The central tenant of Christianity is that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, He was crucified on a cross and rose again on the third day. In other words, it’s an actual historical event. As Paul said:

if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

(1Cor. 15:14-19, NASB)

If the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an actual historical event, then the entire belief system of Christianity is a sham. This key fact is primary reason why the historical accuracy of the Bible is constantly attacked by skeptics.

Among the various pieces of historical narrative in the Bible is the story of King David, kingdom Israel at its peak and their conflict with Edom. Skeptics have claimed that Edom didn’t exist until 200 years after David lived and that Kind David himself was nothing more than a tribal chieftan.

Archeologists have confirmed that the Bible is actually historically accurate on this point. “Archeologist unearths biblical controversy”

Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton’s McMaster University says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East — unearthing information that points to the existence of the Bible’s vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting widespread academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.

Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.

Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament’s narrative that Prof. Adams and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be true as well.

This last sentence is misleading because it implies that this is the first time any of the Bible’s historical narrative has been proven true, which is far from the case. I cannot run down a list of every detail which has been proven true because, quite frankly, I don’t know them all and at the moment I’m out of time to track down references.

One detail that I remember is that one of the nations mentioned in the Bible — I’m pretty sure it was the Hittites — was widely considered to be a “myth of the Bible” because there wasn’t any evidence that they had ever existed; that is, until sometime in the early to mid 1900’s when archeologists discovered proof that they actually did exist.

The existence of one of the rulers involved in Jesus’ crucifixion — I think it was Pontius Pilate — was also considered to be a myth, until a coin with his image on it was found.

The Bible is much more than a book of mere religious platitudes and “spiritual” beliefs. It is also a book describing actual historical events, and as such, the accuracy of its claims can be verified. For more on this subject, look here, here, here, and here.

(HT to The Black Kettle for the link to the main article.)