The Bible

I have been doing a series on the Da Vinci Code in church. We are now entering our fourth and final week talking about it. But this last week I spent some time talking about the reliability of the Bible. It is facinating how easily people dismiss the reliability of the Bible and yet have unquestioned faith and trust in other ancient books such as Homer's Illiad. There are probably 600 copies or so in existence dating back to about 400 BC yet the original was written in 800-900 BC. More than 500 years from the originals. They are unquestioned. Other ancient resources considered reliable and accurate have copies that are more than a 1000 years from the originals. Yet the New Testament has over 14,000 copies of manuscripts and pieces of manuscripts that are all in complete agreement. The earliest copies we have come from about 125 AD when the originals were written between 40-100 AD. That gives us about 25 years difference from the originals to the copies. Then why is the NT given such a hard time when it is the most reliable and accurate ancient document in history? No other ancient documents come even close to the accuracy and reliability of the Bible. Amazing.