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The external test compares what The Bible says with the historical evidence.

The Old Testament is certainly better supported by the external test than is the New Testament. Although almost everything in the Book of Genesis and up until the period of the Judges is contrary to science and history, a good deal of the biblical history of the judges and the monarchies is consistent with the historical evidence. The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are reasonably well supported by the external test. The Books of Esther and Daniel were originally written as novels, so although they would certainly fail the external test, it is probably unfair to apply it here.

There is little in the New Testament that can be checked against history. The census under Quirinius that we find in Luke's nativity account seems to refer to the census of 6 CE, which is fine except that Luke also talks of King Herod, who died in 4 BCE. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately. Fr. Brown also says that there is little likelihood that the genealogy in either Matthew or Luke is strictly historical. Acts of the Apostles used to be regarded as a reliable history, but recent scholarship means that New Testament scholars now regard it as substantially unhistorical.

The New Testament performs rather poorly in the external test, but much of the Old Testament performs moderately well. Against this, some other documents of antiquity perform rather poorly. The epics of Homer were once thought to be purely fiction, but the discovery of Troy has demonstrated that they contain a kernel of facts, but probably not much more.

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