New Testament the New Testament before 70 AD. Others give a final date of 80 AD, or at 96 AD. Collections of related texts such as letters of the Apostle Paul (a major collection of which must have been made already by the early 2nd century) and the Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (asserted by Irenaeus of Lyon in the late-2nd century as "the" Four Gospels) gradually were joined to other collections and single works in different combinations to form various Christian canons of Scripture. Over time, some disputed books, such as the Book of Revelation and the Minor
Oxyrhynchus Gospels and Luke 9:50, but the differences in phrasing show they are textually independent of the Gospels. A precise date for composition is unknown; 50 is possible, though a date of around 150 AD. is more widely accepted by scholars. John Dominic Crossan notes the mutilated condition in his introduction to the fragmentary text in "The Complete Gospels" resulting in highly conjectural reconstructions of the text, which, however, "does not seem to be dependent on the New Testament gospels... As an independent gospel, it belongs, insofar as its fragmentary state allows us to see, not with discourse gospels involving the risen