Andrew, I was in two minds about including AD. The only reason to include it was because people are unused to three digit years. At least I am! ;) Anyway, I'm happy to see it go. I love simplicity, just won't surrender it unless clarity isn't thrown out with the bathwater. As I said, I'm content. Explaining the "nearest 50 years" rule is great. )
Also, I was going to explain the contents were only as specific as chapter. You have done this in a very neat and clear way, thank you! Great to have you at work on things!
Yes, I thought about linking the books or not. The main argument against was that it took so long to enter them! However, the point of linking every repeated entry in a sortable list imo is that people may sort on city, for example, to see manuscripts near their home, say. If they see that Thessalonians is in a university library 125 miles away, maybe they will click on the link to Thess to see what Wiki editors have said about the book. Instead of looking for the first instance of Thessalonians in the table, or trying to decipher the abbreviation they just click on the field in the record they are looking at.
I agree about not over-Wiki-ing, especially in the body of an article, and especially if different words are given the same link. Tables, by their nature are speedy reference systems, I like the idea of giving people just one click to follow up locating a record of interest.
One example of how I might use the table is to add a "Textual criticism" section to articles on NT books that don't have one already. I'd sort the table by the Contents field (I know it's not perfect), view the data relevant to a book and click through to it.
Another use is to check just what 1 Corinthians chapters 10-11 contain. That article actually has links to specific chapters. Some of us know what's in chapters, most won't. Though, admittedly, not all articles on NT books go to specifics on chapters, but maybe in time they will.
Now the work is done, it seems like a pity to lose it. Rest assured, I'm not going to be writing articles with every second word Wikified. ;)