[quadrant]

The fact that no canonical list exists of books that should be in the Bible does not preclude Protestants from examining the literature that does exist and compiling a statement of God's revelation to humankind. Nothing I've seen or read indicates that the leaders of the Church in antiquity possessed insight into God's will superior to those who compiled the Protestant Bible. Simply because an early Church council decided that certain books should be included and certain books excluded in no way settles the issue.

[Petrosius]

Simply because an early Church council decided that certain books should be included and certain books excluded in no way settles the issue.

By the same logic, neither would the judgment of "those who compiled the Protestant Bible." Nor, without a divinely guided visible and hierarchical church, could anyone's judgment on what should be considered Scripture. Thus the theory of sola scriptura falters on the basic question of what is Scripture in the first place.

[wmfights]

Simply because an early Church council decided that certain books should be included and certain books excluded in no way settles the issue.

FWIW, no binding council has ever established the canon.

The Synod at Hippo (all churches were not there) was not binding nor was the Council of Trent (EO had already left) when the RCC finally declared what it believed the canon to be. The reason it was never needed was because there really was no great controversy and only a few books at the end of the NT were ever really in question. The councils in the early church were only called where questions of great controversy existed. The absence of any council for over 250 years after the end of the Apostolic Era shows how little controversy there was concerning what was and was not "Inspired".