New Testament

The New Testament is that portion of the Christian Bible composed and compiled during the first few centuries CE.

Books of the New Testament
The first four books of the New Testament&mdash;Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John&mdash;are the four canonical gospels, which tell the story of the life and crucifixion (and resurrection) of Jesus.

The book of Acts tells of what happened to Jesus' apostles after he died.

The next 13 books, Romans through Philemon, are letters (epistles) supposedly written by the apostle Paul to various churches. Note that a large part of Christian teachings are from Paul rather than Jesus.

Of the 13 epistles only 7 are considered authentic by most biblical and secular scholars.

The list of Pauline epistles below have dates ascribed to the authentic, the rest are pseudepigraphical.

Romans (55-58 CE) First Corinthians (53-54 CE) Second Corinthians (55-56 CE) Galatians (55 CE) Ephesians Philippians (52-54 CE) Colossians First Thessalonians (51 CE) Second Thessalonians First Timothy Second Timothy Titus Philemon (52-54 CE)

The next 8 books, Hebrews through Jude, are letters written by other members of the early church.

The Book of Revelation purports to be a revelation from God to the evangelist John describing the coming end of the world.

Apocryphal gospels
There are a number of apocryphal gospels — that is, gospels that were excluded from the canon for various reasons. Decisions over which books to include and which to exclude were sometimes based more on political than theological reasons. The Book of Revelation was frequently not considered authentic in ancient times. Below is a list of some of the apocryphal books.
 * Chrishna of India
 * The Shepherd of Hermas
 * Epistles of Clement
 * Acts of Paul
 * Third Epistle to the Corinthians
 * Gospel of Barnabas

Gospels

 * Gospel of Thomas
 * Gospel of “Truth”
 * Gospel of the Egyptians
 * A more complete list of Gospels

References and external links

 * New Testament apocrypha
 * Liturgies, councils, apocrypha, and writings of the church fathers (text with commentary)