This book challenges common assumptions that the shape of the canon of the Greek New Testament was determined by theological crises in the second and third centuries CE. Christensen argues that the shape and extent of the canon of the Greek New Testament was determined by the apostles themselves in the second half of the first century CE, as a conscious attempt to complete the Tanakh of Jewish tradition. The two major "generals" in the "battle of the canon" were the Apostle Paul and his companion Luke, the master editor of the Greek New Testament.