Have you heard of the discovery of the dead sea scrolls? It was a discovery by archaeologist in the 1950s who followed up on a lead of some old testament scrolls in an ancient cave. Upon further discovery, the researchers were astonished to find hundreds of scrolls, ranging from Genesis to Isaiah to Habakkuk.
The most incredible part of this discovery was that the scrolls from the dead sea were nearly indistinguishable from what we now have in our Bible today. This means that when skeptics attempt to say that the Bible was changed throughout the centuries, they are mistaken.
“Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (Psalm 12:7 KJV)
On top of the dead sea scrolls, we have found thousands of manuscripts of the old and new testament so far. These include manuscripts in Greek, Latin, and other languages, adding up to about 24,000 fragments of manuscripts in total. These manuscripts have been dated from as early as the 1st century AD to the 4th century AD.
To put how significant this is into context, the first copies of manuscripts on other major figures, like Julius Caesar and Plato, only came nearly a thousand years after the originals were made. But with the gospels and Pauline epistles, they only came out a few decades after the death and resurrection of Christ.
And there are thousands of these manuscripts. What’s incredible is that virtually all of these manuscripts that have been found actually agree with one another. Different eye witnesses writing from different places at different times all wrote in agreement about the fundamentals of Christianity. This gives very strong evidence to the story these manuscripts are telling to be a true one.
The truth is in the details! Remember that the only way historians can verify that an event really happened is by getting eye witness accounts. And if all the eye witness accounts say that a man died on a cross and rose three days later, then we have to take their word for it.
To look into this topic more and see the sources for the evidence, please see below:
https://youtu.be/WclIZwBFhq0?si=asD092ThC9rqF2SU
https://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps/manuscript-evidence
https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/yes-the-christian-worldview-is-supported-by-the-evidence/