Bible Corrupt: Persistent and Verifiable statements in the Bible +

People who have never opened a Bible may think that it is a religious book, maybe like a fairy tale or a book of wise sayings.  Actually the Bible is more of a historical book that describes people's encounters with God.  What many don't realize is that, it contains many statements that would have been provable or disprovable at the time they were written, to some degree.

Let me explain what I mean so you can find or select your own favorite statements that you can share with conviction.
(1)

Mark 5:1-20 describes how Jesus cast demons out of a demon-possessed man  in a particular time in his short ministry and a specific location.  It says that 2,000 pigs drowned themselves, and that the man "began to proclaim in Decapolis how Jesus had done great things for him, and everyone marveled".  Decapolis means ten cities.  Think about this:  With that many dead pigs, there must have been either a very stinky lake, or, more likely, a lot of bacon on sale that week.  Either way, this event would have been remembered, and talked about, for a long time.  Anyone traveling through that region would have known about this if it had happened.  So if you found yourself reading this story in Mark's Gospel in that day, you would have known if this was true or not.

(2)

Matt 28:14 describes how the Jewish leaders responded to the resurrection: "This saying was spread abroad among the Jews, and continues until today."  What saying?  That the disciples stole the body of Jesus while the guards slept.  This means that if you stopped a typical Jew in the street, around the time that Matthew was written, he would basically admit that Jesus' tomb was empty, and the Jewish leaders had no better answer to the resurrection than this saying.  Therefore we can say that, from a historical perspective, there was widespread acceptance that Jesus was crucified at the time--contrary to the Quran claims.

(3)

The feeding of the five thousand, and of the four thousand, is recorded in all four gospels.  This must have become widely known.


Question for Muslims: Does the Quran contain statements like Luke 3:1-2 or is it more of the "Long ago and in a land far away..." genre of literature?