I think the bible is fallible but that God is infallible.
Many argue that the bible is divinely inspired, but I personally do not agree with that. Even so, devine inspiration is not the same as raw dictation. The Qu'ran is believed by muslims to have been dictated. I have never encounted a christian who thinks the bible is the product of dictation. Think of it this way, an artist can see a sunset and be inspired to paint it - it could turn out to be an impressionist "modern art" painting that does not look much like reality, but is itself beautiful.
Most of the stories from the old testament were passed on through generations as oral traditions long before they were written down. The stories are rich in symbolism, imagery and double meanings (which dont always come through in translations)
The old testament is a combination of real history, myths and legends. Nothing wrong with that. Its more of a cultural traditon then a scientific or scholarly document.
The new testament is based on a handful of letters. The gospels are written in the names of apostles (or companions of apostles), but no scholar believes that they really came from the hand of Jesus' deciples.
The letters that came to make up the new testament were mostly written in the decades after Jesus died - up to a century later. Imagine writting today about events of the first world war without the benifit of any documentation or pictures - only the words of eye witnesses.
In the roman empire during those early days of christianity very very few people could read. Especially from the populace that converted to christianity. Those documents were written in Greek and without the benifit of spell checkers, printers, word processer and - get this - no spaces between words.
Imaginetryingtoreadanentiredocumentwrittenlikethissentance. (and then imagine trying to copy it by hand with a primitive pen by candlelight)
Paper was rare in those days. Scribes were even rarer The inks available didnt exactly contrast well against the background either. Sometimes documents were transcribed from Greek to Coptic to Latin bye people who may not have been totally fluent in those languages.
One document, written by a scribe contains 30 lines that were repeated. Apparently he didnt notice this. Maybe he was tired. Nevertheless, those 30 lines have more then 30 mistakes in them (differnces from one set to the other).
How many copies of Acts existed in the first centuries? A dozen, maybe. There were no photocopiers. These were rare manusripts even back then.
And no two were alike. IN additon to mistakes scirbes could insert stories from other manuscripts, or even make their own additons or deletions. There were forgeries too.
IN spite of this, however, the message of Jesus still rings through. Through all the mistakes and misdeeds of ancient scribes.
In my opinion, the bible should not be taken as word for word accurate. But the message still shines through. Just like the sunset in an impressionist paining.
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