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
Old Testament messianic prophecies quoted in the New Testament who had not yet given birth and who might or might not be a virgin, and the Greek translation rendered almah as "parthenos", the Greek word for "virgin". Scholars agree that "almah" has nothing to do with virginity, but many conservative American Christians still judge the acceptability of new bible translations by the way they deal with Isaiah 7:14. The virgin birth is found only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke; there is no reference to the birth of Jesus in Mark's gospel or the Gospel of John, nor in the epistles of Paul, who says that Jesus was