New Testament Canon and Chronology

Course Introduction, Attendance, and Class Expectations

Good evening. Everybody's so excited to be here. I say good evening. So listen when you came in tonight if tonight's your first time ever being here. You might not have noticed but there is a sign-in sheet on the table as you walk in that is the Statement that lets me know how often that you are here and according to the syllabus.

This is an eight-week course you are required to be here at least six of the eight weeks. Or you forfeit your opportunity to earn a certificate unless there is some kind of emergency with which you speak to me beforehand.

And we will be able to determine if you're able to take a portion of the class via video. But this class is not just about listening to the lectures this class is about Being in class and engaging with one another so if you're not here. It's not as Interesting and it's not as informative, and it's not as much as you could now.

I know there are some at home some people can't be here. You can still earn a certificate if you don't come. But I encourage folks to be here because there's there especially now that we're back in the Learning Center.

We did a whole semester in the sanctuary. Which is that room that we have worship in and I absolutely hated it. Because I felt like it was eight Really long sermons. I didn't feel like people were engaging.

I didn't feel like people were really Doing what we normally do in class when we come down here. We're sitting at the tables. We're sitting in class. This is the atmosphere that I was going for and this is what I'm hoping for.

And one of the things I am looking forward to in the next week or two is having this desk lowered. We call this mega desk. This was bought and purchased for this classroom, and this actually came from a professor at Duke University.

So it has a little bit of history. But it's too big and when I'm behind it. I feel like I'm hiding from you all. So we're going to have it cut down by about two inches. Just so that I'm able to just so I'm able to manage a little better if you think it's bad for me brother Mike.

It's really bad when he teaches all you see is the top of his head. So we're going to have a little a little bit of change in the in the weeks ahead. Tonight we're beginning a survey of the New Testament in our survey of the Old Testament.

Familiarity With the New Testament and the First Pop Quiz

I asked a series of questions at the beginning of that course, and I want to ask those same questions tonight. I'm not actually Requiring that you answer me out loud, but I do want you to answer these questions in your heart.

I want you to answer these questions on your in yourself and the questions are these. How many of you feel confident that you could give a synopsis of every book in the New Testament, okay? How many of you know for certain you could name all the books in the New Testament?

Okay, a few of you, but when I said the Old Testament a lot of people just you know and Lastly how many of you know for certain you know how many there are? Okay that one maybe. Everyone can feel a little bit more confident about when we talked about the Old Testament.

It was a big question see the thing is about the New Testament is when we were in the Old Testament. There wasn't a lot of confidence. Because a lot of folks especially New Testament Christians haven't spent a lot of time in the Old Testament.

So right away there was a big lack of confidence in the room, but tonight I see some of you shaking your head like yeah, I think I could do that and I like that I like that confidence. I like you coming in strong.

You're excited, but I want to Just sort of at least for a moment remind you that with familiarity comes complacency and Oftentimes we are so familiar with the New Testament that we are actually not as familiar as we thought.

Because we've spent more time there we feel comfortable there. And so we don't realize how much we don't know. So everybody take out a sheet of paper write one to ten. We're going to have our first pop quiz first night first day first test right away.

They got a piece of paper, right? One through ten and. By the way, I want to mention if you are familiar with Yale University Yale University used to be well I guess they still have Yale Divinity School used to be a seminary used to be one of the greatest seminaries in the world now it is more of a Liberal school when it comes to teaching the Bible liberal in every area.

But particularly when it comes teaching the Bible, but I did in preparation for this class I listened to some lectures from Yale's religious studies professor. He was teaching a course on New Testament.

I was going to be teaching a course on New Testament. So I was interested the classes were free online, so I decided to listen and he started his Survey of the New Testament with this ten question test.

So the test you're taking right now is actually not one that I wrote but one that came from professor Dale Martin of Yale University. So this is ten questions from Yale University and they are all yes or no questions so you will write on your paper either yes or No, and the question is These things are in the Bible.

Yes, or no, so that's how you're going to if I say these things are in the Bible. We give you ten things and when I say these things you're going to say yes, that's in the Bible or no, it's not. Okay, number one the immaculate Conception is in the Bible.

Yes, or no the immaculate Conception is in the Bible. Yes, or no, please don't look at the person beside you. They probably don't know either. Number two, this is a quote. Love bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things that's in the Bible.

Yes or no. Number three at Jesus's birth three wise men or Kings Visited the baby Jesus. Number three three wise men visited Jesus at his birth. Yes, or no, that's in the Bible question is is it in the Bible?

Yes, or no. Number four. Another quote is this quote from the Bible from each according to his ability to each according to his need. Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? From each according to his ability to each according to his need.

Number five the doctrine of the Trinity is that in the Bible? Yes or no? These are not trick questions they are not and Write this quiz so you can't blame me for being trick question, but they are all thoughtful questions.

Thank you. Hey, there you go. They're thoughtful questions. Well number number six quote. Another quote you are Peter and upon this rock. I will build my church. Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? Number seven.

Peter founded the church in Rome. Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? Number eight. After his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem. Yes or no? Number nine after his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee.

Yes, or no? And again, the question is is this in the Bible? Last but not least Peter was martyred by being crucified. Upside down. Is that in the Bible? Yes, or no? They got your answers. You ready to go through the answers one at a time.

Ready to go. Anybody need an extra minute. All right want to be fair. Number one the Immaculate Conception. Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? Who said yes. Raise hand raise hand. Yes raise hand. No. All right, the answer is no.

It's not in the Bible the Immaculate Conception is a false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that actually says that Mary was conceived without sin. So that she could be the sinless bearer of Christ.

See the Catholic Church teaches that Mary is sinless along with Jesus and so the Immaculate Conception is not what we normally think of as Jesus's conception, but it is a false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the conception of Mary.

Number two love bears all things believes all things. Is that in the Bible? First Corinthians 13. I hope that we'd get that one. Okay. Number three at Jesus's birth three wise men and or Kings visited the baby Jesus.

It's it's doesn't say what? Doesn't say how many and doesn't say it was at his birth either. Yeah, it doesn't say it was at his birth it could have been anywhere between birth to age two. Yeah. All right.

Number four from each according to his ability to each according to his need. Is that in the Bible? Where is it from? Yeah. Communist Manifesto. Yeah, yeah that is not in the Bible. But a lot of people think it is a lot of people here.

You know cleanliness is next to godliness and they assume that's a biblical statement. Number five, this is the one that Daisy wanted to fight me over already five minutes into class and she's one target.

The doctrine of the Trinity is it in the Bible? Yes or no? Technically, the answer is no. The foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity or in the Bible. But the Bible does not clearly say God is one in essence and three in person.

These three persons are in co-equal co-eternal and distinct. That's the doctrine of the Trinity. The Bible does not say those things in that way. So I would say yes, it's there. But it is a theological deduction.

That is made from the text. It is not an explicit Statement unless of course you want to argue about the common johannium, which is a place in John's writings where there is a place where he says there are three that bear witness in heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one but that is one of the most disputed Texts from the ancient code is a Ancient codexes and so I would say it actually is not part of the legitimate writings of John.

So that would be the only place that we could say it was and it's debated. So it's a if you want if you wrote yes, I'm not going to take off points. Of course, I'm not grading this anyway, but I'm not going to take points off.

But it was a opportunity to you could say yes or no and on that when you'd sort of be right. Yes, no, but yes, yeah. All right number six you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church. Yes, that's in the Bible Matthew 16.

Okay Peter founded the church in Rome. Yeah, anybody say yes. Okay, it's it's very common Christian tradition, but it's not the Bible that that's the question. Is it in the Bible not whether or not it's tradition?

But whether or not some of the Bible doesn't say anything about who founded the church in Rome, so we don't know. Number eight after his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem. Actually, yes that is found in one of the Gospels.

Yeah, and number nine is after his death. He he appeared to his disciples in Galilee. Yeah, it actually says both there. Yeah. Yeah, so remember Jesus appeared for a period of 40 days appeared over 500 people so there's more than one appearance and so this is not a trick question, but it's a reminder that.

Some of the Gospels focus on his appearances in Galilee some focuses on focus on his appearances in Judea and Jerusalem. So there's a you have to make a harmonization and understand that there was both.

And that's an important the reason why there's two questions. Last but not least Peter was martyred by being crucified upside down. That's in the Bible. Yes or no? I'm a trick. So you changed. It's not the Bible.

No that that is very common Christian tradition. Dating very early in the church's history, but there is nothing in the Bible about the death of either Peter or Paul. We know they died. Because they're not still alive.

But we do not know. The circumstances for certain tradition says Peter was crucified upside down tradition says Paul was beheaded. Anybody know why? Because Paul was a Roman citizen and it was against the law to crucify a Roman citizen.

It was considered to be an ignoble death. And therefore a Roman citizen could not suffer that form of death. Peter could be crucified. Paul could not because of his Roman citizenship. So the tradition is Peter died on the cross as Jesus did but upside down and Paul died by Beheading.

Was that fun? Everybody's so excited. Okay. Well by the end of this course I hope that you have a better familiarity with the New Testament than you came a lot of you came. Already knowing a lot about the Bible.

I know some of you are pastors and Bible teachers. And so I hope that this will be an encouragement and a time of growth for you. And even if you came in very early in your Christian walk and you're still getting your feet wet.

This class will still benefit you as well. It will not go over the heads too far but it also will not drag so low as to not be able to benefit anyone so this class is made to allow for a benefit for all different types of Christians in different areas of their walk.

So thank you all for coming. And if you don't know who I am, my name is Keith. I'm the pastor here at Sovereign Grace and we started this program a few years ago Sovereign Grace Academy as A way to provide biblical study ministries for people that is affordable and by affordable.

We don't charge so that's about as affordable as you can get. The only thing you have to pay for to come here is you have to pay for your books. And if you did not purchase the books required for this class I would ask that you please do so before next week the book that is required for this class is This massive tomb the believers Bible commentary.

This was the same book we used for the Survey of the Old Testament it is the book We're using for the survey of the New Testament and when you're done with this course, you can use it to protect your home because it's Self-defense-worthy, it's the size of You know a nice brick.

It's a very big tool now. I did have somebody asked me. Is this the best one volume commentary? No, it's not. There are places I would disagree with this especially regarding Dispensationalism and if you're not familiar with what dispensationalism means I'll be dealing with that somewhat later in the course.

But I do think that it is valuable. I think it has some really good source material here. I also think it has some really good articles and most of what you'll be reading for this class are the articles.

In fact, everyone should have read prior to this class if you had the syllabus you should have read Introduction to the New Testament if you did not read introduction to the New Testament. Please add that to this week's reading list and make sure that when you come next week you read.

Not only this week's readings, but read next week's as well. So that you come in ready to go and let's let's very quickly look over what the readings are. If you have your syllabus take it out. If you do not we have some copies made.

So please get a copy of the syllabus. And let's walk through what is going to be required in this class on the first page under course overview. It says this course this Excuse me. This course will survey the key figures themes and theology of the New Testament.

Students will be introduced to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the resultant growth of the New Testament Church following his death burial and resurrection. Students will also look at the prophecies surrounding his Return.

Our goals are to learn the categories and chronology of the New Testament canon. To summarize the purpose and theology of the individual New Testament books to recognize the historical contribution of key New Testament figures and to examine the continuity and discontinuity of the Old and New Testament.

You must have a Bible. We will do Bible readings in this class. You can use any translation you want. Well, you can bring anyone you want, but if you bring the message, I'm not going to call on you to read.

Just so you know, yes, sir. Please don't. You know again We won't have a lot of time to discuss the value of different types of Bible translations. But if you come to the hermeneutics class if you were part of that last year, you know.

We talked about why different translations are better than others and why we want to seek for a more literal translation if possible. So I use the English Standard Version. If you have a New American Standard Bible, it's very similar if you have the CSB or what's it called in CSB home at home and yeah, that one's pretty good.

It's newer. And then of course the old NIV is not terrible. It's a dynamic equivalent, but it's not terrible KJV. Whatever you choose is fine. The believers Bible commentary. I also recommend Introducing the New Testament by DA Carson and Douglas Moo.

Would you hold your copy up brother so they can see what that looks like. Tim? Thank you. That is introducing the New Testament by Doug Moo and DA Carson if you do not know who DA Carson is you need to the a Carson is one of the preeminent New Testament scholars in the world and Doug Moo is no slouch either.

So that book is a tremendous help and it's a small book as you can see now there is a bigger book. Show them the bigger book. Brother this one costs about three times as much and. But it is basically the course book for many New Testament classes that are doing a survey of the New Testament.

So if you are interested I would recommend both of those books and if you buy those books, then the benefit is you don't have to take notes. Just underline the book. There's a lot of my notes come out of the book.

Yeah, so you should still take notes. But the reality is a lot of what I'm going to be talking about is derived out of books like that. So if you have those books, they're a helpful tool for what we're doing.

Introduction to the New Testament by the same two authors Carson and Moo the the small book is basically the the condensed version. It's the cliff notes version of the big one and I use the small one in preparation for the class because it's so accessible and easy.

Course Requirements, Reading, and Research Project

All right on the next page. You'll notice course requirements. You have to be here. Of course, unless you are taking this class online. You have to be here. And if you are not here, it will count against your grade.

You get to two passes and then it begins to be a major issue. Reading assignments. Your reading assignments are in the syllabus. We'll look at those in a moment. Notebook. The notebook is basically this every week.

I ask that you take notes in class. I also give you handouts in class. You're required to keep up with the notes and the handouts and at the end of the semester. Whenever it's time to finish the last class I will walk around and I will check your notebook if you are trying to earn a certificate.

If you're not earning a certificate, I don't care. Because you're just auditing but if you are earning a certificate your notebook is part of the work that you're turning in. So you have to have your notebook if you didn't bring a notepad tonight or a book tonight.

Just pick up a yellow pad or anything. You know that for next week and bring it with you and keep up with it and at the end of the class. Show it to me the most important thing that you'll do if you're earning a certificate is the Research project.

It is 40 of your grade. If you don't do it, you don't get a certificate. Of course. The research project will be assigned during the final class each student will be assigned one book from the New Testament.

The student will write a synopsis of the book including authorship purpose and theme theological insights and Christological significance. This analysis will be submitted in the following format and explains the format you can use either APA or MLA style formatting.

But it must be formatted properly and I have been rather lax in Migrating when it comes to form in the past couple of years. Because I know a lot of you it's been a long time since you've been in school and things like that.

So I give a lot of grace when it comes to proper Formatting but my wife and I are she's helping me do grading now. My wife is an English teacher. You know, she teaches so she's being a little more rough than I am.

She's being a little more a little a little harder with that red pen than I've been. So just remember when you're when you're we're seeking here to have college level work. You know, we want to do as good as we can do as well as possible.

And and I you know, I understand some of you again, it's been a long time since you've been out of school. So if you need help writing your paper. Come see me. If you if you need help with formatting if you need help with understanding how to put a paper together.

Some of you maybe haven't done that in a long time. Please come see me. That's what I'm here for. I want to help you. I want to help you produce as good of a paper as you can. Okay? All right. Last but not least the last page is the course schedule and has our focuses for each night.

Content to be covered and the assignment that is due each week when you come in. Look at that assignment that is due and that's what you should be doing. Most of the assignments you will see are simply reading assignments.

In fact, I think all of them this time are reading assignments. They're reading articles from the The commentary that you guys are supposed to purchase. So if you read the introduction to the New Testament tonight next week.

You're going to read introduction to the Gospels and BBC, of course stands for believers Bible Commentary not the British Broadcasting Company. Just be clear about that and You'll notice each week we're going to deal with a different subject tonight when we finally do get to the lesson.

We're going to begin looking at the canon of the New Testament and the chronology of the books of the New Testament. Next week. We're going to look at a survey of the synoptic Gospels. Then we're going to look at a survey of the autophic gospel and then in week four.

We're going to look at a survey of the history book the book of Acts. Then in week five, this is not in your syllabus. But you may want to write in a little note at the beginning of week five. We are going to have a short pop quiz on what you've learned so far.

Just to let me know how we're doing if we're going too quickly or if we need to go back over a few things. So there will be a short quiz at the beginning of week five. And I guess it's no longer a pop quiz because pop quiz usually means surprise.

But now that you know, it's coming. It's no longer surprise. There may be a short final at the end. It won't be any more than just 10 or 12 questions. But just to see how much information you've been able to retain through the course.

So that's the syllabus. They may have any questions. Good. Also, you'll probably notice that I talk kind of fast because I only have an hour and a half a week with you. And I do try to give you a restroom break at some point.

So even that takes away part of my time. So we we I talk fast and go through a lot of information very very quickly. Is there any questions before we begin? Tonight's lesson is going to be dealing with the New Testament.

New Testament Canon, Chronology, and the Course Handout

Canon and Chronology, we're going to look at chronology and dating. We're going to look at canon and apocryphal writings and we're going to look at Old Testament and New Testament. Continuity and discontinuity.

I want to ask this question before we start. Did everybody get a copy of the handout when you came in? Everyone should have gotten a copy of the handout if you didn't. Janice, there should be one over there.

On one side, it's got the chronological order of the books on the other side. It's got the New Testament Antilagomena Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Please make sure you have that because we'll be going over both of those now brother I'm going to use my board.

But Megadesk is going to be a problem for you tonight. However, when we lower it, hopefully Megadesk will no longer be an issue. But I'll try to keep my writing somewhat close to the top. How many of you were in the survey of the Old Testament?

Okay, remember how when we went over the Old Testament. I said that our English Bibles are not arranged by the Chronology, but they are arranged by category. Remember we talked about the Old Testament it was the books of Moses and then you had the books of history and then you had the books of poetry then you had the books of Prophecy both major and minor right?

That's the categories of the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible is different. If you pick up a Hebrew Bible, it's written. It's ordered more chronologically and it's actually numbered differently. We have 39 books in our Old Testament in the Hebrew Bible.

There's only 24 books because they combine the prophets into one book and there's a few other places. They don't have first and second Kings. They just have Kings and so they drop from 39 to 24 but it's still the same books.

It's just differently ordered and they order it differently because they're more concerned about the chronology than the category of the book but again as Westerners and Looking at English Bibles and we look at our Old Testament.

We see Categories and the same thing happens when we look at the New Testament the three categories of New Testament writing are as follows. History epistolary. Apocalyptic we have history books. We have epistolary books and we have Apocalyptic books underneath history what books would constitute the history of the New Testament?

Well, we can include who said X that's not wrong. But we would start with the Gospels because even though the Gospels are a different genre of literature than acts. They are still biographical history.

So we would say under the category of history we would have the synoptic and the on topic gospel, but for now, we'll just write the Gospels and Under history. We would also put the book of Acts now epistolary refers to.

Well, we're going to talk about this more when we study the writings of Paul, but an epistle is a letter. And so we talk about the epistles and So the epistles would constitute which ones? Which books?

Okay, so we talk about the Pauline epistles and then what we call the general epistles. We have the Pauline epistles and the Pauline epistles can be further subcategorized you have prison epistles you have the Pastoral epistles that we said brother.

Well, those are the universal that's the that's the general epistles so. And then of course with Paul you have personal epistles to Timothy and to those so but under the epistles. We have basically the majority of the New Testament.

So we have five history books right, and then the rest except one. Would all fall into the category of epistolary books not books but epistles and then the last one would be the Apocalypse of John also known as the book of Revelation, I don't know why I wrote John.

I meant Well, John did write it and it is the Apocalypse of John, but let me just make sure I'm not confusing anyone all right, so this makes up the The groupings of books and it makes it up by category.

But now I'd like for you to take out your handout because I want us to consider when these books were written now. Before I take you into this sheet, I want to make something clear all of the dates on this sheet are estimations.

None of the books came with a date inscribed upon it. So everything we Do in regard to dating ancient literature has to do with what we call internal evidence. External evidence an Example of internal evidence would be something that's mentioned in the book as having already happened.

Well that would tell you that that is something that if we know the date of that thing that happened. Then we know when the book had to come after for instance in the Gospel of Luke We read that Jesus was born when Kyrenius was the governor of Syria.

Right there tells us something about the dating of the birth of Jesus Christ. So we call that Internal evidence it makes a mention of something else that can be dated. Therefore we can look at that internal evidence and we can make certain conclusions based upon that internal evidence now.

External evidence would be like the finding of a manuscript. Maybe we find like for instance the Gospel of John. There were some who used to believe that the Gospel of John could have been written as late as the end of the second century because they didn't believe John wrote the Gospel of John and they believed that it was written way after the life of Jesus and way after the life of John and.

So there were there were people who would go to the mat and say John was written in the end of the second century but then We began to find through archaeological discovery things like papyri manuscripts pieces of manuscripts and a very early copy of the Gospel of John a piece of The Gospel of John was found and it was dated to the early 2nd century not the late 2nd century somewhere between 100 and 125.

So what does that tell us? It tells us by the early 2nd century there were already copies of the Gospel of John that were in circulation. Which means that the Gospel of John had to predate because you can't predate.

Or you have to predate a copy. With the original so this pushes the original well into the first century. You understand how the difference between internal and external evidence there you have both Ways of judging the way a book will be be dated.

So based upon that when we look at this understand all these are estimations. All these are based on internal and external evidence. We can't go into all of the internal and external evidence of every book because there's 27 books and we have not a lot of time, but I'm going to give you a few things to Think about as we go through the first book of the New Testament most likely written earliest would have been the book of James and It is written in the late 40s now for a moment.

I want you to think of a timeline in your mind. Jesus was born when? Christmas Day year zero. Just kidding. One there is no year zero and It's not exactly how dating worked back then. We don't know when Jesus was born, but the whole Quirinius being governor Syria thing probably puts his birth in our calendar turn somewhere around 4 BC.

So Jesus would have actually been born before Christ In that regard because it puts his birthday is somewhere around 4 to 6 BC. He is born therefore if he lived 30 years. That would put his death burial and resurrection.

Somewhere in the third decade of the first century somewhere in the 20s. Right it would have been 20s to 30s. Now we look at that as the starting point of the New Testament Church. Because 40 days after Jesus was resurrected He ascended ten days after that was the day of Pentecost birth of the New Testament Church.

And what happens at the birth of the New Testament Church the church begins to expand out and goes from Jerusalem to Judea Samaria and all the world right. Paul and the other missionaries take the gospel all throughout the world and this happens in A period of about 20 years so we go from the 30s when Jesus Death burial and resurrection up to about the 50s the end of the time the period of the Acts.

And now we have the writings that begin. So James becomes one of the earliest writings the next book to be written according to. What I believe and what I'm teaching is I believe was the book of Galatians.

Why do I believe Galatians was written in 48? This is a very important Argument. Galatians is written for one particular purpose. And if you've never studied Galatians the purpose of the book of Galatians is Paul is defending his gospel against those who have brought a false gospel into the region of Galatia and They are teaching that you must be circumcised to become a Christian.

That particular debate. Became the argument at the Council of Jerusalem. The Council of Jerusalem happened in 49. So if Paul is making an argument to the Galatians After the Council of Jerusalem it would make sense that he would have mentioned Oh, and by the way all of the Apostles have already decided this is the Position that the church has taken.

But because Paul does not mention the Council of Jerusalem this puts the writing of Galatians most likely in the year 47 or 48. I would take probably 48 to get it as far as close to the Council of Jerusalem as possible.

In fact I think the events in Galatia probably were one of the issues that spurred the Council of Jerusalem to begin with by the way where is Galatia? It's where we right now would call Turkey so Asia Minor Southern Asia Minor you read in Acts 13 14 you read about Lystra I Iconium and Derby all of those cities.

That's the area of southern Galatia. Now there are some people who believe that Paul wrote Galatians to the northern Galatians and that it was written in the mid 50s. But and I taught on Galatians for a long time at set free and I don't have time tonight to make all of the arguments.

But I believe Internal evidence would suggest it's the southern Galatians. It's Lystra Derby and Iconium and that the purpose is that Paul has planted these churches. Someone has come behind him has argued that his gospel is false that it didn't include the law and Paul is now saying that You cannot be justified by law but you're justified by faith only and that is his argument and I believe that it becomes then the first letter of Paul to any church.

Therefore Galatians and when we get to the survey of the Pauline epistles We will talk about the value of Galatians. Galatians is a little Romans. If you are a reformed theologian like me and you have great Love for the book of Romans, then you should love Galatians as well because Galatians came first.

Galatians is Paul's theology in Condensed form which will later become the book of Romans in an expansive more systematic view. So Galatians very important being the what I would believe first letter of the Apostle Paul written before the Jerusalem Council.

I didn't mean to take that much time. But you understand all this is all important for when these books come about because this provides for us a chronology. If you do happen to listen to the guy from Yale He'll argue that first Thessalonians was the first book and a lot of people do.

First Thessalonians was early and I think Galatians came first. But I already told you why but first Thessalonians is very early first and second Thessalonians and then first and second Corinthians. Also in the early to mid 50s Romans is mid to late 50s Philippians late 50s early 60s.