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
Dating the Bible Dating the Bible The four tables give the most commonly accepted dates or ranges of dates for the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the Deuterocanonical books (included in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bibles, but not in the Hebrew and Protestant bibles) and the New Testament, including, where possible, hypotheses about their formation-history. Table I is a chronological overview. Table II treats the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible books, grouped according to the divisions of the Hebrew Bible with occasional reference to scholarly divisions. Table III gives the Deuterocanonical books. Table IV gives the books of the New Testament, including the earliest preserved fragments