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 Mary New Testament people named Mary The name "Mary" (Greek ' or ') appears 61 times in the New Testament, in 53 different verses. It was the single most popular female name among Palestinian Jews of the time, borne by about one in five women, and most of the New Testament references to "Mary" provide only the barest identifying information. Scholars and traditions therefore differ as to how many distinct women these references represent and which of them refer to the same person. A common Protestant tradition holds that there are six different women named as "Mary" in the New Testament: