The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis. By Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade

Abstract

Over the last few decades, interest in the topic of the biblical canon appears to have been on the rise. Scholars are keen to explore issues related to when and how just these books were assembled by early Christians and regarded as authoritative. While most of the research in canon has arguably been focused on patristic citations, there has been, for a while now, a need for an updated resource containing all the canonical lists. And this new volume by Edmon Gallagher and John Meade has been written to meet that need. The volume begins with an introduction which functions as an apologia of sorts for the role and importance of canonical lists. While not discounting other methods of studying the biblical canon, Gallagher and Meade argue that the ‘lists are the best sources for telling us specifically which books early Christians considered canonical’ (p. xviii). Before diving into the canonical lists themselves, the authors then devote chapter 1 to providing a broad historical overview of how and when the Old Testament and New Testament canons developed. Here the authors do not restrict themselves to just canonical lists but appeal to all sorts of relevant evidence including patristic citations and patristic comments about books, as well as biblical manuscripts. This chapter provides the broader historical context for the chapters that will follow.