The New Testament

The New Testament books were written over a fairly short time period of about 50 years, from AD45 (Galatians) to AD95 (Revelation). At this time, most of Europe and the Mediterranean lands were ruled by the Roman Empire. Greek was the official language of the eastern half of the empire, and this was the language in which the NT was originally written.

In our Bibles today, the gospels (plus Acts) make up the first section of the NT. Then we have the letters written by the apostle Paul (Romans to Philemon), then a series of letters written by other apostles, and finally Revelation.
About half of the NT was written by Paul. Luke and John come about joint second in the ‘league of contributors’.

In fact, there were many other ‘gospels’ and letters written in the 1st and 2nd centuries. But the ones that we know today as the New Testament were the ones recognised by the early Church as being authentic apostolic writings that had been used by the churches since very early times. The four gospels, Acts, and the letters of Paul were accepted as authoritative by the end of the 2nd century, and the remainder of the NT was defined by the end of the 3rd century.