This thesis examines the influences behind the canonization of the New Testament literature through examinations of Hellenistic educational and textual practices, Jewish scribalism, and scholarly disputes between early Christian intellectuals. This is to problematize the assumption of the development of the New Testament as something orderly and vectored. To that end, first, Hellenistic textual and educational practices will be examined to show how Homeric poetry was redacted and collected in the academy, with specific eyes to the creation of lists by Cicero and Quintilian for lists of books to read in a liberal education. Secondly, this process of scholarship continues into Alexandrian Judaism with the Middle-Platonizing Philo, and his allegorical exegesis of the Jewish Pentateuch, to show the inclusion of Yahwistic Literature into some intellectual circles, and the resultant influence of allegory as hermeneutic in the Mishnaic literature. Thirdly, this allegorical method of textual analysis continues into early Christianity, and an examination of the scholarly discussions between figures like Irenaeus and Marcion will be done to illustrate how the evolution of the New Testament is akin to scholarly, academic discourse over textual collection and editing, and not an apocalyptic struggle of orthodoxy, as the polemicists would argue. The result of this is to call into question assumptions in the field of New Testament canonization, and give voice to Hellenistic, Jewish and Gnostic sources as major influences on the collection and content of the New Testament literature, in contradiction to popular understandings of the history of canonization.