xtcvitality said:
Isn't it just as possible that the church decided to keep only the scrolls and gospels that they deemed fit for mass consumption? I think that would be entirely more likely.
They certainly did. Most of the NT books were written down between 50-150 AD. There wasn't one official church at the time, just a number of congregations, founded by the various different apostles or those who knew them. The various stories and sayings and teachings of the congregations got written down and circulated in gospels. In addition to the four in the NT, there were numerous others, some which we have copies or fragments of, some which we only know of through mentions in other early Christian literature. There was a Gospel of Thomas, of Peter, of the Hebrews, of Truth; Acts of various people; letters by various people; all in all a whole slew of documents.
As time goes by, people in the churches talk with each other and try and hash out their differences. We have lots of writings of the early church fathers from 100-300-- Ignatius, Clement, Origen, etc -- discussing various works, saying "this one is falsely written, for it contains blasphemy," "this one is authentic, for it was written by so-and-so." You see sects emerge with rough agreement on what is right, which denounce and shun each other as heretics. eg, Eusebius discusses which books are accepted, debated, and blasphemous by around ~300:
...all these may be reckoned among the disputed books. But we have nevertheless felt compelled to give a catalogue of these also, distinguishing those works which according to ecclesiastical tradition are true and genuine and commonly accepted, from those others which, although not canonical but disputed, are yet at the same time known to most ecclesiastical writers -- we have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrew and John and the other apostles, which no one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed worthy of mention in his writings.
And further, the character of the style is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics. Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejected writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and impious.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm Eventually, when the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church gained the sanction of the state with Constantine, they were able to use it to suppress the various offshoots deemed heretical. Augustine had the sect of Arians' books banned and burned ~425...
The emperor punished Arius with exile, and dispatched edicts to the bishops and people of every country, denouncing him and his adherents as ungodly, and commanding that their books should be destroyed, in order that no remembrance of him or of the doctrine which he had broached might remain. Whoever should be found secreting his writings and who should not bum them immediately on the accusation, should undergo the penalty of death, and suffer capital punishment.
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-02/Npnf2-02-19.htm#P3125_1277828
The first big list of banned works shown appears in ~500 :
V. The remaining writings which have been compiled or been recognised by heretics or schismatics the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church does not in any way receive; of these we have thought it right to cite below a few which have been handed down and which are to be avoided by catholics:
<long list>
These and those similar ones... and what also all disciples of heresy and of the heretics and schismatics, whose names we have scarcely preserved, have taught or compiled, we acknowledge is to be not merely rejected but eliminated from the whole Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and with their authors and the followers of its authors to be damned in the inextricable shackles of anathema forever.
http://www.tertullian.org/decretum_eng.htm 
There is no God. Even if there was free will, there still wouldn't be a God, at least not a Christian one.
