Anyway, so many people seem to think that if you point out biblical inconsistencies or suggest that humans played some part in the writing of the Bible *gasp* then it all falls apart and millions of people believe in a fictional book.  I’ve heard all that stuff before.   

So I want to say something about biblical inconsistencies.  The Bible did not fall from heaven as a complete tome.  It was written and edited over thousands of years.  The first two chapters of Genesis were most probably written by two different people.  The first chapter is very poetic and lyrical while the second… not so much.  Two traditions and perspectives have been intentionally woven together.  So if in Chapter One Adam and Eve are created at the same time and in Chapter Two Eve is created some time after Adam… that’s not an oversight.  That’s not something that we’ve just discovered and it calls into question the reliability of the Bible.  The Bible is a tapestry of a thousand voices intentionally intertwined.

I believe critics think that the Bible is supposed to be written by God alone, without any human participation.  Lightning-hewn letters onto stone or something.  I like it better as a collection of writings on experiencing God… the experiences of our ancestors pointing us to experience God ourselves.  The Bible is a signpost, I guess. 

Many churches claim the infallibility of the Bible as doctrine.  I believe God is infallible.  The Bible is fallible because God chose an imperfect way to communicate his Word to us… because he’d rather communicate imperfectly in partnership with us than perfectly alone.  Jesus is God’s perfect communication.  I’m rambling.

Reading over my little spiel here, it sounds like I’m belittling the Bible.  I’m not.  I just think that we like something concrete to hold onto, and it’s too easy to mistake the signpost for the thing it’s… signing.