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,
Aramaic New Testament The Persian Harmony, The Arabic Diatessaron, and the Commentary on the Diatessaron by Ephrem the Syrian have provided recent insights into Aramaic origins. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas and the various versions of the medieval Hebrew Gospel of Matthew also have provided clues to Aramaic foundations in the New Testament especially the gospels. Many 19th Century scholars (H. Holtzmann, Wendt, Jülicher, Wernle, von Soden, Wellhausen, Harnack, B. Weiss, Nicolardot, W. Allen, Montefiore, Plummer, and Stanton) theorized that portions of the gospels, especially Matthew, were derived from an Aramaic source normally referred to as Q. The best evidence for at least