Development of the New Testament canon somewhat similar to the twenty-seven-book NT canon, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them. Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings are claimed to have been accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the 3rd century. In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of the books that would become the twenty-seven-book NT canon, and he used the word "canonized" ( "kanonizomena") in regard to them. The first council that accepted the present canon of the
New Testament people named Mary New Testament people named Mary The name "Mary" (Greek ' or ') appears 61 times in the New Testament, in 53 different verses. It was the single most popular female name among Palestinian Jews of the time, borne by about one in five women, and most of the New Testament references to "Mary" provide only the barest identifying information. Scholars and traditions therefore differ as to how many distinct women these references represent and which of them refer to the same person. A common Protestant tradition holds that there are six different women named as "Mary" in the New Testament: