Why do Christians trust the Bible?

[Aractus]

1) The Bible is not a single “Book” but a collection of books that were written over a large span of time, by multiple authors, with different literary style and all focused on a similar topic (GOD) and culminated with what is the New Testament.

Partly correct - the O.T. is a collection of 39 writings "originally" on 22 scrolls (as the Tanakh in the time of Jesus). The N.T. is a collection of 27 writings, although at least two of those are derivative works (i.e. the gospels of Matthew and Luke), and scholars dispute which Pauline writings are derivative. A good example is 2 Thessalonians - if scholars did not have 1 Thessalonians they probably wouldn't dispute 2 Thessalonians, however the fact that they have both makes it appear as if 2 Thessalonians is a derivative work, just like the Synoptic problem.

Now here's a question for you: when do you think that the Pentateuch was written, and why?

o The fact that the contents in the Bible span thousands of years suggests that some of the stories in the Bible may be during time periods that have been historically and archaeologically verified by outside sources.

Incorrect. The Bible does NOT span thousands of years, besides Genesis which most scholars - even Evangelical scholars - acknowledge isn't literal. If the Bible starts from the time of the Exodus then it spans a few hundred years.

So best-case scenario - assuming that Exodus had begun to being written down at the time of the exodus in the 13th century BC, then the time-span for the writing of the O.T. is about 800 years. That's the best-case scenario from a "evangelical"/"fundamentalist" or "apologetics" POV. The N.T. was written over a period of perhaps 50-100 years. So the entire Bible from start to end was written over the course of up to 900 years, with a 500-600 year gap in writing. Agreed?

The reality though is quite different - if Hebrew was a written language in 1200 BC there would be evidence - something containing a Hebrew character like pottery would be found. As it is, no Hebrew writing has ever been found that dates to earlier than about 600 BC. There are well over a million pieces of Egyptian writings discovered that date around those centuries alone (i.e. 15th-5th cent BC); there are so many that most have never actually been published (but if you want to become an ancient Egyptian archaeologist you can go and publish as many of them as you want). The idea that 2-3 million ancient Israelites left Egypt in the 13th century BC, when the total population of Egypt at the time was about 3.5 million, would mean that artefacts left behind with Hebrew letters on them would have been found. Especially since they've concentrated themselves into a much denser area than Egypt was spread over.

Sadly the arguments that you are using are simply not very good ones, because you're refusing to acknowledge tangible scientific evidence. I'm perfectly willing to accept the biblical books as evidence, but not as the "only evidence".

Some of the Biblical accounts that have archaeological findings supporting their historical relevance include the Hittities, Solomon’s wealth, Sargon, and King Belshazzar.

Again, grossly incorrect. Since the 19th century archaeologists have been searching for evidence specifically for the kingdoms of David and Solomon. One of the ways they determine a settlement or city's size is by finding the graves. The graves are always placed on the outside of the city. David's kingdom was really a small mountain village perhaps up to about 4 hectares in size (i.e. 200m2). As for Solomon, there were structures once thought by apologists to be built by Solomon, but modern dating techniques (i.e. radiocarbon dating of organic material) has shown that Solomon couldn't have built those structures. The archaeological record shows Solomon to have also ruled over only a small village.

This suggests that the Biblical accounts of these hold a measure of truth.

Why?

I’ll go further and say the Biblical accounts are 100% true, since there is not enough evidence or information to conclude that only bits and pieces of the Biblical account are true. I hold this stance until evidence is presented that says otherwise.

Evidence like this?

o For example, if I write about the history of Jesus in 2014… it is less authentic than someone who wrote it in 90AD.

Shouldn't that also be true for Genesis which by most "conservative" minded scholars was not written until around 1000 BC?

o To put things into perspective, the NT has over 25,000 manuscripts.

Incorrect.

There are around 5,800 ancient Greek manuscripts. The average length is 450 pages (i.e. over 2.6 million Greek pages exist and have been published). There is an estimated 10,000 in Latin. That would bring the total N.T. manuscripts to around 16,000 or more. Then there are an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 in other languages. That brings to total number of ancient hand-written N.T. manuscripts to between 21-26,000. You've simply plucked the 25,000 number off the high-end of that estimate, and then gone on to claim that there are "more than" that number when in fact there many only be 21,000 ancient manuscripts. Or you're simply copying it from someone else and have no idea how that number was generated. Be more careful with the numbers you quote.

If you had simply said "there are probably more than 21,000 ancient N.T. manuscripts" I would have agreed.

In addition to that there are over a million quotes of the N.T. in other ancient manuscripts mostly attributed to Church leaders, priests, bishops, etc.

It's my opinion though that the only number that really matters is the 5,800 one, because it is the "primary" Greek-language source. Translators (aside from Catholic translators) don't use the Latin and other translations to translate from. And in fact they don't use most of the 5,800 Greek manuscripts either - they use a critical text called "Novum Testamentum Graece" (or in some cases "Textus Receptus") which is based on a selection of those sources, I'm not sure off-hand how many, but certainly not on the less accurate ones (and in fact TR is based on only a handful of manuscripts).

I'll even reference the numbers I just quoted:

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http://youtu.be/qMWGloVfMF0
Manuscript numbers at 23 minutes.

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The OT goes much further back into history. Prior to the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest version was a 900AD copy.

Incorrect, again you have failed to do you research. The Aleppo Codex does date to c. 920 AD, but it is incomplete (about 40% is missing or no longer exists), and furthermore the Jews don't even allow it to be read and used for biblical publication and translation. Thus the only source that can be used is the Leningrad Codex, which is complete. It dates to c. 1008 AD.

The DSS, while they do contain almost every book of the Tanakh, are not used as a primary source for translation and publication of the OT. Partly because they represent a different textual tradition. They confirm about 95% of the Tanakh as contained in the Leningrad Codex.

Anyway, lots of data available for this.

So where are your links and references then?