Bible canonization timeline8/2/2023 ![]() ![]() There is evidence that Paul's letters had been collected by churches in several geographical locations by the end of the first century C.E. The process of forming a canon had begun even earlier. In fact, agreement on much of the list had been reached more than a century earlier. Even so, the first list that agrees with ours was a long time in coming.īy the time of Athanasius, or shortly before, the church had reached an informal consensus about most of the writings to be included in the "New" Testament. ![]() He names them in a different order, to be sure. The first list of "canonical" books that names the same twenty-seven writings found in our New Testament appears in the Easter letter of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, in 367 C.E. In designating the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as a canon, the church was declaring them to be its "rule" for faith and practice, its "normative" collection of writings. The meaning of the Greek term canon is "norm" or "rule," the standard by which things can be measured. This question is traditionally referred to as the formation of the canon. How did the church decide which books belong to the New Testament? When was the decision made? The answers to these questions constitute one of the most revealing yet least known aspects of early Christian history. ![]() From The Fourth R Volume 5-1 January–February 1992 ![]()
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