Canon
Why collections differ — existence, reception, and canonical status kept apart.
Canon is the study face for why Jewish and Christian collections of Scripture are not identical. A writing can survive, be quoted, be read in church, and still carry a different status in a later list. This page keeps those claims in separate tabs so a story about one council does not swallow the manuscripts, the quotations, and the other traditions.
Textual existence
Existence means the writing is actually preserved. That can be a manuscript, a fragment, a quotation inside another book, or a translation that still carries the work. Aramaic pieces of 1 Enoch from Qumran, the Ge'ez book that preserves 1 Enoch in full, and Codex Sinaiticus copying the Shepherd of Hermas are existence evidence. They answer whether anyone copied the work. They do not assign it to the Protestant sixty-six, the Catholic list, or the Ethiopian broader canon.
Historical reception
Reception is what a named person, church, or list did with a writing, and when. Jude quotes an Enochic judgment saying. Carthage names Tobit among books to be read in church. Luther prints selected books in an Apocrypha section and ranks them below Holy Scripture. Each of those is a dated act with a source. One act does not speak for every later community, and a quotation is not the same kind of act as a canon list.
Canonical status
Status is the label a defined tradition uses now, or used in the period that column represents. Canonical, deuterocanonical, broader canon, disputed, liturgical reading, edifying but outside the canon, related literature, rejected, and not applicable are different labels. The Canon Matrix is the comparison. A dash in a cell means this dataset has no status row for that pair. It is an empty record, not a silent condemnation.
How the other tabs fit
Writings opens one work. The matrix compares traditions side by side. The timeline puts dated events in order. Manuscripts are the physical copies. Witnesses are the people and lists who quote, preserve, or classify a work. Councils & Lists holds the episcopal lists, regional councils, Reformation printings, and confessions. Traditions explains what each column of the matrix actually is, including the older reference columns that are not modern denominations.