John,
I never understood the argument "40 different authors...". How does this show that the Bible was inspired. Are you suggesting different authors over time could NOT, that it was too difficult, impossible to write a continuous theme? You do realize, many of the stories are copied twice, sometimes three times? You do realize Matthew nearly copied Mark word for word, while Luke copied Mark nearly 50%. Does that seem miraculous to you? You do realize there were hundreds of other books written on the same topic, but were discarded before the Bible was "assembled". Its not like there were 40 authors, over time who did not know each other and had no writing in front of them- yet managed to write a continuous story. Either they had the writing/stories passed along orally or had access to the writings themselves.