Development of the New Testament canon a heretic and in the early 4th century Bishop Theodoretus of Cyrrhus and Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (both in Syria) rooted out all copies they could find of the Diatessaron and replaced them with the four canonical Gospels (M 215). As a result, no early copies of the Diatessaron survive—although a very early fragment suggests it would have been crucial evidence for the true state of the early Gospels (see IX). By the 5th century, the Syriac Bible, called the Peshitta, was formalized, accepting Philemon, along with James, 1 Peter and 1 John, but excluding 2 John, 3 John, 2
Language of the New Testament original language of the New Testament claim logical improbabilities in the Greek Text compared to the Syriac/Hebrew Texts and vocabulary containing wordplay in the Syriac/Hebrew New Testament texts that parallels Hebraic wordplay in the Old Testament. These arguments are rejected by the academic mainstream. Language of the New Testament The New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600). The New Testament Gospels and Epistles were only part of a Hellenistic Jewish culture