Growing up in the Roman Catholic Church and attending RCC schools for 16 years, not a great deal of emphasis was placed on the study of the Bible. I remember when I began to attend Bible study classes being puzzled about a particular dispute in a community mentioned in one of Paul's letters which would have been easily settled by passages in one of the Gospels. When I asked the question of the leader of our group, he said, "Think about it." We had already covered the estimated dates of the parts of the NT, and after I thought for a while, I realized that the Gospel that would have settled the dispute was not yet written at the time of Paul's letter. Since Paul was a not disciple of Jesus before his death, and his conversion was a result of a private revelation, he had not heard all the stories about Jesus, what he said and what he did, that are told in the Gospels which came later. Aha!
Do read the entire article at HP in which Borg explains why it is important to the history of the church to know the order in which the books of the NT were written. Below is the list the books in chronological order according to Borg.
1 Thessalonians
Galatians
1 Corinthians
Philemon
Philippians
2 Corinthians
Romans
Mark
James
Colossians
Matthew
Hebrews
John
Ephesians
Revelation
Jude
1 John, 2 John, 3 John
Luke
Acts
2 Thessalonians
1 Peter
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
2 Peter
Photo from Wikipedia.
