New Testament the Anchor Bible Dictionary), may be the earliest known New Testament canon attributed to mainstream Christianity. It is similar, but not identical, to the modern New Testament canon. The oldest clear endorsement of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John being the only legitimate gospels was written "circa" 180 AD. A four gospel canon (the "Tetramorph") was asserted by Irenaeus, who refers to it directly in his polemic "Against the Heresies", "It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live,
Gospel of Thomas sayings represent "multiple attestations" and therefore are more likely to come from a historical Jesus than sayings that are only singly attested. The material in the comparison chart is from "Gospel Parallels" by B. H. Throckmorton, "The Five Gospels" by R. W. Funk, "The Gospel According to the Hebrews" by E. B. Nicholson and "The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition" by J. R. Edwards. Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas is a non-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi