Authenticity and Reliability
More than any other manuscripts in human history, the books of the Bible as we have them today have been shown to be reliable dating back to when they were written. The Dead Sea Scrolls are an example of the reliability of the Bible in that they are a group of Old Testament (Books of Genesis, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah) manuscripts that date back to around the time of Christ and (in the case of the Book of Isaiah) have been shown to be identical to within 95% when compared to currently known texts1.
And for the New Testament, there are more manuscript copies in existence than for any other ancient documents, such as from ancient Greek literature2. Also, the 1st and 2nd and 3rd century writings of the Church Fathers, who were handed down teachings directly from the disciples, contain many direct references to the books of the New Testament3.