craig L. Bloomberg on his faith

I am currenntly reading a book called The Case For Christ. It is written by Lee strobel. The book is about the author's journey from atheism to christianity through historical and scientific invrstigations.

Lee's first interview was a man named Craig L. Bloomberg, a new testament scholar. Here's a little background:

Bloomberg is considered to be the United State's foremost authorities on the gospel. He has a doctorate degree in New Testament fron Aberdeen University in Scotland. He is a senior research fellow at Tyndale house at Cambridge University in England where he is a part of an elite grouo of international scholars that producede acclaimed works on Jesus. And he is also a professor of the new testament at Denver Seminary. He has also authored many books on jesus and ethe gospels.

... I know from my own research that there's very strong evidence for the trustworthiness of the gospel accounts.

You know, it's ironic: the bible considers it praiseworthy to have faith that does not require evidence. Remember how jesus replied to doubting thomas: 'you believe because you see; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.' and i know evidence can never compel or coerce faith. We cannot supplant the role of the holy spirit, which is often the concern of christians when they hear discussions of this kind.

But i'll tell you this: there are plenty of stories of scholars in the new testament field who have not been christians, yet through their study of these very issues have come to faith in Christ. And there have been countless more scholars, already believers, whose faith has been made stronger, more solid, more grounded, because of the evidence- and that's the category i fall into (Strobel 67-68).