Like we mentioned earlier, the Old Testament and the New Testament are compilation libraries of sacred writings written over long periods of time. Many of the authors wrote the books not ever aware that we would be reading them nearly 2000 years later. The process of how the New Testament canon came together is not one that many people are aware of.  

While the content of the New Testament may have been written over a period of time lasting about 60-70 years, a universally accepted canon took over 300 years to form. This process not only shows us how the various Christians accepted the particular texts that they did, but it also shows us how the Holy Spirit worked in the many Church leader’s lives to bring the New Testament that we have into existence as an agreed upon canon.           

The beginning formative process started from the various oral traditions that were conveyed from person to person, family to family and people group to people group. To 21^st century Americans this is a rather scary proposition because we know how easy it is to forget our parents birthdays or which year it was that we took a specific trip in.

What we must realize is that the majority of the people living in the Roman Empire and in Palestine were illiterate. It was extremely critical that they were good memorizers of facts and procedures. Their very life and livelihoods often depended on it. Whereas we in North America have ready access to information via the internet, so we do not place much, if any emphasis at all on memorization.

The first century culture demanded such memorizational skills for survival. Jewish children were taught to memorize vast portions of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). This was the only way they could practice their religion which was at the very core of their cultural and social lives.

This is also why Jesus could quote the Old Testament as He interacted with people during His Earthly ministry. He did not have to identify who He was quoting or even that He was quoting their own Scriptures. They knew what He was saying because they had more than likely heard it dozens and dozens of times and/or had themselves already put it to memory. The oral traditions of reciting history and various literary works and sayings were indeed procured very accurately, especially when compared to the standards practiced today.

Another evidence found in the New Testament that shows us that the Gospel of Jesus was being transmitted through oral traditions and reliable accounts is found in a verse in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul is speaking to the Christians in Ephesus; "In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts 20:35) When the four New Testament Gospels are read beginning to end, we find that that quotation of the words of Jesus when He said, ”It is more blessed to give than to receive” never appears in the Gospels. Thus we can easily assume that the only way Paul knew what Jesus had said was for someone to have told him that.     

Slowly over time these oral traditions about Jesus were written down by those who were the closest followers of Jesus or the people they were directly teaching. As discussed earlier, this was probably happening for the most part somewhere in the time frame of 45-65 AD. The original New Testament writers almost certainly used papyrus sheets and rolls. [1]

These documents were often copied and passed to neighboring Christian communities and congregations. As would be expected the originals would often fade out of existence due to excessive handling or environmental conditions not being conducive to their natural preservation. Generally speaking those who copied theses original autograph documents were very skilled at making very accurate copies. They were in a sparsely populated trade that required them to be extremely accurate in handling and duplicating any such documents.       

John Ryland P457 Papyrus

Today we only have manuscript copies of those first and earliest autograph documents. One of the oldest verifiable manuscript copies that exists is known as the John Ryland P457 papyrus. The P457 papyrus resembles the size of a person’s hand and bears writing on both sides. It dates to the early 2^nd century AD – approximately 120 AD. It contains passages for John’s Gospel. Ironically, the one text found on the Ryland P457 papyrus is John 18:38 “Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?”

Other early manuscript copies include the Chester Beatty Papyruses P45 & P46. These two papyruses are dated to the late 2^nd and early 3^rd century AD. P45 records much of the four New Testament Gospels, while P46 contains much of the text of Paul’s epistles. An overwhelming number of handwritten texts are available for studying the New Testament in the original Greek.[2] Today we have well over 5000 manuscripts available.[3] We also have many of the extant autograph documents of the early Church fathers and doctors starting in the late first century all the way up to the time of St. Augustine n the middle 400s AD and beyond.

Partial Chester Beatty P45 Papyrus

These documents are often called the patristic writings of the Church. There are so many quotations in these patristic writings that if we didn’t have any Greek manuscripts, if we didn’t have any translations into these other languages, we could reconstruct practically the entire New Testament from the quotations made by the Church fathers.[4] All of this goes to show us that the New Testament canon was formed with an abundance of resources. These resources are also the foundational evidence that the New Testament text has been handed down to us very accurately since its formation nearly seventeen centuries ago.    

The very earliest indicators that a canon of Scripture was starting to be formed for the newly birthed Christian community of faith were actually found in the New Testament. In Peter’s second letter we read; “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:14-16)

In this text Peter mentions the letters that Paul has written. But then he categorically equates Paul’s letters to other accepted Scripture when he says; “which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures”. This statement is highly indicative that Paul’s letters were being circulated throughout the Christian Churches in the Roman Empire and Palestine. It is obvious that they considered those Pauline letters to be somewhat sacred and equivalent to the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures which had already been established.    

It is not until the middle of the 2^nd century that we can observe some very definable official efforts to formalize these written documents into a universally accepted canon. Irenaeus, who was the Church bishop and apologist at Lyon around 120-150 AD was confronted with the growing heresies of the Gnostics. He set forth his apologetics for the true orthodox Christian doctrine in writing so that other Christians would know how to discern genuine Christian doctrine from the heretical practices of the Gnostics.

In his writing he quotes large amounts of the texts that are now in the New Testament Scripture. In fact, the only books that he doesn’t quote or make a reference to Philemon, II Peter, III John and Jude. In his writings he also gave some literary value to a book called the “Shepherd of Hermas”  and to a book by a first century Roman bishop titled  “I Clement”.

Irenaeus is probably most famous for his selection of the four New Testament Gospels and defending their use in the Church and in the developing canon of Scripture. Irenaeus was clear that there were four gospels which described Jesus’ life.[5] These are the four Gospels we have and know today.

 His reason for the exclusive use of these four was that they were the only Gospels that gave the “passion narrative”, that being the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This requirement is often referred to as the “Gospel Criteria”.  

He defended the fact of four and only four Gospels in a proposed canon because of the four living creatures around the throne of God listed in Revelation.  Generally speaking, from the time of Irenaeus the New Testament contained practically the same books as we receive today, and were regarded with the same reverence that we bestow on them today.[6]

Around 140 AD a teacher named Marcion, who had been influenced by the local Gnostics published a list of writings that he felt were adequate to be used by his growing sect located in the city of Rome. Marcion despised Judaism and felt that orthodox Christianity had not removed itself adequately from the Jews. In his canon he included highly edited version of the Gospel of Luke and 11 of Paul’s epistles. Marcion used Luke’s Gospel because it is the only Gospel authored by a Gentile. Luke’s Gospel displayed the Gentile mentality in its text and rarely elevated Jewish customs and practices. 

In the year 1740, L.A. Muratori discovered in a manuscript in Milan a list of the books in use at Rome circa 200.[7] This list became known as the Muratorian Canon and might very well reflect the earliest standard acceptance of certain New Testament Scripture texts in orthodox Christianity. Included in the Muratorian list are; the four Gospels (Luke and John were named as such but Matthew and Mark were unnamed), thirteen of Paul’s epistles, two of John’s epistles, Jude and one other book that bore the title of “Book of Wisdom”.

Ultimately, as the idea and process of the New Testament canon was passed down through the next two centuries, a criteria for inclusion began to emerge in the Church’s choices for accepted Christian Scripture. The three most influential aspects regarding the various selections of the texts were first the timing of the book. How close to the time of Jesus Christ was it first written? Generally if a text was known to be written within the 1^st century AD it could at least be considered.

The authorship of a book was also something that influenced the process of acceptance. If the book was written by an apostle or a companion or direct disciple of an apostle it was still a very likely candidate for acceptance. The issue of authorship was thought to bring credibility to each accepted text that was being considered.              

The third standard of criteria was whether or not the book in question was in theological harmony with orthodox Christian beliefs and practices. This was specifically critical when it came to salvation through faith in the provision of God’s grace. This salvation was exclusively provided for in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s one and only Son.     

Another aspect of criteria that was occasionally applied was how widely used and accepted the book was by the existing Churches as a whole. There were well over 300 bishops presiding over thousands of congregations by the middle of the 4^th century. For example if only five of those bishops were using a particular text in their worship liturgies and sermons, it would have had an impact on the inclusion factor of that book to the New Testament canon as it was forming.

After Constantine the great conquered Rome in 312 AD he began to befriend Christianity. The following year after he conquered Rome he issued the Edict of Milan which legalized the practice of the Christianity. The edict did not make Christianity the new state religion, but it did bring the general persecution of Christians to an end.      

In 325 AD Constantine convened what today we refer to as the Council of Nicaea. There were over 300 bishops invited to attend from all around the Roman Empire. After much debate they were able to settle some theological issues regarding the actual nature of Jesus Christ and the relational context of God in three persons – the Trinity. They also formalized the universal statement of Christian belief that we now refer to as the Nicene Creed.

Shortly after the Council of Nicaea was concluded, Constantine decided to move the capital of Rome to the ancient city of Byzantium (now known as Istanbul). He did this so as to give a fresh start to the Roman Empire as it began to embrace Christianity more and more. He laid the first stone on the western walls on November 4, 326.[8] The city would be renamed after Constantine, and would be thereafter known as “Constantinople”.

He planned to build fifty Christian Churches within that city-state region. In an effort to keep them uniformly aligned in doctrine and liturgical practice, the emperor Constantine declared that he would sponsor the publishing of fifty copies of the new Christian Bible for placement in each of his planned Churches.

This series of circumstances created the uniformity that brought Christianity into a foundational theological posture that could be identified throughout the Roman world of the 4^th century. By patronizing the production of Bibles for his new capital, the emperor hastened the closing of the Christian canon of Scriptures and help preserve a New Testament of twenty seven books.[9]

The first list which has come down to us of the twenty-seven books which embraces only those which appear in our New Testament is in a letter written by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in the year 367.[10]  Athanasius had led the theological discourse and development of the Nicene Creed at the Council of Nicaea 42 years earlier. Now, his affirmation of a New Testament canon appeared to be the pivotal point of its acceptance throughout Christianity.  

It was exactly three decades after Athanasius wrote that letter that a gathering of the known Christian bishops at the Council of Carthage finally confirmed Athanasius’s list of officially recognized books to be found in the New Testament. By this time Christianity was recognized as the state religion of the slowly declining Roman Emperor.

A little over three centuries after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Christian faith reaches a level of establishment where it had a recognized governmental system, a universal creed and a uniform canon of Scripture to read from. Though Christianity would continue to expand and be influenced by the local cultures and societies in which it could be found, the New Testament canon has remained just as it was finally acknowledged in the mid 4^th century.