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,
New Testament people named John among Jews of the time. He is usually identified with the Mark mentioned in various epistles, and with Mark the Evangelist. This John is occasionally proposed as author of some of the Johannine works as well. Tarazi even goes so far as to attribute to him the Gospels of both Mark and John and all the other Johannine books. Five canonical books of the New Testament are ascribed to John and thus called collectively the "Johannine literature": Only in Revelation does the text itself name its author as John; the other Johannine works are ascribed to John only through their