The Earliest Christian manuscripts and their contribution to the history of the Canon

Resumen:
The number of the earliest extant Christian manuscripts of "scriptural" character and the study of their formal features offer some clues about the complex history of canon formation. In a negative sense they allow us to question the view that understands the Christian canon as a simple product of the fourth century-the product of a particular historical situation-and in a positive sense it suggests that the decisions about the makeup of the canon might be the result of a process of theological discernment on the basis of the particular use of some books.