Would someone like to help me write a response?

[seasonsofmadness]

My cousin recently found out that I'm an atheist, so she's been sending me emails to try to prove the authenticity of the Bible. This last one she sent me has a lot of arguments that I can't specifically think of the answer to offhand.  I know I had actually thought of most of these things before I became an atheist, and found the answers then, but now I can't remember, and it will probably take me a while to find them all. So would anyone like to share with me what what knowledge you might have on these points? I know it's pretty long, but ya know, just in case someone has too much time on their hands.


The New Testament and its Historical Context

•   The New Testament is not written “once-upon-a-time, in a land far, far way.”  It was written in a specific time and a specific place with specific people and events.  These details lend themselves to historical verification.  F.F. Bruce commented that a “writer who thus relates his story to the wider context of world history is courting trouble if he is not careful; he affords his critical readers so many opportunities for testing his accuracy” (Wharton 14).  Generally, if someone is telling a lie, they don't try to give specific details because (1) they have to remember them and (2) this increases their chances of being caught in the lie(s).
•   Archeaology
Archeaology is consistent with the Biblical recording of customs, geography, cultures, coinage, clothing, plants, animals, temples, forms of government, etc.  For specific references regarding archeaology and the New Testament, follow this link:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2591
This article is just a drop in the bucket.  
•   Contemporary Documentation
“New Testament writers, and their Jewish and Gentile contemporaries from the first and second centuries, often overlap in recording contemporaneous events.  For an illustration, (1) the famine fortold by the prophet Agabus that came to pass in the days of Claudius (who reigned from 41-54 A.D.).  This is corroborrated by Josephus who dates the event in the time of Crispus Fadus (44-46 A.D.) and Tiberius Julius Alexander (46-48 A.D.) who were procurators (Antiquities, xx. ii, 5 & v. 2).  F.F. Bruce says that 'classical writers testify to the famine-conditions which were prevalent in his (Claudius') dominions at various times during his reign.' (2) Josephus also parallels Luke's account of the events leading up to and including the miserable death of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:20-23 and Josephus' Antiquities XIX. 8. 2).  (3) Suetonius in his Life of Claudius, XXV 4, writes, 'As the Jews were making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) had them expelled from Rome.' This, written about 120 A.D., corroborates Luke's statement that “Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome' (Acts 18:2), which resulted in Paul's co-occupational friendship with Aquila and Priscilla.
   Other contemporary writers verify the accuracy of the New Testament in regard to the morals, politics, culture, economics, climate, topography, etc., of that period of history.  There is enough documentation of this sort to insist that to whatever degree the classical literature is received as reliable, we must also receive the New Testament's statements to be of equal reliability inasmuch as, where they can be compared, both generally parallel each other” (Wharton 15-16, emphasis added).
•   The Acid Test
~The books of the New Testament have passed the “acid test” for the trustworthiness of ancient documents:
     1.  They were written in the same generation the events took place
     2.  They were circulated among the very people about whom the documents spoke
     3.  And all of this took place while people were still alive to deny them.
     4.  The early disciples who believed suffered persecution for their faith, even to the point of death.
~The fact that the early disciples preserved the New Testament writings for posterity testifies to the confidence those earliest Christians had in the reliability of those documents.
~Fragments of the book of Mark have been found dating back to 50 A.D.  This puts the gospel of Mark in circulation only about a dozen years after the death of Christ.  The fact that this gospel was preserved by the earliest Christians shows that they knew the information to be true and accurate.  **Would you die for a lie?  Especially when you had the means to know the truth with absolute certainty?**
•   The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers
“There is a collection of documents written from about 90-160 A.D. known as the writings of the apostolic fathers.  These are so called inasmuch as the writers were in close proximity to the apostles by having either sat at the feet of one or more of the apostles, or at the feet of those who did.  These post-apostolic writings contain an abundance of quotations (more like paraphrases) from nearly all of the New Testament books.  
1.  They testify to the completion of the New Testament before 100 A.D.  The early date of these writings makes it clear that the New Testament books were already in circulation among the churches of Christ before the end of the first century.  To illustrate, F.F. Bruce tells us that in three works written around 100 A.D. - the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache (the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), and a letter written by Clement of Rome to the Corinthian church about 96 A.D. - we find quotations from Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, I Peter, and possibly other books.  Also in letters written by Ignatius about 115 A.D. we find quotations from Matthew, John, Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, I and II Timothy and Titus.  And a letter from Polycarp to the Philippians about 120 A.D. quotes from the first three gospels, Acts, Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, Hebrews, I Peter, and I John.
2.  The value of the writings of these early fathers to us as an evidence of the historical reliability of the New Testament is two-fold:
a.  First, these writings from the apostolic fathers quoting the New Testament as divinely authoritative, clearly indicate the reliability the church attributed to the New Testament at this time. The New Testament had to be written early enough, be incirculation long enough, and be received widely enough throughout the body of Christ by this time for quotations from it to be familiar and carry apostolic authority in the church.  It is conclusive that the church which received the New Testament as the very word of God had to consider it reliable historically.  
b.  Second, The church was persecuted at this time precisely for believing the message of the New Testament.  If the New Testament was not considered to be reliable in every respect it is not reasonable to believe these early Christians would have ordered their persecuted lives after it.  It cannot be expected of human nature to suffer discrimination and martyrdom as a way of life based on testimony that is even slightly suspect.  The inestimable respect the early church had for the absolute reliability and authority of the New Testament cannot be doubted” (Wharton 19-20).

   ~I am well aware that history holds countless examples of people willing to die for something that they believed in that was completely untrue (i.e. David Karesh, the suicide-bombers on Sept. 11).  Someone could even hold a gun to my head and I could die for professing my faith, but that would not prove that Jesus was real.  The key difference between me, the Islamic extremists, the followers of David Karesh, and any other example you can come up with, and the early Christian martyrs is that they were actual eyewitnesses of Jesus.  And if they were not actual eyewitnesses, they still lived in the same generation that the events occurred and could verify the facts.  And we are not talking about a handful of believers here and there.  We are talking about hundreds, thousands of people.  And not only did they die, but they preserved the New Testament documents that we have today because they knew them to be true.  

To sum it all up so far:
1.   The New Testament is written within a verifiable historical context.
2.   Archaeology corroborates it.
3.   Contemporary writers overlap in recording some of the same events.
4.   The New Testament documents pass “the acid test.”  Which means they were widely circulated within the same generation that the events occurred, while people were still alive to deny them.
5.   The divine authority given the New Testament documents by the apostolic fathers clearly indicates that the church attributed historical reliability to the New Testament at that time.  
6.   The apostolic fathers give testimony to the fact that the New Testament was completed before 100 A.D.
7.   The church was persecuted at this time for believing the message of the New Testament.

[Will]

1.   The New Testament is written within a verifiable historical context.

All historical fiction is written within a historical context. Just like the Bible includes historical information, the Qur'an does. And the movie Titanic. That hardly makes the whole thing true. I'll prove it.

Once upon a time there was a man named B.B. King (I can back this up). He was a very talented blues musician (I can back this up). He was born in 1925 (I can back this up). He could move objects with his mind (I cannot back this up). See?

2.   Archaeology corroborates it.

No, archeology corroborates some historical records. There's no archeological evidence whatsoever to corroborate the supernatural. None.

3.   Contemporary writers overlap in recording some of the same events.

The non-supernatural events, yes.

4.   The New Testament documents pass “the acid test.”  Which means they were widely circulated within the same generation that the events occurred, while people were still alive to deny them.

This isn't really true, at least it can't be demonstrated. The earliest gospel was written maybe, MAYBE around 70AD. Most think it was closer to 100AD. That's a generation or two beyond when the events supposedly occurred.

5.   The divine authority given the New Testament documents by the apostolic fathers clearly indicates that the church attributed historical reliability to the New Testament at that time.

No, they likely edited in what they knew to be recent history in order to make the Bible more believable to people like you.

6.   The apostolic fathers give testimony to the fact that the New Testament was completed before 100 A.D.

No they don't. The New Testament wasn't compiled until the ecumenical councils starting around 325AD.

7.   The church was persecuted at this time for believing the message of the New Testament.

Holocaust deniers are persecuted today, that hardly means they're right.

[Whitney]

I don't really have time to offer a response line by line (and would also have to re-research some of it).  But your cousin's last comment about eye witnesses is something easy to address.  There were not hundreds and thousands of people offering their eye witness accounts in any documented format and the earliest documented Book of the New Testament is from around 50ad (at the earliest, there might be one from 30ad but there is no consensus and, if I remember correctly, the document has since been lost).  Not to mention that the authors of many of the books are uncertain and  being able to speak to eye witnesses back then (assuming there were any) is no more accurate than it is today.  Eye witness accounts simply are unreliable (their place in a court of law is even questionable), especially when we are talking about the accounts of only a handful of people and what they are claiming other people witnessed.  If God expects smart followers and not just those who pick a religion at random based on their willingness to trust what someone said a long time ago, then God wouldn't require anyone to have to believe what is in a book in order to know s/he exists.

[LoneMateria]

Is this some sort of copy and paste crap?  (it looks like it) if I were getting it i'd ignore it or i'd give her a link or 2 to some atheists world view sites.  Hell invite her to come here (warn her not to spam) if she thinks god is real bring her here and have post what she believes and why.  ^_^ ( I didn't actually read the full post it was way too long).  

[Squid]

Using the same criteria they utilize to substantiate the biblical stories as true, it can used to prove that all the events described in the works of Homer are true.  Archaeological research supports things in the stories like the destruction of Troy by war including things such as excavation sites, pottery depicting events et cetera.  Therefore we can conclude that the Greek pantheon are real....beware, Apollo sees all...

[SSY]

That is a nice angle on the persecution angle Will, never thought of that one before. Crazy Christians and their persecution complex.

[seasonsofmadness]

Ok thanks for the responses guys. And Whitney I'm glad you made the point about the unreliability  of eyewitnesses. I remember reading in college psychology about how  useless they can really be in court cases, so by the time you throw in superstition and and who knows what kind of motives, there's no telling what you will get.

[Renegnicat]

Tell him to suck your plums and butt out of your business.

Then sit back and watch the fireworks show.