Quite a few books have been written by people who had set out to disprove the historicity of the NT, and as a result of their investigations became Christians. For example,
Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, a 19th Century English historian and prolific writer, held a pervasive anti-Biblical bias. He believed the historical accounts in the Book of Acts were written in the mid-2nd Century. Ramsay was skeptical of Luke’s authorship and the historicity of the Book of Acts, and he set out to prove his suspicions. He began a detailed study of the archaeological evidence, and eventually came to an illuminating conclusion: the historical and archaeological evidence supported Luke’s 1st Century authorship and historical reliability:“(There are) reasons for placing the author of Acts among the historians of the first rank” (Sir William Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, p. 4).
Ramsay became convinced of Luke’s reliability based on the accurate description of historical events and settings. Ramsay wasn’t the only scholar to be impressed by Luke’s accuracy:“One of the most remarkable tokens of (Luke’s) accuracy is his sure familiarity with the proper titles of all the notable persons who are mentioned . . . Cyprus, for example, which was an imperial province until 22 BC, became a senatorial province in that year, and was therefore governed no longer by an imperial legate but by a proconsul. And so, when Paul and Barnabas arrived in Cyprus about AD 47, it was the proconsul Sergius Paullus whom they met . . .’ (F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, p. 82).
Josh McDowell also set out to disprove the NT and became a Christian. He ended up authoring one of the most authoritative Christian apologetics, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Besides the Book of Acts, Luke wrote one of the four Gospel accounts.
Another book by a one time atheist is Lee Strobel. He was stunned when his wife became a Christian and decided to investigate it (in order to disprove of course). As a lawyer, he analyses the question as one would a legal case in The Case for Christ. As he relates in the introduction:
I plunged into the case with more vigor than with any story I had ever pursued. I applied the training I had received at Yale Law School as well as my experience as legal affairs editor of the Chicago Tribune. And over time the evidence of the world—of history, of science, of philosophy, of psychology—began to point toward the unthinkable.
Well, that’s all well enough for you. I’m sure Jim would love to discuss it with you on a religion thread. I really don’t care to get into religious discussions, though. Unfortunately, this thread has been sidetracked into that once already. So I’ll pass without further comment.