Editing New Testament apocrypha (section)

==Evaluation==

=== Present day ===
Among historians of early Christianity, the books are considered invaluable, especially those that almost made it into the final canon, such as [[Shepherd of Hermas]]. [[Bart Ehrman]], for example, said:

<blockquote>The victors in the struggles to establish Christian Orthodoxy not only won their theological battles, they also rewrote the history of the conflict; later readers then naturally assumed that the victorious views had been embraced by the vast majority of Christians from the very beginning ... The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history ... the debate lasted three hundred years ... even within "orthodox" circles there was considerable debate concerning which books to include.<ref>Ehrman, ''Lost Scriptures'' pp. 2, 3</ref></blockquote>

=== Historical development towards today's canon ===
The historical debate primarily concerned whether certain works should be read in the church service or only privately. These works were widely used but not necessarily considered ''Catholic'' or 'universal.' Such works include the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, 1&nbsp;Clement, 2&nbsp;Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, and to a lesser extent the [[Apocalypse of Peter]].

Considering the generally accepted dates of authorship for all of the canonical New Testament works ({{Circa|100 CE}}), as well as the various witnesses to canonicity extant among the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, etc., the four gospels and letters of Paul were held by the gentile Christian community as scriptural, and 200 years were needed to finalize the canon; from the beginning of the 2nd Century to the mid-4th Century, no book in the final canon was ever declared spurious or heretical, except for the Revelation of John which the [[Council of Laodicea]] in 363–364 CE rejected (although it accepted all of the other 26 books in the New Testament). This was possibly due to fears of the influence of [[Montanism]] which used the book extensively to support their theology. See [[Revelation of John]] for more details.

[[Athanasius]] wrote his [[Easter letter]] in 367&nbsp;CE which defined a canon of 27 books, identical to the current canon, but also listed two works that were "not in the canon but to be read": The Shepherd of Hermas and the [[Didache]]. Nevertheless, the early church leaders in the 3rd and 4th Centuries generally distinguished between canonical works and those that were not canonical but 'useful,' or 'good for teaching,' though never relegating any of the final 27 books to the latter category. One aim with establishing the canon was to capture only those works which were held to have been written by the Apostles, or their close associates, and as the [[Muratorian fragment]] canon (c. 150–175 CE) states concerning the Shepherd of Hermas:{{Citation needed|date=June 2014}}

<blockquote>...But Hermas wrote The Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the chair of the church of the city of Rome. And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after their time.<ref>The Muratorian Fragment : 74–76</ref></blockquote>