Gospel of Thomas in the late 2nd century that "since there are four quarters of the earth ... it is fitting that the church should have four pillars ... the four Gospels" ("Against Heresies", 3.11.8), and then shortly thereafter made the first known quotation from a fourth gospel—the canonical version of the Gospel of John. The late 2nd-century Muratorian fragment also recognizes only the three synoptic gospels and John. Bible scholar Bruce Metzger wrote regarding the formation of the New Testament canon, "Although the fringes of the emerging canon remained unsettled for generations, a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of
Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research Bivin and Roy B. Blizzard Jr. which was reviewed by Michael L. Brown. The book itself is not published by the Jerusalem School, and only one of the co-authors is of the Jerusalem School. Yet, Brown not only questioned the work of individual school member David Bivin and co-author Roy Blizzard Jr., but by association also the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research as a whole. Yet, even in his criticism of reconstructing a Hebrew Gospel (of which many Jerusalem School members are skeptical of as well), he affirms three significant points, which dovetail with the methodology—the three assumptions—of the Jerusalem