“... Two other early sources mention this alternative reckoning of twenty-four books. The Christian Gospel of Thomas, probably dating to the second half of the second century, represents Jesus’s disciples as saying to their master that ‘twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you’ (Gos. Thom. 52). There is no elaboration of this point, but it seems likely that the disciples are referring to the Jewish Scriptures and counting them as twenty-four books. From around the same time as Josephus, the Jewish work 4 Ezra provides the other reference to twenty-four books. The text purports to narrate events from the time of Ezra, but it was actually written by an anonymous author at the end of the first century CE. According to the narrative, the manuscripts of the Jewish Scriptures were destroyed along with the city of Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian captivity. After the exile, Ezra and his five companions were charged by God to replace these Scriptures over a period of forty days. So during the forty days, ninety-four books were written. And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, ‘Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge’. And I did so. (4 Ezra 14:44-8) There are two sets of books mentioned in this passage, twenty-four public books and seventy books reserved for the wise. Both sets of books are inspired. Fourth Ezra thus seems to know a collection of sacred Scripture that includes twenty-four books, and it also knows of other books that are not in this collection but that are inspired. [...] Most scholars argue that Josephus, 4 Ezra, and the Gospel of Thomas reflect a known biblical canon, even if not all Jews at the time would have accepted the same canon. ...”