The game of Bible contradictions is widely practiced, and I have seen
lists of hundreds of them, with fundamentalists proudly challenging that
there isn't a single one they can't explain [away].
That the Bible was written by different men over a long period of time
is all we need know to understand this. I repeat, it was written by men
(maybe a couple women, I don't know for sure).
No one denies that the Bible was written by men; the claim is that they
were divinely inspired, but I don't know what inspired means short of it
obviously does not mean directly dictated. The personalities of the
authors show through, as well as the exaggerations and poetic language
and historical and geographical and scientific ideas of their day,
including those that were wrong.
Where I think something that is claimed to be scripture is tested is by
its moral teaching -- not what it has to say about sex or drinking or
smoking, but what it has to say about how we deal with each other. In
this respect the Bible has much that is good but fails on several
serious grounds. It is homophobic, it clearly fails to condemn slavery,
and it relegates women to an inferior status.
One final point here: much of what it has to say on moral questions is
outright ridiculous if not harmful, such as the teaching that for a man
to lust after a woman is as evil as for him to rape her, or the teaching
that no marriage should ever, no matter what, be broken, or the remark
that something (I've never been able to get clear exact what) is an
unforgivable sin.
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