Reflections on the Bible - More stuff to come later

Reflections on the Bible We don't think that most evangelical Christians have any idea of the complexity of believing that the Bible is inspired, infallible and inerrant. We know the the Bible was written by humans, we don't know if, and to what degree, God was involved in writing the Bible. We think the Bible is a pretty much a human book containing some myth, legends, exaggerations, inexactitudes, errors, and LOTS of reliable reportage. We don't know the precise meaning of the word 'inspired' as used by Paul in the book of Timothy nor are we clear on what the word 'scripture' means. Whose scripture, Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox – the three major branches of Christendom who don't agree on what books belong in the Bible. Paul was referring to the Septuagint (The Greek Bible that was translated from the Hebrew) when he wrote Timothy. The Septuagint has books in it that ours does not have. We have very few of the words of Christ in His language. We have His words in the Aramaic translated into Greek, then translated in English. i.e. Aramaic to Greek to English. We have none of the original writing of any of the Bible. What we have is copies of copies of copies, etc. For a VERY informative, interesting and somewhat humerus lecture on the complication of the writing and the transmission of the Bible, go to: “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFs-llHmxNc.” Or go to youtube – “Bart Ehrman” and pic “Misquoting Jesus'. Dr. Ehrman was once an evangelical Christian, went to Moody Bible Instutute and Wheaton College and is now an agnostic. We think he should be a lot more skeptical about his skepticism but his material is very worth knowing about. He is a first class scholar on ancient tests and teaches in the department at Religions Studies at North Carolina University. Some thoughts on the idea of Inspiration: We think that all good acts are inspired by God, that all real beauty is inspired by God and that all truth is inspired by God. He is the author of all Truth, Goodness and Beauty and none of these things exist apart from Him being somehow uniquely and mysteriously present. Where truth, beauty and goodness are present, God's inspiration is at work. The Bible is inspired like anything else on earth is inspired – by being true, beautiful or good. There parts of the Bible that are difficult to include under the headings of Truth, Beauty or Good which we find nearly impossible to believe – like the command to slaughter all all the men, women and children in some cities in Canaan or the drowning of the Egyptian solders in the Red Sea, etc. etc. These things seems to violate God's own nature and God can not be a contradiction to Himself. How do we know what to believe? We believe all that we are capable of believing. But we are compelled to disbelieve what our good sense and reason will not let us believe. There is no use in trying to pretend to believe what we don't believe. We think that God honors our attempt to be honest and reasonable. He is the ultimate reasoner, He gave us to be reasonable creatures. He is the Logos – the Word. Jesus is the Word, the one that is truly Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. The above 'we' represents other like minded persons. Don