Hi Bill,
The church councils of around 300AD could not have "created the Bible from loose writings". Much of the Bible (the Old Testament" was finalized some 300 years BC. Thanks to the Dead Sea scrolls, we have evidence of this dating back to at least the time of Christ and in some cases, up to 100 years earlier.
For the New Testament, it was not as is often claimed, a result of any church council. This is clear from an examination of the historical records. Read, for exapmle, the work of Justin Martyr, Tatian, and Theophilius, who all speak of the various books from our New Testament during the middle of the second century AD. Also we have from the end of the second century AD numerous references to the books we currently have in the New Testament, indicating that they were accepted as genuine, and numerous references to books , some of which are in the Pseudepigrapha, which were rejected because they had been shown to be written by someone other than who they were claimed to be.
During the third century AD, some questions were raised about certain books, such as 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, etc, by persons such as Origen. There were also some questions raised about such books as Shepherd of Hermas, Barnabas, Didache, that were not part of the accepted canon, but were considered worthy as such by some. However by the End of the third century AD, Eusebius was able to list all of the books accepted by christians as canonical.
Probably where most people get the idea that it was a church council that set the canon for the New Testament, is from a council held in 382 AD under Pope Damasus, that voted on which books would be accepted by the western (roman) church. All this vote did was accept what had been decided nearly 200 years earlier.
The study of the history of the New Testament and how it was derived, is a facinating subject, and one that I would recomend to anyone for some serious study. However, you need to get hold of copies of original documents and writings, not just what is found on the internet. So much of that is pure BS.
Cheers,
Maurice
