Keywords

New Testament, canonization, Christian scripture

Document Type

Article

Abstract

By the end of the first century AD, all of the twenty-seven documents that now constitute the New Testament were written and had begun to circulate among early Christians. However, it was not until centuries later that these texts were collectively named as part of the authoritative body of Christian scripture. The process by which this occurred is called “canonization.” The term canon comes from the Greek word kanōn, meaning “measuring rod” or “measuring stick,” and was frequently applied in the ancient church to the collection of texts that informed the beliefs and practices of the Christians who read them.[1] While the terms scripture and canon are often used interchangeably, there is a subtle yet important distinction between the two: scripture, as the term is commonly used by scholars, denotes the inspired and authoritative status of a written document, whereas canon typically refers to a defined list of such documents.[2] This distinction is significant because Christians did not begin to create, much less agree upon, such lists until long after the death of Jesus Christ (ca. AD 30). Thus, for several centuries, the earliest Christians considered many texts to be scriptural but had no commonly accepted canon.