Bart Ehrman The New Testament And Other Early Christian Writing

Who was Jesus of Nazareth? What was he like? For more than 2,000 years, people and groups of varying convictions have pondered these questions and done their best to answer them. The significance of the subject is apparent. From the late Roman Empire all the way to our own time, no continuously existing institution or belief system has wielded as much influence as Christianity, no figure as much as Jesus.

In the first centuries after Christ, there was no "official" New Testament. Instead, early Christians read and fervently followed a wide variety of scriptures—many more than we have today.