I find it odd that the Bible's authencity is questioned when it
has existed since the 4th century (eg Codex Vaticanus is one of the
oldest copies of the Bible in existence today) and it has been
widely accepted and used by academic scholars and the public alike
for more than a millenia.
Anyway, here's an interesting article that shows
the evidence for the Bible, ancient as well
as present day - http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/are-the-gospels-myth.
I've taken the liberty of putting some extracts below for easy
reading.
First, there is the sheer number
of ancient copies of the New Testament. There are close to 5,700
full or partial Greek New Testament manuscripts in existence. Most
of these date from between the second to 16th century, with the
oldest, known as Papyrus 52 (which contains John 18), dating from
around A.D. 100–150...
In addition to the thousands of
Greek manuscripts, there are an additional 10,000 Latin
manuscripts, and thousands of additional manuscripts in Syriac,
Aramaic, and Coptic, for a total of about 24,000 full or partial
manuscripts of the New Testament. And then there are the estimated
one million quotes from the New Testament in the writings of the
Church Fathers (A.D. 150–1300)...
Anyone who denies that Jesus
existed or who claims that the Gospels are filled with historical
errors or fabrications will, in good conscience, have to explain
why they don’t make the same assessment about the historical works
of Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Julius Caesar, Livy, Josephus,
Tacitus, and other classical authors...
Secondly, historical details are
found in the Gospels and the other books of the New Testament.
These include numerous mentions of secular rulers and leaders
(Caesar Augustus, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Felix, Archelaus, Agrippa,
Gallio), as well as Jewish leaders (Caiaphas, Ananias)—the sort of
names unlikely to be used inaccurately or even to show up in a
"myth."...
Then there are the specifically
Jewish details, including references to and descriptions of
festivals, religious traditions, farming and fishing equipment,
buildings, trades, social structures, and religious hierarchies. As
numerous books and articles have shown in recent decades, the
beliefs and ideas found in the Gospels accurately reflect a
first-century Jewish context...
Various modern archeological
discoveries have validated specific details found in the
Gospels:
Third, there are extra-biblical,
ancient references to Jesus and early Christianity. Although the
number of non-Christian Roman writings from the first half of the
first century is quite small (just a few volumes), there are a
couple of significant references:
Writing to the Emperor Trajan
around A.D. 112, Pliny the Younger reported on the trials of
certain Christians arrested by the Romans. He noted that those who
are "really Christians" would never curse Christ.
The historian Tacitus, in his
Annals —considered by historians to be one the finest
works of ancient Roman history—mentioned how the Emperor Nero,
following the fire in Rome in A.D. 64, persecuted Christians in
order to draw attention away from himself. The passage is
noteworthy as an unfriendly source because although Tacitus thought
Nero was appalling, he also despised the foreign and, to him,
superstitious religion of Christianity.
Servant
Stop going in circles. I have told you before that we question
not the historial parts BUT the magic parts, like donkey talking,
man walking on water and man in a fish.
These "magic stuff" appear in a lot of other religions
too.
