However the Bible is of cause said to be the word of God, so without taking this quite so literally it must have been inspired in some way. There is a big difference between something that is divinely inspired and something that is simply inspired. Much of the Bible was written at the time Jesus walked the Earth so many people who saw Jesus were undoubtedly influenced by him and would write down all they new about him. They may not have been directly influenced by the divine (God), but they were inspired by what they saw of his son on Earth. This would seem more logical and would go some way to explaining the mistakes found in the Bible. This is like the view the Conservative Christians would take on the Bible. They realise the Bible is inspired by God but look at the mistakes and change in time to realise that it can’t be the genuine word from God. Unlike the Literal view the conservative view allows some space for the individual to interpret what they think a passage is trying to convey. Literal believers accept every word to be exact and try to follow what it says, as it is what God says. This has its downfalls though, as some areas of the Bible contradict each other. The easiest example of this would be the creation story, the Bible contains two different accounts, and literalists would though state that one is simply an interpretation of the other. Different people look at the Bible differently, and so some do consider it to be the genuine word from God. On the other hand some would take a much more liberal view, they believe the books are influenced by their others own lives rather than by direct influence from God. These believers would still believe that God influenced the Bible, but not by directly communicating with the authors. These Christians would agree that Jesus life on Earth heavily influenced what was written down.
Despite some people taking the Bible literally, and others seeing it as more of an account about God, there are some people who chose to accept some parts yet not others. This viewpoint is popular amongst Catholic Christians; they allow decisions on what passages mean to be made by the Church, usually via the Pope. This doesn’t allow the individual to simply do what they feel the Bible is telling them to do.
Personally I think the conservative view is the best way to approach the Bible, it must be given authority yet we must also accept there are errors in its text.
It really is the main evidence, which gives an account of Jesus’ life and also a description of what God is and what he does. To me although the thought of the Bible being divinely inspired seems comforting, it doesn’t seem realistic. Even simple questions seem to suggest against God inspiring the Bible such as, why have so many authors if it all came from one being?
Christians should read the Bible as a book which was written when God related closer with humans, and accept that communication and language have changed greatly since, hence the fact that some stories some misplaced in the modern version of the Bible. It isn’t possible to rule out the Bible being divinely inspired but it seems logical for it to have been about God rather than by God.
I would agree there are parts of the Bible were prophets have been spoken to by God and have wrote down their revelation, but we can’t treat the entire book in this way.
