 The 27-book enumeration balances one-for-one the 27 canonical books of the New Testament.Most of the protocanonical books were broadly accepted among early Christians.However, some were omitted by a few of the earliest canons, The Marcionites, an early Christian sect that was dominant in some parts of the Roman Empire, recognised a reduced canon excluding the entire Hebrew Bible in favor of a modified version of Luke and ten of the Pauline epistles.