies in the language, and the choice of words among the books attributed to Paul are all evidence of this forgery," the author asserts.
(Note: Along with the fact that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were also originally anonymous gospels whose names were affixed decades later and not eyewitnesses or personal accounts of anything...well, deep fakes are as old as writing. No Gospel speaks in the first person. There is no "And then Jesus said to me". The Gospel accounts are not written as first-person narratives, and there are no direct statements in the Gospels suggesting they were written by people at the scene. )
"But why would an author claim to be an Apostle when he wasn't? The answer is pretty obvious, according to the scholar.
In the early centuries of the church, Christians felt under attack from all sides. 'They were in conflict with Jews and pagans over the validity of their religion ... but the hottest debates were with other Christians, as they argued over the right thing to believe and the rights ways to live,' said Ehrman. Thus Christians aiming to authorize views they wanted others to accept wrote in the name of the Apostles, 'fabricating, falsifying and forging documents,' says Ehrman.
'If your name was Jehoshaphat and no one had any idea who you were, you could not very well sign your own name to the book,' explains Ehrman. 'No one would take the Gospel of Jehoshaphat seriously. If you wanted someone to read it, you called yourself Peter. Or Thomas. Or James. In other words, you lied about who you really were,' Ehrman concludes. According to the scholar, the idea that "writing in the name of another" was a common, accepted practice in antiquity is wrong. Forgery was considered just as deceitful, inappropriate and wrong as it is today." Forgeries in the Bible's New Testament?
So there's that... Nothing new to see here.
However, Deeply Fake Prophet Thiel goes on to worry about himself being deeply faked, discredited, or scandalized. However, he does seem deeply faked already.
"Yes, computer technology and artificial intelligence can make very convincing fakes. More deep fakes are coming. Some will be used for the purpose of deceit and character assassination. I expect that the time will come when deep fake technology will be used to make it seem like I, and others in the CCOG say and/or do things, that we did not say or do. Actually, I mentioned that in a recent sermon." Daily Mail: An AI company is using deepfake technology to seamlessly dub your favorite actor’s dialogue; COGwriter: Dangers of ‘deep fakes’
I'm personally not convinced anyone would bother to take the time to deeply fake something about Prophet Thiel mostly known as "Prophet Who?"
Now to be sure, Deep Fake technology will lead to about as much skepticism about anything we see in the future as can be imagined. Perhaps that's the point. One can claim what is real is deeply fake or what is deeply fake is real. Depends on the need. Like 2 Thessalonians warning about fake letters "as from us" when itself is one. In our time, like a Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, or Bob Thiel claiming to be what they actually are not and deeply faked even if they fail to recognize it as being so.
