It's hard to get a handle on the whole "apologetics" beast. Where do you start? Which books should you read? Which figures are important? What are the main arguments? What resources are available?
I know it's difficult because I've been there. So, I'd like to share the following "landscape" which you can use as the springboard for your own research and reading.
By no means is the following landscape exhaustive or agreeable to everyone. But, I believe it will save you a lot of time on your personal journey and discovery.
I do provide specific book summaries in other blog posts, so I won't go there. Here, my goal is to give you the big picture. Apologetics primarily deals with religion, science, and philosophy. There are some material dealing with religion and history, but the historicity of the Bible (i.e., is the Bible reliable and historically verifiable?) and specific objections about biblical claims or characters (i.e., the fall of Jericho, God's command to 'annihilate' specific tribes, or historicity of Jesus, etc.) have been addressed by many scholars generations (if not, centuries) ago.
It is my understanding that, today, the ever-growing archaeological evidences support the Bible's historical events/characters/settings more than ever. One can safely assume that the Bible is not a collection or copies of ancient near eastern (ANE) myths or that the Bible is unreliable due to its contradictions or the lack of original copies. Incredibly as it may sound to atheists, archaeological evidence for the Bible and its historicity is constantly growing and quite overwhelming. Just look up things like the location of Jericho, Roman history validating its tumultuous relations with the Jews, Pilate's rule over Jerusalem, etc. Someone like Bart Ehrman still questions the historical reliability of Jesus, as well as the early church movement as the deceptive con job by the disciples, but such objections have been refuted by lots of biblical scholars.
Concerning history and religion, I suggest reading Richard Friedmann's Who Wrote the Bible, and watching/reading the material that Charlie Campbell has put together at https://alwaysbeready.com/bible-evidence. Campbell's Always Be Ready is a great resource for those who need both printed materials and video files. Campbell can be invited to your school's chapel or apologetics event as well. [Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with ABR or Campbell.]
I'll deviate here briefly and inform you that Copan and Lamb each have effectively addressed the new atheists' allegation that God is an immoral and blood-thirsty destroyer in the OT. Dawkins has infamously labeled God of the OT as a horrific being, but Copan show clearly that Dawkins should stick with biology, not theology or history.
As for the intersection of science and history, I don't find a whole lot of interesting material on it. It could be that I have researched this area enough, or that this area/field has been exhaustively researched in the past and, therefore, not too actively discussed in more recent publications. I should, however, add that the entire scientific enterprise was regarded in the past as a way of discovering God's creation, not a tool to question or deny God's existence.
I'll continue to describe the apologetics landscape in the next blog.
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