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,
Treatise on the Resurrection texts found at Nag Hammadi. It alludes to the account of the Transfiguration found in Mark, saying, "Do you remember reading in the Gospel how Elijah and Moses appeared?" Hence, the text indicates that the author accepted Mark's synoptic gospel narrative as a sacred text. Unlike many other texts found at Nag Hammadi, The Treatise on the Resurrection is not pseudepigraphal, since the author does not pretend to be a great apostolic figure who received a special revelation. The text is simply a letter to someone named Rheginos, and hence belongs to a genre more akin to the New Testament