How was the old testament canonized?

The Five Books of Moses (called the Torah) were the initial governing documents of the nation of Israel.

Moses trained scribes to write them and readers to know the details of reading them.

They were -well, everywhere.

The so-called "documentary hypothesis" of the four authors is a 19th century invention based on the misunderstanding of the literary style of the "Five Books".

There are no known source documents nor a reasonable proposal of how they came together as the foundational legal documents of Israel.

The other books tend to be from leadership sources.

The prophet Samuel worked with King Saul and later King David. He wrote several of the books.

The first Psalms were written by Moses. Others were written by various priests and prophets -- the whole thing was compiled by King David.

Several other books are compilations of the work of King Solomon.

Then there are history books written by historians.

Books were valuable and were treated with great respect.

The Jewish Bible was canonised (put together as the fina lofficial compilation) by the leaders of the Jews in the Babylonian exile.

These guys were "princes" of Israel in unbroken leadership lines.

Presumably all these books were brought with them much the way Jews have continued to bring books in even the most challenging circumstances.

When my grandmother's family escaped the Nazis all they had was the pajmas on their backs and a Torah scroll.

Additionaly, there are hiding places in the Temple Mound underneath the buildings where valuables were stored in cases of invasion. It may be that some of the books were preserved in this manner.

Actually the first books, usually called the Pentateuch, were written by at least four different authors at four different times. Certainly not one single person.

The only reason each author knew about what the other authors wrote is because they obviously had access to the writings of the others. These writings span hundreds of years in the making so it's not much of a surprise really.

The canon itself was essentially chosen by popular vote. What was the Roman church reading on Easter Sunday? What about the other churches? What were they reading? The most popular stories eventually made their way into the canon simply because of that, they were popular.

Ironically, Revelations almost didn't make it in but at the last minute, someone whose name and position I can't remember, petitioned for it to be added to the canon and it was without even a single question being asked. Which is surprising given the iffy content the book contains.

But don't take my word for it, just search around and do some research. Find out for yourself.

At the first council at Nicea in 325 ad

Your name spelt backward is Yentruoc.