RE: it deemphasizes the fact that during and after the apostolic era there were many writings which were thought to be, and were claimed to be inspired.
Sure there were. But why were they not accepted? It was because the entire community of churches RECOGNIZED that they were not apostolic. In other words, these extra-canonical writings were NOT ACCEPTED by the body of Christ at large.
RE: The first sentence of your third graph does not conflict with what I’ve just stated. The second sentence of that graph is an example of circular reasoning.
Is this the circular reasoning that you refer to?
“In other words, these councils were declaring THE WAY THINGS HAVE BEEN, not the way they wanted them to be.”
How is that circular?
My departed father wrote a letter to our relatives and to me and my family giving us instructions as to how he wishes his vast holdings to be disposed.
The relatives are spread out all over the world. However, his letter was read to everyone spread out worldwide.
Some people disagreed that these instructions were not the wishes of my father. How do we know that it is indeed from him?
They know it was from him because we have spoken to our father, the relatives know the man and understood his writing style, and he had verbally expressed his wishes before and only put them into writing before he died.
In other words, there was already a consensus among his immediate family AND other relatives.
In order to dispel the doubt, the relatives came together with me and my family and we formally tell the doubters that we recognize this as the very wish of my father. We also draft a form to tell those in posterity that this was indeed the way my father wanted to dispose his vast holdings.
Did the draft form MAKE his letter more authentic? Or was it simply a formal recognition of what his family already knew about his wishes that they placed on paper?
In the same way, the councils did not GIVE us the canon. The Canon was already widely accepted. They simply FORMALIZED the process for posterity.
>>“In other words, these councils were declaring THE WAY THINGS HAVE BEEN, not the way they wanted them to be.”
Because the concluding clause bears no necessary relationship to the opening clause. You could just as logically have said that the way things had been is just the way the councils wanted things to be. In other words the sentence is a nonsequitur, i.e., the second clause does not logically follow from the opening clause.