Historicity of the Bible

The historicity of the Bible is the question of the Bible's "acceptability as a history," in the words of Thomas L. Thompson, a scholar who has written widely on this topic as it relates to the Old Testament. This can be extended to the question of the Christian New Testament as an accurate record of the historical Jesus and the Apostolic Age.

Many fields of study span the Bible and history, such fields range from archeology and astronomy to linguistics and comparative literature. Scholars also examine the historical context of Bible passages, the importance ascribed to events by the authors, and the contrast between the descriptions of these events and other historical evidence.

Archaeological discoveries since the 19th century, like any evidence, is open to interpretation. But broadly speaking, they lend support to some of the Old Testament's historical narratives and offer evidence to challenge others.

The Bible exists in multiple manuscripts, none of them autographs, and multiple canons, none of which completely agree on which books have sufficient authority to be included or their order (see Books of the Bible). The early discussions about the exclusion or integration of various apocryphes involve an early idea about the historicity of the core. The Ionian Enlightenment influenced early patrons like Justin Martyr and Tertullian - both saw the biblical texts as being different (and having more historicity) than the myths of other religions. Augustine was aware of the difference between science and scripture and defended the historicity of the biblical texts e.g. against claims of Faustus of Mileve.

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