The oldest surviving list of NT books if the early date holds. The text begins mid-sentence about Mark, then names Luke as 'third' and John as 'fourth' gospel, Acts, Paul's 13 letters, Jude, two epistles of John, Wisdom of Solomon, and the Apocalypses of John and Peter (the latter doubted by 'some'). It rejects forged letters of Paul to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians and allows Hermas to be read privately but not publicly.
Datingdisputed
Contested. The traditional date (c. 170-200, Rome) rests on the remark that Hermas wrote 'very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome' while his brother Pius was bishop (c. 140-155). A. C. Sundberg and G. M. Hahneman argue for a 4th-century Eastern list, which would make it one of many 4th-century lists rather than a 2nd-century outlier. Most scholars (e.g. Metzger, Hill, Kruger) still favour the late 2nd century; McDonald leans to the 4th. It survives only in a poor 8th-century Latin copy (Milan, Ambrosian Library).Read the list(opens in a new tab)Muratorian Fragment (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. J 101 sup.)
The 27 books
22 accepted · 5 not mentionedActs
Paul
Hebrews
General letters
Revelation
- Accepted
- Disputed
- Rejected
- Not mentioned
Notes on the books
- Matthew (accepted): Not preserved: the fragment begins at the end of the note on Mark. Matthew is inferred because Luke is called the 'third' gospel.
- Mark (accepted): Only the last line of its entry survives.
- Hebrews (not mentioned): Not named. The fragment is damaged and its Latin corrupt, and it has no closing formula, so the omission is not encoded as a rejection.
- James (not mentioned): Not named. The fragment is damaged and its Latin corrupt, and it has no closing formula, so the omission is not encoded as a rejection.
- 1 Peter (not mentioned): Not named. It may have dropped out of the corrupt Latin text, or been omitted.
- 2 Peter (not mentioned): Not named. The fragment is damaged and its Latin corrupt, and it has no closing formula, so the omission is not encoded as a rejection.
- 2 John (accepted): The text names 'two epistles of John' after already quoting 1 John in the John section; whether it means 1-2 John or 2-3 John is debated.
- 3 John (not mentioned): Possibly one of the 'two' Johannine epistles; see 2 John.
- Revelation (accepted): Accepted, alongside the Apocalypse of Peter, which 'some of us are not willing' to have read in church.