Well then I really think you would find Barnett's "Is the New Testament History?" to be a good read. He tackles the sources in and of themselves, and in conjunc

Well then I really think you would find Barnett's "Is the New Testament History?" to be a good read. He tackles the sources in and of themselves, and in conjunction. He also covers the credibility of Luke in detail. Furthermore, Luke is not the only source concerning Paul and his persecution of Christians in the 1st century. Your question of whether the New Testament documents have in fact survived intact down the ages is of tremendous importance. In terms of textual criticism, one would amongst other things compare the number and antiquity of New Testament manuscripts with those of other ancient literature. Daniel Wallace provides an overview: "In comparison with the remaining manuscripts of any Greek or Latin literature, the NT suffers from an embarrassment of riches. It is almost incomprehensible to think about the disparity. When it comes to quantity of copies, the NT has no peer. More than 5,700 Greek NT manuscripts are still in existence, ranging in date from the early second century to the sixteenth century. To be sure, the earliest ones (i.e. through the third century) are all fragmentary, but they cover a substantial amount of the NT." "And Greek manuscripts do not tell the whole story. The NT was translated early on into a variety of languages, including Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic and Arabic. All told, there are between 20,000 and 25,000 handwritten copies of the NT in various languages. Yet if all these were destroyed, the NT text could be reproduced almost in its entirety by quotations of it in sermons, tracts, and commentaries written by ancient teachers of the church... How does this compare with the average classical author? The copies of the average ancient Greek or Latin author's writings number fewer than 20 manuscripts. Thus, the NT has well over 1,000 times as many manuscripts as the works of the average classical author." F.F. Bruce provides another: "Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript attestation if we compare the textual material for other ancient historical works. For Caesar's Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 BC), there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Caesar's day. Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC - AD 17), only thirty-five survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, that containing fragments of Books 3-6, is as old as the fourth century. Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. The extant MSS of his minor works (Dialogus de Oratoribus, Agricola, Germania) all descend from a codex of the tenth century. The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to c. AD 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 BC). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,3000 years later than the originals. But how different is the situation of the New Testament in this respect!" And Sir Frederic Kenyon: "The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established." You may also be interested in the English reformers in Oxford in 1555 (martyred by their own Church of England), here is an audio of David Seccombe PhD (Cambridge University) on the subject: http://bit.ly/ohQ63h http://bit.ly/ohQ63h "My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee."