It is true that the church had come up with lists of books that were accepted as Scripture. The earliest known list was in AD 393. However, the accepted books were not decided by these communities. The committees merely stated formally what was already accepted by the community. As stated above, we have evidence from as early as Jesus’ days that the Old Testament we have is accepted by the community. We also have evidence from as early as the second century that the books we have in the New Testament have been accepted by the community. Not only that, we also have in possession complete copies of manuscripts of the Bible – Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus – which were written 40 to 50 years before the even 393 AD that contain all 27 books of the present New Testament Bible.
It is necessary to emphasize that no church through its councils made the Scripture. The bible owes its authority to no individual or group. Although divine authority was attributed to the New Testament books by the church, this authority was not derived from the church. The church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognizing their innate worth and apostolic authority, direct or indirect. What the councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 did was not to impose something new upon the Christian communities but to formalize what was already the general practice of these communities.