Exploring LDAB: VII. The Formation of the New Testament Canon

A historical question that interests me personally is the formation of the New Testament Canon, viz. how the 27 books of the New Testament, which were separately composed and transmitted, became collected into one body and regarded as the standard for Christian doctrine and practice. The word “canon” is derived from a Greek word meaning rule or standard.

I’d like to explore, by examining the manuscript metadata, whether the New Testament Canon came into existence as a result of a decree by a central authority, or the individual texts were recognized as authoritative at the outset, and then collected into one body through a grass-roots process.

The Network Formation of New Testament Canon

I tabulated the metadata of all the New Testament manuscripts dated up till the end of the 4th century, and found what I would call the network formation of the New Testament Canon.

In a post on the earliest New Testament manuscripts, I noted that the Gospels and the majority of Paul’s epistles are dated to before mid-3nd century. The great codices (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrines) containing (almost) complete Old Testament and the New Testament are dated to mid-4th to 5th century. So the individual books of the New Testament had existed long before any official edition came into existence.

About one-fifth of the extant New Testament manuscripts dated to the first four centuries are anthologies, some of which were as early as the second century. Their sizes range from two to nine books, and may have been larger originally. The editors of these anthologies recognized similarities among these books and their equivalence in importance. For example, P45 contains all four canonical gospels and Acts, and P46 contains eight epistles of Paul and Hebrews. Interestingly, in Greek manuscripts, Paul’s epistles always form their own collections, separate from the Gospels, but in Coptic manuscripts, Paul’s epistles are found together with the Gospels (e.g. LDAB 107873) and the catholic epistles (e.g. LDAB 107800). Perhaps more importantly, eight New Testament books are attested in the same manuscripts as Old Testament books that were certainly regarded as Jewish Scripture. For example, Hebrews and Genesis are attested in LDAB 3475 and LDAB 3487; 2 Peter and Jonah in LDAB 107771; 1 and 2 Corinthians and Psalms in LDAB 5627.

I ran a clustering analysis on all 300+ Christian manuscripts dated to the first four centuries, linking the individual works through the aforementioned anthologies, and generated a network of New Testament books that approximates the NT Canon (Figure I). There are four distinct clusters in the network: the catholic epistles (blue), the Pauline epistles (dark green), and the Gospels (red). Each NT cluster is connected to the other NT clusters, as well as to OT (black).

In summary, all books of the New Testament, except 2 Timothy, 2 and 3 John and Revelation, were collected into various anthologies by the 4th century, apart from the great codices. The New Testament Canon can be, and may well have been, formed through this grass-roots networking process, independent of any central authority.

Table I. New Testament Anthologies

Book	Date	Language	LDAB	Catalogue	Image
Matthew, Luke	AD 150 – 250	Greek	2936	P4	GA_P4
Matthew, Luke	AD 175 – 225	Greek	2982	Nestle-Aland 0171	GA_0171
1 Thess., 2 Thess.	AD 175 – 225	Greek	3017	P30 P. Oxy. 13 1598	GA_P30
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts	AD 200 – 250	Greek	2980	P45	GA_P45
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Thess., Philippians, Romans, Hebrews	AD 200 – 250	Greek	3011	P46	GA_P46
2 Thess., Ephesians	AD 250 – 350	Greek	3008	P92	GA_P92
Luke, John	AD 275 – 325	Greek	2895	P75	GA_P75
1 Corinthians, Colossians, Galatians, Hebrews, Philemon, 1 Thess., Ephesians	AD 300 – 399 about	Coptic, Greek	108582
Ephesians, James, 1 Peter, 1 John	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	107800
John, 1 Corinthians, Titus	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	107873
1 Corinthians, Romans	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	107885
1 Timothy, Philemon, Titus	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	107886
1 Corinthians, Philippians	AD 300 – 399	Greek	3016	P15 P. Oxy. 7 1008	GA_P15
1 Peter, 2 Peter, Jude	AD 310 – 350	Greek	2565	P72	GA_P72
Matthew, Acts	AD 350 – 399	Greek	2981	P53	GA_P53
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians	AD 350 – 399	Greek	5627
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John	AD 371 about	Latin	7822	Codex A, Codex Vercellensis

Table II. Anthologies of Old and New Testament Books

LDAB	Date	Language	New Testament	Old Testament
3475	AD 264 – 325	Greek	Hebrews	(Aquila) Genesis
3487	AD 300 – 399	Greek	Hebrews	(Septuagint) Genesis
107758	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	John	Genesis
107873	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	John, 1 Corinthians, Titus	Isaiah, Psalm
107875	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	Romans	Job
107965	AD 300 – 399	Coptic	Luke	Exodus
107771	AD 340 – 399	Coptic	1 Peter	Jonah, 2 Maccabees
5627	AD 350 – 399	Greek	1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians	(Septuagint) Psalm

References:

• ^1. Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB). Accessed Feb. 24, 2020. https://www.trismegistos.org/ldab.

Related Posts:

• Exploring LDAB: VII. The Formation of the New Testament Canon (2)