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,
The gospel of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures," (1 Corinthians 15:1-4 NASB) Christian theology describes the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ not as a new concept, but one that has been foretold throughout the Old Testament and was prophetically preached even at the time of the Fall of Man as contained in Genesis . It is called "Proto-Evangelion" or "Proto-Gospel". Gospel () is the Old English translation of Greek , meaning