Ben brought up in another post the topic of how the Bible (in the state we have now) came together. I do not know all the details. However, I believe it is something that Christians need to know. So I plan on doing a personal study and give some of my findings here as I go (I encourage input from others as well).
To begin, we have to eliminate one of the most used (and stupidest) arguments for the Bible. The argument is that the Bible (specifically the NT) is made up of "copies of copies of copies of ..." (you get the point).
Of course, we do not have the original manuscripts of the NT. However, this realization is true for most ancient documents. What the NT has in its favor is the LARGE number of copies that have survived.
Interesting Facts:
1. Tacitus, the Roman historian wrote Annals of Imperial Rome around AD 116. His annals consists of 10 books. We only have ONE manuscript of his first six books dating from AD 850 (~730 years after he wrote them). Books seven through ten are lost.
2. Josephus, first-centruy historian, wrote The Jewish War. We have NINE copies of this work. They date from the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries (900-1100 years after he wrote it)
3. Homer probably wrote the Iliad in 800 BC. We have a little fewer than 650 Greek manuscripts of it today (pretty impressive). However, the copies date from the second and third century AD (~1000 years from the original)
4. MORE THAN FIVE THOUSAND (5,000) New Testament Greek manuscripts have been cataloged to date. For the date of the copies, scroll down and examine the second column at the following website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri). WOW!