Canon Studies

1. Matthew's Gospel

Was the Greek version of Matthew originally written in Hebrew? If so, what impact does this have on the canon? For more information, see The Original Matthew.

2. What Was Original NT Scripture?

Metzger is considered the foremost expert on canon formation. Listen to whether there was any self-awareness that letters prior to Jesus' words being written down were Scripture i.e., the period that Paul's letters were the only circulating written materials prior to 50 A.D:

"For early Jewish Christians the Bible consisted of the Old Testament and some Jewish apocryphal literature. Along with this written authority went traditions, chiefly oral, of sayings attributed to Jesus. On the other hand, authors who belonged to the 'Hellenistic Wing' of the Church refer more frequently to writings that later came to be included in the New Testament. At the same time, however, they very rarely regarded such documents as 'Scripture'.

Furthermore, there was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotation from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. Consequently, it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain which New Testament books were known to early Christian writers; our evidence does not become clear until the end of second century." (Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development at 72-73.)