How was the New Testament Canon Formed?

This was the most common question I was asked whenever invited to speak with students on a university campus. This is an important question. The Christian Church has always believed the New Testament documents to be inspired, thus how we came to our current list of writings is crucial.

Pastor Al Baker
My formal training covers the first 350 years of Christian history, from the life of Jesus through Emperor Constantine, thus I have done a significant amount of reading and research all around the edges of the NT documents and how the canon came into existence.

I will attempt to answer the following questions:
- How do scholars date the NT documents?
- How did the early fathers come up with the listing NT documents?
- What were the factors that pushed the early church to come up with this list?
- When was the canon list finalized?

	The NT Canon, Part 1 - Common Misconceptions - Early Church Fathers - Oral Traditions - Dating of NT documents
	The NT Canon, Part 2 - Early Non-NT Writings-Dates - Evidence from the Apologists - The Earliest Listings - Influence of Gnosticism
	The NT Canon, Part 3 - Third Century Writers-Quotations of NT - Fourth Century Developments - Eusebius, Church History - The "Bible" of Constantine - What about the Apocrypha? My apologies for the throat clearing...allergies.

Download NT Canon Notes - Week 1
Download NT Canon Notes - Week 2
Download NT Canon Notes - Week 3
The final draft of the New Testament Canon paper will be available for download at a later date.