Canon Timeline

-1450 BC: Moses writes Pentateauch
- 425 BC: Last book of Old Testament (Malachi) is written
- 30 AD: Jesus dies
- 90 AD: Council of Jamnia affirms Old Testament Canon
- 95 AD: John writes Revelation
- 110 AD: Most of the New Testament Canon completed
- 140 AD: Marcian complies "formal" canon
- 200 AD: FORMAL Canon circulated
- 332 AD: Bibles comissioned + circulated by Constantine

 These are the categories of consideration for inclusion in the Canon:

-Homo legomena: accepted as inspired
-Ante legomena: not immeditaely accepted
-Apocryphal books

-Pseudo-Pigrapha –Heretical-false: never accepted

-1446 BC: Moses begins to write the Pentateuch. (It was probably completed by the Levitical community, not later than 1380 BC, but there are events included in it that Moses didn't survive to see that could only have occurred after his death in 1406 BC.)

(One thing I'd like to do at some point is a more detailed survey of the writing and writers of the Old Testament.)

- 425 BC: Last book of Old Testament (Malachi) is written

- 250 BC: 46 books of the Old Testament are translated into Greek by 72 Jewish scholars working at the Library of Alexandria, and are promulgated to the Diaspora Jews, including those living under Roman occupation (which would have included the ancestors of Jesus). This was the edition used by the Pharisees in the time of Jesus. The Sadducees used the Pentateuch, in its original Hebrew. (They considered the Pharisees to be "liberals" because they used the 46-book canon, and because they permitted people to read the Bible in Greek.) The Palestinian canon did not yet exist; this was a later development.

- 30 AD: Jesus dies (?)

- 50 AD: St. Paul begins to write letters from prison to the various Dioceses under his jurisdiction.

- 60-90 AD: The Gospels and other books of the New Testament begin to be written down.

- 70 AD: The Temple at Jerusalem is destroyed, and modern synagogue Judaism begins.

80 AD: The Christian community is expelled/excommunicated from Judaism, and becomes a separate religion.

- Some time after 80 AD: the Palestinian canon is developed by Palestinian Jews, for use in Jerusalem.

- 95 AD: John writes Revelation

- 110 AD: St. Ignatius of Antioch begins to quote portions of the New Testament in his writings.

140- 387 AD - various canons of the New Testament begin to be circulated locally in various different places.

- 332 AD: Bibles comissioned + circulated by Constantine

- 386 AD: St. Jerome commissioned to make a universal translation of the Scriptures into "vulgate" Latin by Pope Damasus

- 405 AD - Final 27-book canon of the New Testament defined, closed, and promulgated to the Universal Church by Pope Innocent I.

1529 - Martin Luther questions the 46-book canon of the Old Testament, and proposes to replace it with the 39-book Palestinian canon.

1546 AD: The Council of Trent responds to this proposal by reaffirming the 46-book canon of the Old Testament, and by defining and closing the canon of the Old Testament.