Development of the New Testament canon Development of the New Testament canon The canon of the New Testament is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most, it is an agreed-upon list of twenty-seven books that includes the Canonical Gospels, Acts, letters of the Apostles, and Revelation. The books of the canon of the New Testament were written before 120 AD. For the Orthodox, the recognition of these writings as authoritative was formalized in the Second Council of Trullan of 692. The Catholic Church made dogmatic definition upon its Biblical canon in 382 at
Development of the Old Testament canon the New Testament) rather than upon Jerome's translation into Latin, which at the time was the Bible of the Catholic Church. The reformers saw the Apocrypha at variance with the rest of Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church uses them to support the doctrine of Purgatory, for prayers and Masses for the dead (), and for the efficacy of good works in attaining salvation (; ), things that Protestants then and today deem to be blatantly contradicting other parts of the Bible. Luther did remove the deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament of his translation of the Bible, placing them in