And the New Testament was written and handed down to the church as they were being produced.
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So who made the decision as to what would be included in the Bible and when did this decision take place?
The Holy Spirit before the foundation of the world.
“So who made the decision as to what would be included in the Bible and when did this decision take place?”
What lone authority even existed in the first few hundred years to make such a decision? Certainly it wasn’t anyone in Rome, since even in the 4th century, per Jerome, the Roman church denied the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews, despite its widespread use and acceptance within Christianity from day one.
“This must be said to our people, that the epistle which is entitled “To the Hebrews” is accepted as the apostle Paul’s not only by the churches of the east but by all church writers in the Greek language of earlier times, although many judge it to be by Barnabas or by Clement. It is of no great moment who the author is, since it is the work of a churchman and receives recognition day by day in the public reading of the churches. If the custom of the Latins does not receive it among the canonical scriptures, neither, by the same liberty, do the churches of the Greeks accept John’s Apocalypse. Yet we accept them both, not following the custom of the present time but the precedent of early writers, who generally make free use of testimonies from both works. And this they do, not as they are wont on occasion to quote from apocryphal writings, as indeed they use examples from pagan literature, but treating them as canonical and churchly works.” (Letter to Dardanus, prefect of Gaul Ad Dardanum, no. 129 § 3. A.D. 414.)
If authority was needed to make the word of God the Word of God, we would never have had Hebrews, and perhaps might have lost Revelation, had we depended on the innovations of individual church groups.
So when the Ignatius, who perished between 95-115AD, quoted from the Gospels or any other work, he depended entirely upon the authority of the Apostles who wrote them. Same as Polycarp. Same as Irenaeus. Without any regard to what anyone else thought.