First, Bigburger, I love your username. No idea why, I just love it a lot.
Secondly, you'd be surprised the info you pick up here. Here's some stuff I got from a guy name Bippy, seriously if you are reading a thread by that guy read every single word they are usually packed with info and explained in an easy way.
There once was a man named Sir William Ramsey (if you google it there were two, so double check you get the right one), this guy was an archeologist, and thanks to the time and place he grew up and was educated in he had a very strong antibible bias. Eventually he decided to research the books of Luke and Acts. They go into a lot of detail and should be easily falsifiable. So he went to work.
And worked.
And worked.
And worked.
Eventually he verified most of the book. Every title he got right, even minor events that would have been recorded. For example, a lot of armchair atheists say that there was no way a census would force people to go back to their home town. That it was a stupid idea. Totally verified by this guy in the mid-19th century. So you'd be surprised. Also he converted to Christianity because of his work.
If you want to learn a little more detail here's a link:
http://pleaseconvinceme.com/2012/the-ne ... erifiable/ It is a bit biased for Christianity, seems pretty fact based. (What? Biases in either direction should be noted). The site has some other historical apologetics you might want to look into.
As for the miracles, history has a hard time verifying those. Some stuff came up in conversation on the Shroud of Turin thread and, Bippy once again, found some stuff. If you ever read the Bible there is a pretty awesome scene that is overlooked a lot. When Jesus died everything went dark, like an eclipse but there wasn't supposed to be one.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/thallus- ... ss-at-noon
This is recorded by nonChristian sources. Now, the argument does get complicated, but if you end up reading any of it yes the Jewish calendar has changed since the Crucificixion, as far as I know the moon was still located opposite side of the sky like recorded. Also the darkness was recorded in other sources as being out of the ordinary.
Another similar event is the Earthquake. Here's another link
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/47555983/ns/t ... 2m7201eFUE
So, yes, there was an Earthquake at about the right time. In fact, some have tried to argue the earthquake caused the image on the Shroud (which is how I first heard of it) (not that I believe the Shroud, that thing is just freaking weird).
So, in summary: We have titles turn out to be accurate, geography turning out be accurate, and it looks like the eclipse and earthquake, at least so far, seem a pretty good chance of being accurate. While we cannot confirm those two 100%, this certainly seems weird.
As to other miracles, they were talked about by the Aposltic Fathers. This is talked about on the mainsite, apparently it was discussed in great detail about what Jesus could actually do and how he did it. Based on the fact that at no point did they feel the need to address whether he did it or not, it certainly seems there were enough eye witness testimonies at the time to say the miracles were real. They did have to argue against him being some sort of Egyptian Wizard of some sort (black magic was more believable to some people, go figure).
So, there is a lot that backs is up. The miracle stuff I know isn't enough to say diddly on their own, but with the ton of work in archaeology backing up the historic facts like politicians and titles it is certainly worth looking into. A lot is backed up by science.
As far as the Old Testament goes: Yeah I got nothing. Its a lot older.
