<P> According to the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Canon of the New Testament: "The idea of a complete and clear - cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history . The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council ." </P> <P> In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople . Athanasius (Apol . Const. 4) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation . For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus may be examples of these Bibles . Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles . There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon . </P> <P> Like other literature from antiquity, the text of the New Testament was (prior to the advent of the printing press) preserved and transmitted in manuscripts . Manuscripts containing at least a part of the New Testament number in the thousands . The earliest of these (like manuscripts containing other literature) are often very fragmentarily preserved . Some of these fragments have even been thought to date as early as the 2nd century (i.e., Papyrus 90, Papyrus 98, Papyrus 104, and famously Rylands Library Papyrus P52, though the early date of the latter has recently been called into question). </P> <P> For each subsequent century, more and more manuscripts survive that contain a portion or all of the books that were held to be part of the New Testament at that time (for example, the New Testament of the 4th - century Codex Sinaiticus, once a complete Bible, contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas), though occasionally these manuscripts contain other works as well (e.g., Papyrus 72 and the Crosby - Schøyen Codex). The date when a manuscript was written, however, does not necessarily reflect the date of the form of text it contains . That is, later manuscripts can, and occasionally do, contain older forms of text or older readings . </P>

Who wrote the first text to be included in the new testament