If the documents of the Bible are so reliable, why are people so skeptical about them?

We have seen that there are more copies of the New Testament documents than of any comparable ancient documents; that these copies go back significantly closer in time to the originals than the copies of other ancient documents do, and that the variations that exist do not alter any significant fact of history or Christian belief. So we might ask why an attitude of such extreme suspicion is often applied to a document as well-attested as the New Testament? Could it be that the people applying such suspicions have a vested interest in reaching a particular conclusion?

It is sometimes claimed that historians simply as historians regard Old and New Testament history as unreliable on some independent historical grounds. But... many events which are regarded as firmly established historically have far less documentary evidence than many Biblical events, and the documents on which historians rely for much secular history are written much longer after the event than many records of Biblical events. Furthermore, we have many more copies of biblical narratives than of secular histories; and the surviving copies are much earlier than those which our evidence for secular history is based.'[i]

People do not doubt the New Testament records because the documents are unreliable, but because the New Testament records include miracles, and they are not willing to believe in these. The argument for documentary unreliability may be nothing more than a convenient way of attacking the records. So people come to these records with the presupposition that they could not be true. In doing so, they are not being unbiased or objective.

[i] Richard Purtill, 'Thinking About Religion' Prentice Hall 1978, chapter 6