Begin reading through the New Testament and, in addition to the grand story, you will eventually notice a few things. For one thing, the story of Jesus gets repeated four times, then you hear the story of the early church, and then you begin to read letters that don’t seem to be in any sort of coherent order. Why is the New Testament organized how it is, and not some other way? Why is the New Testament canon laid out in the order that it is? Why is the New Testament not arranged in order of its events? Or, to ask yet a slightly different question, why is the New Testament not arranged in the order in which it was written?

In this article, we will look at the major orders in which the New Testament can appear. First, we will consider canonical order: the order in which the writings of the New Testament appear in modern, published Bibles. Second, we will consider chronological order: the order in which the events of the New Testament are portrayed. And finally, we will consider several different proposals for the compositional order: the order in which New Testament writings were actually written down.

As one final prolegomenological note, let me foreground my belief that each of these orders provides insights into the meaning and message of the New Testament. Context matters a great deal—in fact, it governs the meaning of everything. While we often pay close attention to historical context when it comes to questions about the ordering and understanding of the New Testament, literary context also matters. In short, where you find a particular book or passage in the collection known as the New Testament makes a difference to and influences the interpretation of that book or passage. Thus, canonical order, chronological order, and compositional order each cast (and recast) the writings of the New Testament in ways that are fruitful for faithful and critical readings of the text.

Canonical Order

First, let us consider canonical order: the order of New Testament books that appears in modern published Bibles. Before diving in, let me first note that not every edition of the New Testament has included precisely the 27 books modern readers are familiar with, nor have those books always been in exactly the order in which we are used to them appearing.

To cite one historical example, Codex Sinaiticus (one of the oldest full copies of the New Testament) uses the following order: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Acts, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation, Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas. There are obviously a few key differences there, as well as some familiar patterns.

That said, there are two primary reasons why the New Testament appears in the order it does today. First, the New Testament largely follows the organizational pattern of the Old Testament, with the core story (Torah for the OT, Gospels for the NT), followed by historical accounts and other writings. Obviously, the pattern does not match entirely, but it’s relatively easy to notice a three-fold pattern of organization in both testaments.

But a second reason the New Testament looks like it does is because collections of now-New Testament writings circulated in the ancient world centuries before they found their way into the canon of the New Testament. Based on evidence from early Christian writers known as the Apostolic Fathers, it seems that collections of writings were beginning to circulate by the last first century. While we are not 100% certain what these collections initially would have looked like, by the late-second and early-third centuries, several clear groupings had emerged:

• Gospels (often, but not always in the order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and sometimes including a Luke-Acts collection)
• Pauline Epistles (often, but not always arranged largest to smallest, Romans to Pastorals, sometimes including Hebrews and sometimes not)
• General Epistles (typically James to Jude)

There was no uniform standard in the earliest years of these collections, as usefulness and accessibility often governed what an early Christian community might have in their growing collection of scriptura. The Gospels were the most commonly circulated, followed by the works of Paul. Everything else enjoyed a pattern of usage that sometimes varied by geography. Finally, in the early fourth century, we begin to see evidence of the New Testament canon as we have it today:

• Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John¹
• Acts²
• Pauline Epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon³
• General Epistles: Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude⁴
• Revelation⁵

This order was popularized by the time of Athanasius of Alexandria’s Festal Letter 39 and eventually became the standard ordering of the New Testament canon.

Chronological Order

A chronological ordering of the New Testament is arranged a little differently, with the main difference being that many New Testament letters find themselves superimposed into the narrative of Acts. Without digging too much into the minutia, it probably looks something like this:

• Gospels⁶
• Acts 1-14
• James / Galatians⁷
• Acts 15-18.18
• 1 Thessalonians
• 2 Thessalonians
• Acts 18.19-19
• 1 Corinthians
• 2 Corinthians
• Acts 20.1-3
• Romans
• Acts 20.4-24
• Colossians, Philemon & Laodicians⁸
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Acts 25-28.29
• 1 Timothy
• Titus
• 1 Peter
• Hebrews
• Acts 28.30-31
• 2 Timothy
• Jude
• 2 Peter
• Revelation 1-3
• 1 John
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Revelation 4-22

There’s plenty of debate about some of this, but based on what events are described or assumed to be contemporaneous with these writings and passages, this is a basic outline of a chronological reading of the New Testament.

Compositional Order

A final way to think about the ordering of the New Testament is in the order in which these documents were written. At first, you might imagine that this would parallel the chronological ordering, but that’s not quite correct. Most scholars believe that either 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, or James was the first New Testament document written, all of which speak to events chronologically later than the Gospels. This is largely due to the fact that the Gospels are not media reports or live tweets about Jesus: they are literary biographies, composed by followers of Jesus to tell the story of Jesus as the first generation of Christians got older.

The order in which the writings of the New Testament were composed is a topic of much scholarly debate. On the one hand, many contemporary scholars push the writing of certain documents well into the second century and speak extensively about anonymous and pseudonymous authorship of certain writings. On the other hand, there are plenty of scholars who advocate for much earlier (and more traditional) datings, with some scholars even suggesting that the contents of the New Testament were written before the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple by Rome in 70 CE.⁹

Consider Marcus Borg’s listing of the New Testament books in the order they were written in The Evolution of the Word (including his likely dates¹⁰):

• 1 Thessalonians (50 CE)
• Galatians (50 CE)
• 1 Corinthians (50 CE)
• Philemon (mid-50s CE)
• Philippians (mid-50s CE)
• 2 Corinthians (mid-50s)
• Romans (58 CE)
• Mark (70 CE)
• James (70-80 CE)
• Colossians (80s CE)
• Matthew (80-90 CE)
• Hebrews (80-90 CE)
• John (90 CE)
• Ephesians (90s CE)
• Revelation (90s CE)
• Jude (90s CE)
• 1 John (100 CE)
• 2 John (100 CE)
• 3 John (100 CE)
• Luke (100 CE)
• Acts (100 CE)
• 2 Thessalonians (100 CE)
• 1 Peter (100 CE)
• 1 Timothy (100-110 CE)
• 2 Timothy (100-110 CE)
• Titus (100-110 CE)
• 2 Peter (120-150 CE)

Likewise, consider the “consensus dates”¹¹ that are often used as a benchmark by New Testament scholars for discussing when the writings of the New Testament were composed:

• Galatians (48 CE)
• 1 Thessalonians (51 CE)
• 2 Thessalonians (51 CE)
• 1 Corinthians (53-57 CE)
• Philippians (54-55 CE)
• Philemon (54-55 CE)
• 2 Corinthians (55-58 CE)
• Romans (57-58 CE)
• Jude (60-110 CE)
• Colossians (62-70 CE)
• Mark (65-73 CE)
• James (65-85 CE)
• 1 Peter (75-90 CE)
• Matthew (80-90 CE)
• Luke (80-90 CE)
• Acts (80-90 CE)
• Hebrews (80-90 CE)
• Ephesians (80-90 CE)
• John (90-110 CE)
• 1 John (90-110 CE)
• 2 John (90-110 CE)
• 3 John (90-110 CE)
• Revelation (95 CE)
• 1 Timothy (100 CE)
• 2 Timothy (100 CE)
• Titus (100 CE)
• 2 Peter (110 CE)

One Final Proposal

Alternatively, my own research suggests a much tighter window of writing:

• Galatians (48-49 CE)
• James (48-49 CE)
• Jerusalem Council (50 CE)
• Mark (50-60 CE)
• Jude (50-60 CE)
• 1 Thessalonians (51-52 CE)
• 2 Thessalonians (51-52 CE)
• 1 Corinthians (54 CE)
• 2 Corinthians (56 CE)
• Romans (56-59 CE)
• Colossians (58 or 61 CE)
• Philemon (58 or 61 CE)
• Laodicians (58 or 61 CE)
• Matthew (~60 CE)
• Luke (60-62 CE)
• Philippians (61-62 CE)
• Ephesians (61-62 CE)
• 1 Timothy (62 CE)
• Titus (62 CE)
• Acts (62-64 CE)
• 2 Timothy (64 CE)
• Death of Paul (64 CE)
• 1 Peter (64-66 CE)
• Hebrews (64-70 CE)
• 2 Peter (66-68 CE)
• Death of Peter (68 CE)
• Revelation (68-70 CE)
• Destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE)
• John (70-80 CE)
• 1 John (70-80 CE)
• 2 John (80-100 CE)
• 3 John (80-100 CE)

There are two driving ideas behind this proposal. First, I find generally compelling Robinson’s argument in Redating the New Testament (since echoed and expanded upon by countless scholars) that the implications of the destruction of Jerusalem should be noticeable in early Christian writings after its occurrence. Particularly in New Testament writings written for a Jewish audience, the lack of clear signals about this event is extremely telling. The detailed arguments in Hebrews, for example, make little sense if they had been written after Jerusalem has fallen; in that case, why not simply spell out the disastrous implications of Judaism, as later anti-Jewish Christian writers would?¹²

The second driving idea behind my proposal is that early Christian writing occurs around events. That is, for a missional and eschatological movement such as early Christianity, there needed to be some clear impetus for taking the time to write something down and then preserve it. Religious movements that expect an imminent end do not typically write much down for posterity’s sake. There need to be certain developments, debates, or deaths to drive such a shift. In my thinking, the chart below indicates some of the influences that were likely at work in the composition of New Testament texts.

Why does the New Testament appear in the order it does? For a variety of reasons, perhaps including reasons influenced by chronology of events or order of composition, but not limited to those factors. Considering alternative orders to the New Testament—especially the chronological and compositional—does provide a useful lens for considering what the New Testament says and means. In fact, there is much to be learned from considering alternative orders. As we take up and read, therefore, let us be aware of how literary context shapes and influences how we engage the Scriptures.