New Testament Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Apocrypha== {{Main|New Testament apocrypha}} The books that eventually found a permanent place in the New Testament were not the only works of Christian literature produced in the earliest Christian centuries. The long process of [[Development of the New Testament canon|canonization]] began early, sometimes with tacit reception of traditional texts, sometimes with explicit selection or rejection of particular texts as either acceptable or unacceptable for use in a given context (e.g., not all texts that were acceptable for private use were considered appropriate for use in the [[Christian liturgy|liturgy]]). Over the course of history, those works of early Christian literature that survived but that did not become part of the New Testament have been variously grouped by theologians and scholars. Drawing upon, though redefining, an older term used in [[early Christianity]] and among Protestants when referring to those books found in the Christian Old Testament although not in the [[Hebrew Bible]], modern scholars began to refer to these works of early Christian literature not included in the New Testament as "apocryphal", by which was meant non-canonical. Collected editions of these works were then referred to as the "[[New Testament apocrypha]]". Typically excluded from such published collections are the following groups of works: [[Apostolic Fathers|The Apostolic Fathers]], the 2nd-century Christian apologists, [[Alexandrian school|the Alexandrians]], [[Tertullian]], [[Methodius of Olympus]], [[Novatian]], [[Cyprian]], martyrdoms, and [[Desert Fathers|the Desert Fathers]]. Almost all other Christian literature from the period, and sometimes including works composed well into [[Late Antiquity]], are relegated to the so-called New Testament apocrypha. Although not considered to be divinely inspired by most, these "apocryphal" works were produced in the same ancient context and often using the same language as those books that would eventually form the New Testament. Some of these later works are dependent (either directly or indirectly) upon books that would later come to be in the New Testament or upon the ideas expressed in them. There is even an example of a [[pseudepigraph]]ical letter composed under the guise of a presumably lost letter of the Apostle Paul, the [[Epistle to the Laodiceans]]. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page