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,
Testament of Ba of Ba" was transmitted in manuscript form over many centuries, and so there are many different recensions of the text, but not one single, canonical printed version. Two early versions of the text have been identified by scholars: The "Testament of Ba" is also widely quoted in later Tibetan historigraphical works, for example the "Scholar's Feast" ("mkhas pa'i dga' ston"). The author of the "Scholar's Feast" calls the "Testament" the "Rba bzhed" (with an 'r' prefix to the Ba clan name), and refers to 'genuine', 'impure', 'large' and 'medium' versions of the text. A later, expanded version of the "Testament