Quotations from "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"

A couple of good quotations that I may use for a powerpoint on Biblical historicity.

"While the major works of the New Testament were immediately seen as authentic by these early church fathers, most of the New Testament was accepted before A.D. 200, and all of it was officially and finally recognized as authentic by the Council of Hippo in 393. (p. 368) (From Geisler and Nix, General Introduction to the Bible, 294)

"...of about 40 authors over nearly 1,500 years to get his message across." (p. 372)

In fact, our conclusion on inerrancy would be falsified if someone could trace a real error back to an original scroll. (17) But to this day, after nearly 2,000 years of looking, no one has found such an irreconcilable problem. (This is truly amazing when you consider that the Bible is really a collection of documents written by about 40 authors over a 1,500-year period. Where could you find such agreement on a variety of issues from 40 authors who all live today, much less over a 1,500-year period?)
(17): Copyist errors have been found in manuscripts, but they are easily identified and known not to be in the original by comparing the many manuscripts in existence (see chapter 9). While no Bible originals have yet been found, earlier manuscripts of other works have survived. So it is possible that a Bible original may someday be discovered.

I really like the statistic in bold (found in 3 places above). Gives a great perspective of the vastness of the work, effort, and study that went into JUST the writing of the books (inspired, of course), not to mention the immense work that took place to fastidiously copy them and translate and transmit them down to us. Incredible how God has created and protected this precious love-letter to us!