And here some literature dealing with the topic in depth:

F.F. Bruce
Are the New Testament Documents Reliable?
Eerdmans

Craig Blomberg
The Historical Reliability of the Gospels
InterVarsity 1987

J. Harold Geenlee
Scribes, Scrolls & Scripture
A Student's Guid to New Testament Textual Criticism
Eerdmans, 102 p., ISBN 0-80280082-3
deals with the different variant reading in the New Testament and is a great introduction to understand the issues and implications

Norman L. Geisler, William E. Nix
From God to Us.
Moody 1974. 302p. $12.99 ISBN 0-8024-2878-9

Norman L. Geisler, William E. Nix
General Introduction to the Bible.
Moody 1968. $29.99 ISBN 0-8024-2916-5

Norman L. Geisler, Abdul Saleeb
Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross.
Baker Books 1993. 336p. $17.99 ISBN 0-8010-3859-6

McDowell, Josh.
The Best of Josh McDowell: A Ready Defense.
Nelson, 1993., 566p. $16.99
ISBN 0-8407-4419-6.

McDowell, Josh. Han, Paul, Translator. Evidence That Demands a Verdic, Vol. I. 425p., (Vol. II. 544p.)

About the dating of the New Testament or parts of it:

A.T. Robinson (an author in the 'God is dead' movement, and rather distinguished theologian, though not believer) wrote a book Redating the New Testament (some similar title) and dates ALL Gospels as written before 70 A.D. and several of them around 40-50 A.D. i.e. 10 - 20 years after it happened! With most of the people who saw it, still around.

There is also a another book I found very interesting (early dating proponent) by

John Wenham
"Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem"
1992 Intervarsity Press

This is not only on the dating, but also some fresh light on the in(ter)dependency of the various gospels.

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