Scoring the books of the canon: Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter

This post builds on the previous ones outlining a system for evaluating early Christian writings and an initial evaluation of the canon lists I will be reviewing. This post continues with a review of the canon as set out by Athanasius in his 39th Festal Letter. This is the earliest document we have which lists the New Testament canon with the same books as we have today. It also comments on some of the other works. This work dates from the 300's A.D., placing it in the 300-399 A.D. range for the purposes of this evaluation system and giving a weight of 1.0 to the list as seen in the calculations of the right column of the table.

Early Christian writing	Classification in current list	Raw score	List weighted score
Matthew	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Mark	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Luke	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
John	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Acts	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Romans	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
1 Corinthians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
2 Corinthians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Galatians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Ephesians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Philippians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Colossians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
1 Thessalonians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
2 Thessalonians	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
1 Timothy	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
2 Timothy	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Titus	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Philemon	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Hebrews	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
James	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
1 Peter	Accepted without reservations	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
2 Peter	Accepted without reservations	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Jude	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
1 John	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
2 John	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
3 John	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Revelation	Accepted without reservation	5	5 x 1.00 = 5.00
Acts of Paul	Not mentioned	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Acts of Peter	Not mentioned	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Apocalpyse of Peter	Not mentioned	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Epistle of Barnabas	Not mentioned	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Letter to the Alexandrines	Not mentioned	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Letter to the Laodiceans	Not mentioned	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Shepherd of Hermas	Suitable reading but not authoritative	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00
Teachings of the Apostles	Suitable reading but not authoritative	0	0 x 1.00 = 0.00

---

Note on the list of books: the list here contains all of the books named on any of the five canon lists I am reviewing in this series, regardless of whether the mention is positive or negative. The order of the books is for the convenience of the reader: since the books are listed in different orders on the various lists, the books are listed here in common canonical order for the canonical books, followed by an alphabetical listing of the non-canonical books mentioned.