The Making of the New Testament, AD 40-150
As long as the first disciples, who had known Jesus personally, were still alive, they could tell other people all about him, but stories about him soon began to be written down as well. Some stories and sayings may first have circulated in Aramaic, the language that Jesus and his earliest followers spoke. However, the Gospels as we now have them were written in Greek, which had become the common language of the Roman world, especially at the eastern end of the Mediterranean region.
As the Christian message first began to spread, Paul and other apostles also wrote letters in Greek to their friends in the Christian churches. These letters were regarded with great respect, and were copied and passed around to other churches and Christian groups. Gradually a collection of highly-revered writings appeared, and by the end of the second century this collection had taken almost the same form as the New Testament we use today. By the fourth century, the Old and the New Testaments were being used together by Christians, as their own, distinctive holy books.
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