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You raise a couple of different issues, so I'll try to address each of them directly.
First, you ask about the process used to compile what we know today as the Bible. Clearly, in ancient Israel and ancient Rome, as you noted, history was often transmitted orally. Over time, the history of the Jews, the life of Christ, and the missionary journeys of Paul and other apostles were recorded in written form. Beginning in the third century, the church fathers began to evaluate the many different accounts that had been floating around since the middle of the first century. In evaluating them, they had to apply a variety of criteria in determining which were true and belonged in the cannon and which were false. In short, after much debate and nearly two hundred years, the Council of Carthage in 400 AD finally set the cannon Scripture, essentially establishing the Bible that we have today.
Much of the material that was not included in the Bible is still available today, and it's clear why such material has not persisted through history. Apocryphal material does not reflect the same style or character as the material in the Bible.
The church councils didn't edit and twist material to comprise the Bible. Their task was simply to recognize the divine inspiration of certain books. Do these books reflect the character of God as displayed in other texts? Are these books historically and doctrinally consistent with the tradition of the church?
There are a lot of reasons that people believe in the Bible. The trend in recent years has been to prove the reliability of the Bible with arguments that stress the Bible's honesty, unity, preservation, historical and geographical accuracy, and its prophetic accuracy.
I think if you use these types of standards, you might prove the Bible to be more reliable than other holy books (i.e. the Qu'ran, the Book of Mormon, etc.), but I don't think it gives anyone a compelling reason to believe.
The reason that I believe in the Bible is because it has provided a meta-narrative for a community of faith for nearly two thousand years. It tells the story of God's involvement in human history. It describes the nature of humanity and the interjection of God into history in the person of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells the story of Christ's life, his death, and his resurrection. Simply put, I believe the Bible because it claims to be the truth and for two thousand years, communities of faith all around the world have worshipped the God revealed in it.
I know that probably doesn't answer all the objections, but it's a start.
marcus
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