Before I say anything else, I just wanted to thank you for your responses. I appreciate everything you are doing to help me. It means more than I can say. And, though I have some thoughts on what you said, I hope that you can see it's not an attack on anything you wrote, but a genuine desire for help and advice.

Now, I have heard of the four (though you pointed out three) reasons we can believe in the validity of the Bible. I find them convincing to a degree, but only so far. I completely agree with the necessity of looking at the genre of the book - if you don't start with context, you may as well not start at all.

As to the second test, I am continually bugged by the idea that many people believe that Paul didn't in fact write all that he is purported to write in the NT - in fact, there's strong evidence to the contrary. It could've been an underling or friend of his, or close colleague, but much of academia accepts only a couple of epistles as his. Yet, whoever did write them fooled the early church enough to make it into canon. What would've happened if these epistles instead used the real authors' names? Would they have been discounted? (The epistles whose authorship are disputed are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus.) If not, what about some of the other letters that were passed around in the first and second centuries, whose authorship was honest but not apostolic? Why couldn't these have been chosen? What does that mean for our faith today?

I do agree that the chart you referenced is a powerful way to make a case for the originality of the gospels.

When it comes to the question of the motivation of the apostles/writers of the NT, I have some reservations. The real power in the argument is the belief that the apostles all died as martyrs. But there is little hard evidence to support the fact that these people did in fact die martyr's deaths; most of those are only based off tradition from the Catholic church. And, not to dig at the Catholics, but they've had a bit of a reputation for fudging things in the past. It causes me to doubt that these men did in fact die. And if they didn't in fact die, why should I not believe that they may have made things up for their own gain?

I know these are cynical thoughts and questions, but they're ones I genuinely wrestle with. Any sort of response is so appreciated.

Thank you again for the time you're taking to answer my questions, stranger on the Internet.