In a Christian context the canon is the list of those writings which are acknowledged by the church* as documents of the divine revelation. More generally the word has come to mean the list of writings comprised in the sacred scriptures of any religious body. The Greek word kanōn (“rule”) was probably borrowed from the Phoenician equivalent of Hebrew qāneh (“reed,” “rod”). From its primary sense, “rod,” it came to be used of a measuring rod or rule, and then of the series of graduated