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The canon of the New Testament is the set of books many modern Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible.For most churches, the canon is an agreed-upon list of 27 books [1] that includes the canonical Gospels, Acts, letters attributed to various apostles, and Revelation.
Debates on what works should be accepted as scripture would continue. The earliest version of the eventual consensus New Testament canon did not occur until 367, when bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in his annual Easter letter composed a list that is still recognized today as the canon of 27 books. [1]
Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter, written in 367, is widely regarded as a milestone in the evolution of the canon of New Testament books. [49] Some claim that Athanasius is the first person to identify the same 27 books of the New Testament that are in use today. Up until then, various similar lists of works to be read in churches were in use.
The Old and New Testament canons did not develop independently of each other and most primary sources for the canon specify both Old and New Testament books. [ citation needed ] For the biblical scripture for both Testaments, canonically accepted in major traditions of Christendom , see § Canons of various traditions .
Image of Athanasius of Alexandria on an icon. Tomus ad Antiochenos is a letter or mediation proposal written by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria on behalf of a regional synod he convened in Alexandria in 362, addressed to a group of bishops seeking a solution to the schism between "Eustathians" and "Meletians" in the parishes of Antioch.
Although the order in which Athanasius places the books is different from what is now usual, his list is the earliest reference to the present canon of the New Testament. [5] Athanasius reckons the Book of Wisdom, Sirach, the Book of Esther, Judith, the Book of Tobit, the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd of Hermas not as part of the ...
At least half of the canons are derived from earlier constitutions, and probably not many of them are the actual productions of the compiler, whose aim was to gloss over the real nature of the Constitutions, and secure their incorporation with the Epistles of Clement in the New Testament of his day.
Copied and widely read in the Early Church, [11] First Clement had been considered by some as part of the New Testament canon, e.g., listed as canonical in Canon 85 of the Canons of the Apostles, [12] among other early canons of the New Testament, showing that it had canonical rank in at least some regions of early Christendom.