The Growth of A New Testament Canon – General Trends

In these blog posts, we are looking at the development of the New Testament Canon. Over the last two posts, we saw evidence from the Muratorian Fragment and the writings of the early Church historian Eusebius. This week we will observe some general trends.

When we consider the evidence we have from the early Church, it is clear that the Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s writings were accepted very early and almost universally. They were quickly adopted virtually everywhere.

Second, 1 Peter and 1 John were accepted early and universally. Like the first group, these two writings were almost universally recognized and embraced from the earliest days of the Church.

Third, the remaining general epistles (Hebrews-Jude) and Revelation were slower to be accepted. They were accepted by some parts of the Church very early, but others were more cautious in their acceptance. However, by around 300 they were accepted universally as well.

Finally, there were some differences between the East and the West regarding when books were accepted. For example, Hebrews and James were almost always accepted in the East, but did not find acceptance in the West until late, while Revelation was accepted in the West fairly early but not until late in the East.

In all of these points, it is important to understand that none of these books were outright rejected as being false; they were simply slower to be accepted as actual Scripture in some churches while being recognized early by others. In the end, however, by the early 300’s it is clear that what we know as the New Testament was universally recognized by the early Church.

Next time we will look at the Paschal letter of Athanasius and the testimony it gives for the development of the New Testament Canon.

In Christ,

Bret