Development of the New Testament canon 1290 to include in the Armenian canon several apocryphal books: Advice of the Mother of God to the Apostles, the Books of Criapos, and the ever-popular Epistle of Barnabas. The Armenian Apostolic church at times has included the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in its Old Testament and the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, but does not always list it with the other 27 canonical New Testament books. The New Testament of the Coptic Bible, adopted by the Egyptian Church, includes the two Epistles of Clement. The canon of the Tewahedo Churches is somewhat looser than for other traditional Christian
Authorship of the Bible Authorship of the Bible Table I gives an overview of the periods and dates ascribed to the various books of the Bible. Tables II, III and IV outline the conclusions of the majority of contemporary scholars on the composition of the Hebrew Bible (the Protestant Old Testament), the deuterocanonical works (also called the apocrypha), and the New Testament. This table summarises the chronology of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament; the deuteroncanonical works date from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE (see Table III), and the New Testament writings from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE (see Table IV).