Kosta, you are starting to remind me of the modernist professor, Fr. Paul Tarazi, at St. Vladimir's. His Scriptural commentaries seem to buy into German 'higher criticism', and he's given to shocking Biblical literalists by trotting out such this-worldly analyses in the midst of an otherwise conservative reading of Scripture.
Surely the fact you put a + in front of the Holy Apostle Paul's name indicates you regard him as being lead by the Holy Spirit in his actions. The indisputable fact that a sober this-wordly analysis of the religious situation c. 70 AD suggests that the Church would have at worst died out, or at best dwindled to an odd little sect like the Mandeans (Iraqi marsh Arabs who regard the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John as the Messiah), had gentile converts been obliged to keep the entire Mosaic law, does not in any way negate the fact that the Holy Apostles, both the 12 and the 70, were vessels of the Holy Spirit, nor the Apostolic Council's preambulatory "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. . ."
I'm not sure, either for you or Fr. Paul, what the point of dwelling on the material circumstances that shaped the composition of the canon and its contents is--particularly when writing or speaking to an audience of non-Orthodox certain to take offense at the discussion.
I realize that as an Orthodox Christian, it is quite easy to simultaneously accept the this-worldly analyses of how Scripture got composed, and to believe that it is still the result of the activity of the Holy Spirit, but tweaking the attitute of protestants that the Bible is a sort of Christian Koran, literally dictated by God, by unedifying means, rather than showing the attitudes of the ancient Church toward the Scriptures, fun though it may be, is, well , unedifying.
I never rejected +Paul. Who am I to reject him?
...sober this-wordly analysis of the religious situation c. 70 AD suggests that the Church would have at worst died out...does not in any way negate the fact [sic] that the Holy Apostles, both the 12 and the 70, were vessels of the Holy Spirit, nor the Apostolic Council's preambulatory "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..."
Faith does not convince by "facts," nor by reason. Otherwise it would be verifyable rationalism.
What you call a fact does not impress the Jews or the Muslims. They subscribe to an entirely different set "facts."