Real-contest corrects the popular picture of what was argued about. No-vote dissolves the premise the picture rests on. Knowing that the fights were over Hebrews and Revelation rather than Thomas matters less than establishing that no body ever chose among candidates at all — the second makes the first intelligible, not the reverse. Wide but not enormous, because no-vote is only credible to someone who has been shown the specific texture that real-contest supplies.

These are parallel historical corrections to attractive council myths. “No vote” removes Nicaea from the story of the New Testament canon; “no Jamnia council” removes an imagined rabbinic synod from the story of the Tanakh. Equal weight here means equal importance as corrections, not identical formation histories.