Who were the people chosen to choose the books in the New Testament and what are all the books they had to choose from?

Answer 1

There was no one point in time when the books of the New Testament were defined, and thus no single group of theologians who were given this task. This answer is largely limited to the branch of Christianity that was eventually to become the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches. There were at least 17 gospels in total, but most were too clearly gnostic in nature to be accepted by the orthodox Church. Other books considered by some as worthy of inclusion included the Didache and 1 Clement. Marcion was the first Christian to attempt to define a canon of the New Testament. He accepted Luke's Gospel, from which he removed all references to the Old Testament, plus the majority of the epistles attributed to Paul. However, Marcion had left what was to become the orthodox branch of Christianity in the 140s CE, joining the Gnostic movement to form his own Church. Thus, his views were rejected by the orthodox Church. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, became a leading advocate for a defined canon of the New Testament, and put forward strongly his view that of the gospels, only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John should be considered canonical. At that stage, several other gospels, particularly Thomas, were in widespread use by members of the orthodox Church. Irenaeus appears to have included The Shepherd of Hermas, but rejected Colossians, Philemon and Hebrews. Eusebius (260-340 CE) prepared a list of the books that he regarded as acceptable, those in dispute and those he regarded as clearly heretical. He also rejected Collosians,and considered James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John and 3 John to be disputed. By the Council of Nicaea in 325, the orthodox New Testament was more or less agreed upon, but the Eastern Churches (the future Eastern Orthodox Churches) gradually developed a different canon from that adopted by the Western Church (later the Roman Catholic Church). The Protestant Reformation brought the need for a defined canon to a head. Luther began to define the Protestant canon, rejecting some of the books of the Roman Catholic Canon. In defence, the Catholic Church finally defined its biblical canon.

Answer 2

There were various early church leaders and councils involved in selecting the books for the New Testament, including the Council of Carthage in 397 AD. They had to choose from a wide range of writings circulating in the early Christian communities, including the four Gospels, Acts, letters of Paul, and other writings such as Hebrews, Revelation, and the Catholic Epistles.