How Long Did It Take for the Books in the New Testament to End Up in the Bible?
The short answer: It’s complicated. But there wasn’t as much flux as some scholars seem to think.
According to New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, no church leader ever came up with “a definitive list of books to be included in the canon that matched our list today” until
the famous Athanasian letter of 367 C.E. [But] even the powerful Athanasius could not settle the issue once and for all.
From this, Ehrman goes on to suggest that the New Testament canon remained in flux for decades after this letter.
It is true that, in the year 367, Athanasius of Alexandria did write a letter in which he listed the same twenty-seven books that appear in the New Testament today — but there are a number of problems both with what Ehrman says and what he infers from this fourth-century letter.
The Earliest Surviving Listing of the Books of the New Testament: An Origen Story
In the first place, the Alexandrian church’s Easter letter of 367 isn’t the first surviving text to list the same twenty-seven books that show up in New Testaments today. More than a century before Athanasius penned this letter, Origen of Alexandria wrote these words:
Matthew first sounded the priestly trumpet in his Gospel; Mark also; Luke and John each played their own priestly trumpets. Even Peter cries out with trumpets in two of his epistles; also James and Jude. In addition, John also sounds the trumpet through his letters, and Luke, as he describes the Acts of the Apostles. And now that last one comes, the one who said, “I think God displays us apostles last,” and in fourteen of his epistles, thundering with trumpets, he casts down the walls of Jericho and all the devices of idolatry and dogmas of philosophers, all the way to the foundations (Homilae in Iosuam, 7:1).
And so, the first surviving listing of the twenty-seven books that appear in the Christian New Testament appears in a text that was written in the first half of the third century — not the second half of the fourth century.
Does that mean that the canon of the New Testament in total flux until sometime in the third century?
No — but some parts of the New Testament did remain in flux, while other portions were settled long before Origen was born. All in all, most of the New Testament texts — around twenty out of the twenty-seven — were settled and fixed in the earliest decades of the church’s existence, even as some texts did remain in flux for some time.
In a blog post and in his book Canon Revisited, Michael Kruger has provided some helpful context and clarification on this issue, using four categories that fourth-century historian Eusebius of Caesarea employed to describe the texts circulating in the churches (Historia Ecclesiastica, 3:25).
Category 1: “These Then Belong Among the Accepted Writings”
In the first place, and most importantly: Most of the New Testament was never in flux at all; a clear core of texts was fixed in the churches from the time they first began to circulate. This core included the four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, 1 John, and 1 Peter — texts that were known from the very beginning to have come from eyewitnesses or close associates of eyewitnesses of the risen Lord Jesus. Eusebius included John’s Revelation in this list as well, even though he himself had some reservations about this text. Still, some scholars, Kruger writes,
continue to claim there was no canon until the fourth or fifth century. But the existence of this “core” of recognized books shows that is simply not the case. These books had been established for generations and there was never any meaningful dispute about them.
Look carefully at this undisputed core of sacred texts: four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, John’s first letter, and Peter’s first letter. Even if these writings happened to be the only New Testament canon we had, every essential truth about Jesus Christ would have been preserved. Even if these texts were the sole textual basis of Christian beliefs and practices, little — if anything — would change in what Christians believe.
Category 2: “The Disputed Writings, Which Are Recognized by Many”
A few texts — such as James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John — were disputed. Contrary to what some popular skeptics seem to suggest, however, the canon as a whole was never disputed. The disputes had to do with this handful of texts on the fringes of the canon. Furthermore, the disputes seem to have been primarily over whether these texts were actually produced by apostolic eyewitnesses of the risen Lord Jesus.
Category 3: “The Rejected Writings”
Some other texts — such as Acts of Paul, Shepherd of Hermas, Apocalypse of Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, and Didache — were regarded as useful for devotional reading and guidance. Gospel of Peter seems to have served as a source of inspiration for many early Christians, even though its depiction of Jesus is not identical to the canonical Gospels. Nevertheless, these texts were rejected as authoritative because they couldn’t be connected clearly to apostolic eyewitnesses, even though many of these texts carried apostles’ names. And yet, Christians were not forbidden to read these texts simply because the texts weren’t authoritative or indisputably apostolic. This refutes, as Kruger points out, the impression
that the existence of a canon means that the church can never (or should never) use any other books outside the canon. … Early Christians did not share this belief. They saw nothing problematic about using books like the Gospel of the Hebrews and, at the same time, affirming that only four gospels are canonical.
Category 4: “Writings Not to Be Placed Even Among the Rejected Writings But to Be Cast Aside as Absurd and Impious”
Writings that taught false doctrines or falsely claimed to come from apostles were not merely rejected; these texts were treated as “wicked and impious” and as “forgeries,” according to Eusebius. This category included books such as Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias, Acts of Andrew, and Acts of John. There may have been instances where such texts were read devotionally. There is no clear evidence, however, that these writings were candidates for canonical status in the churches.
