God raised Jesus from the dead. Matthew who was an eyewitness tells us so and wrote about it and believed it, Mark who knew eyewitnesses wrote about it and believed it, Luke who thoroughly investigated these things wrote about it and believed it, Peter who was an eyewitness wrote about it and believed it, John who was an eyewitness wrote about it and believed it, and James (the brother of Jesus) who did not follow Jesus during His earthly ministry, who showed up late to the game, who shows up after the resurrection and becomes a leader in the Jerusalem church, believed his brother died and was buried and rose from the dead, and referred to his brother as his Lord.
There are actually more than 15,000 New Testament manuscripts (from fragments to complete New Testaments) - 5,000 in Ancient Greek alone - way more than what exists for any other ancient Jewish, Greek, or Roman historical literature. Historians typically consider themselves fortunate to have ancient manuscripts numbering in double figures…!
The oldest known fragment of the Gospel dates to A.D. 125...within one generation of the documents original composition. At least several centuries elapse between the oldest existing copies and the original composition of most other ancient historical works. And the Gospel was written within living memory of all of the writers. Our best surviving biography of Alexander the Great comes from nearly five hundred years after his death...! And it’s considered extremely reliable…!
Back then, as today, writers of history wrote from particular perspectives and chose which information they decided to emphasize and which information they decided to omit. They depended on prior sources, written or oral, that they believed conveyed reliable and accurate information. Non-believers of the historicity of the Gospel clearly do not hold all of ancient recorded history to the same standards that they ‘selectively’ apply to the Gospel. The Gospel reports real events and real teachings of Jesus. Non-believers clearly don’t like that. But there it is.
