The New Testament today contains twenty-seven books. How did such a collection come into existence? What influences played upon the formation of the 'canon'? Who were the early Christians who read the books and why did they read some but not others? This book attempts to provide answers based on detail analysis of the early writings Christians and Gnostic alike in which quotations and allusions have been found. The author tries to differentiate Jewish and gentile Christian attitudes and shows how and why the 'apocryphal New Testament' was gradually separated from the books generally accepted. He lays emphasis on the second century as the crucial period in the formation of the New Testament but carries the story on the point when almost universal agreement was achieved.