It would have been natural for early Christian to ask themselves questions about their faith, especially after the Master and the apostles were no longer with them. Questions like: Who was this man called Jesus, and what did he teach? What does it really mean to be a Christian? What do we Christians believe in, and how should we act? What kind of organization should a church have?
Most Christians felt these questions could best be answered by establishing a body of sacred writings, or Scripture, that would preserve the teachings of Jesus and the apostles accurately and clearly. So, in the first and second centuries A.D., numerous Christians recorded their understanding of these teachings. They did this in much the same way as our modern newspapers and electronic media cover an important political or religious event—from a variety of different standpoints. And just as some of today's news media cover a story more reliably than others, so some early Christian writers reported on the history of Jesus and his followers more responsibly than others. THE REFORMING POWER of the Scriptures
By the middle of the second century A.D., torrent of Christian literature had flooded the Roman world. Some of it measured up to the highest standards of the Christian community, but some was closer to fiction than fact. So, slowly but inevitably, Christians had to examine each piece of holy writing to determine whether it represented their faith fairly. The literature that did measure up became known as canon, a Greek word meaning a rule or standard or a measuring rod. The literature that came up short fell into disuse. And questionable literature became known as "apocryphal," that is, of doubtful value and authenticity. In time, the canonical Christian writings became known as the "New Testament" or "New Covenant"—the Christian counterpart to the "Old Covenant" of the Hebrew Bible.
