If an account of a murder were written down by a certain recognizable person, and if such written account and the person writing it could be subject to test and triangulation, it could get a man sentence to death.
The Bible as a written account has been and is constantly being tested both in its facts and in its principles. It is proving to be a document of substance written by men of substance (and having no ulterior motive).
Obviously, we have to go with what we have instead of just assuming "nothing." Assuming nothing is like assuming the American Revolution didn't occur because no one alive or no video evidence can attest to it.
There are vast stretches of history (all of it in fact) that are based on nothing but written accounts. What kind of evidence do you want? Video?
As anyone knows, there are ways of testing and triangulating written and old accounts to get at the truth.
Without written accounts, we would have no account at all.
To quote Paine again this is what I mean about the Bible being hearsay.
“When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this — for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so — it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence.”
None of the Gospels where written by actual witnesses to the events but they relied on hand me down stories so it is hearsay upon hearsay.
Going to the Old Testament biblical scholars have determined that much of it was written 700 years after the alleged facts.
How can a person present something as being fact that they have no direct knowledge of?
There were many contemporary accounts of the Revolutionary war. None for the events of the life of Jesus.