The Bible, commonly known as the Word of God is the cornerstone of Christianity and the words on it are what our faith is based upon. It was put together by a few old geezers over various meetings over a period of time, so how on earth can we be sure that they got it right, not to mention base our life upon it?

Here are 7 reasons why

If indeed the Bible we have today is God’s Message to man, then we would expect it to have some particular characteristics:

1. It would be widely distributed so man could attain it easily

It is still the #1 best seller of any book - More than five billion (http://www.amyfound.org/articles/ss23.html ) compared to 255 million copies of all the Harry Potter books put together. (http://www.languagebooks.com.au/sitepages/page125.asp)

2. It would be preserved through time without corruption
To test an ancient document for its reliability, historians look for these things:
• number of copies of the text
• from where they originated
• their age and proximity to the autographs
• if the documents were quoted in other works
The Bible has many many amount of manuscript (copies of the originals) evidence to authenticate its message as it was originally written. Of every ancient literary or historical work, none can come remotely close to the huge amount of manuscript evidence for the New Testament. (over 5,300 manuscripts or parts of manuscripts we can examine today. If you count all the early copies of translations of the New Testament, the number skyrockets to over 24,000)

3. Historical Accuracy
If this truly is a book written by God, then the facts in the Bible must be mentioned by other trusted historical sources. We have many written sources outside the Bible that corroborate its documentation.

For examples:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a009.html

Archaeology also confirms the reliability of the Bible. Everywhere the archaeologist searches, he uncovers discoveries that bolster, not refute support of the Bible as being a true account of history

For examples:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a005.html
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html

4. Scientific Accuracy
A set of documents having their origin in the All-knowing God of the universe would not be prone to scientific inaccuracies. Here are some science facts written by people who existed even before the word ‘science’.
• Roundness of the earth (Isaiah 40:22)
• Almost infinite extent of the sidereal universe (Isaiah 55:9)
• Hydrologic cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
• Paramount importance of blood in life processes (Leviticus 17:11)
• Atmospheric circulation (Ecclesiastes 1:6)
• and many others.

Those 4 points were the external evidences to prove that the bible was from God, now for the internal evidence.

5. Consistency
The Bible is a collection of different documents that were written over one and a half millennium, that are devoted to discussing the most controversial and emotionally charged topics man has known. The incredible thing is that they all agree. Taken together, the Bible presents a single, unified message of actions and attitudes by which man can live. This is an unprecedented feat.
To have sixty six books written by about forty authors, from kings and nobles to fishermen and soldiers, in three languages and on three continents, be of the same mind is just not humanly possible.

6. Prophecies fulfilled
The coming of the Jewish Messiah is the focus of the Old Testament. There are over 300 separate prophecies about the "Holy One of Israel" found there. They are so specific as to predict the city of Jesus' birth (Micah 5:2), His nature (Isaiah 7:14), His works of healing and miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6), His betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13), His suffering (Isaiah 53), His style of execution (Psalm 22) and His resurrection (Psalm 16:10, Acts 13:35) amongst other things. These prophecies were written anywhere from 400 to 1000 years before Jesus' birth, yet they describe His life with the accuracy of an eyewitness. The odds against a living person meeting even a few of these predictions is so astronomical it is considered an impossibility. So surely, they were inspired by someone Higher.

Lastly, the authenticity of a message can be proven by how much a person believes in it. For example if believe whole heartedly that our Army is Always Ready! and even if you tempt me to renounce that fact by letting me ORD immediately I won’t. =)

7. The Authors stood by what they wrote to the death
There is no valid reason to believe that the men who wrote the Bible were lying or trying to deceive. History tells us that each of them suffered and were executed because they would not recant their position that the teachings of the Bible are true and accurate. If their testimony was made up for glory or fame, surely someone would have tried to chao geng to save his skin, but it did not happen. All the apostles and the writers believed unwaveringly that the Bible was 100% fact & absolute God.

So we should too.

A large part of this article was adapted and summarized from http://www.comereason.org/mobile/content.asp?article=cmp005