How the New Testament books were selected as acceptable reading in church (i.e., canonical) was a long and painful process that involved many decades of discussions, with no absolute consensus reached. Syrians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Russians, Rome and Protestants all have different books, the Protestant canon being, by a long way, the most recent.
Regardless, I find it really strange how many merely claim the NT as Christian writings. I would point out that the earliest Christian writings were the Pentateuch.
“the Protestant canon being, by a long way, the most recent.”
The Protestant canon matches Jerome’s canon. It is not “the most recent.” It is the ancient one that, aside from the New Testament of course, was accepted by the Jews. It is true that the church in Rome rejected the epistle to the Hebrews in the 4th century, and the Greeks in that same period rejected Revelation, yet both of those books had a long and venerable history in the church from the very beginning. These books were only disputed, by the way, due to the weakness of those people in fighting heresy. The Romans, for example, did not know how to answer the Manicheans on their abuse of the epistle of Hebrews. Same problem with heretics abusing the book of Revelation. Instead of defending the scripture, those churches, in the minority, simply put them out of the canon.
Furthermore, almost every book in the New Testament, aside from maybe 2 Peter and one or two others, were quoted or referenced by Papias, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Irenaeus, all men ranging from the 1st century into the 2nd.
It does not appear that any of these men thought that they were not quoting scripture, insomuch as they say “the scripture saith,” and then they quote it.
>> “Regardless, I find it really strange how many merely claim the NT as Christian writings. I would point out that the earliest Christian writings were the Pentateuch.” <<
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I agree fully!
Yeshua’s coming was prophecied in Deuteronomy 18.