Does Majority Equal Authority?

An Introduction to the Medieval Bible by Frans van Liere has opened my eyes further to the age-old debate: Is the Bible authoritative? By reading the selection that was assigned, it is evident that what is considered the Bible in modern cultural discourse was not the same collection of books a few centuries ago. If more people knew this, would they still find the Bible equally authoritative? Even within specific religions and their different qualifications for their authoritative texts, such as Judaism and the Old Testament, the collection has changed over the centuries and depended largely on where the books were being collected! For instance, the current Hebrew Bible consists of three collections: the five books of the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. Over the centuries, many followers have regarded these three collections as authoritative as a whole, though comparatively, different sects of Judaism considered only one of the collections canonical over the others (Saducees believed only the Torah was canonical, etc). Similarly, the Ketuvim seems to be a set in stone collection of writings by most, but Frans Van Liere has made it clear that those writings were up for discussion throughout the ages and regions.
Frans van Liere has completely perplexed me about the authority of the Bible. Though my thoughts were shaken by Michael Satlow and his dismemberment of how the Bible was used in antiquity, how out of context we often use Biblical references today, and an overall disregard to everything I thought I knew, Frans Van Liere has showed me that there is even more to question. Frans Van Liere and Michael Satlow are similar by how they both use historical evidence in a manner that shows discrepancies with common thoughts concerning the Bible. By highlighting the discrepancies, like Van Liere's notion of an unfixed group of texts that is now considered the Bible or Satlow's usage of the Bible in antiquity versus how the Bible is used today, the authors are able to activate the part of every religious scholar's mind that asks "What makes this text authoritative and why do large sums of people follow it?" The answer to this question gets more complicated with each reading we are assigned, but for now I can sum up what I've learned thus far: "Believe what you like, but don't believe everything you read without questioning it."