Development of the New Testament canon writers. (Books not attributed to these three are: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, James, and Jude. The authorship of Hebrews has long been disputed.) Many modern Protestants point to four "Criteria for Canonicity" to justify the books that have been included in the Old and New Testament, which are judged to have satisfied the following: The basic factor for recognizing a book's canonicity for the New Testament was divine inspiration, and the chief test for this was apostolicity. The term "apostolic" as used for the test of canonicity does not necessarily mean apostolic authorship or derivation, but rather "apostolic authority". "Apostolic
Matthew 3:2 Matthew 3:2 Matthew 3:2 is the second verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. John the Baptist has just been introduced and this verse describes the message that he is preaching. In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads: The New International Version translates the passage as: For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 3:2 Clarke notes that this is the first of twenty-nine references to the Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew. Luke and Mark tend to prefer the term "kingdom of God." That Matthew