[mighmi]

> contradictions in the Bible

The church selected the relevant books, written by many authors over 1000 years. While some evangelical sects may claim internal consistency, it's mostly a straw man. The sources/purposes of the relevant books explain most inconsistencies already (namely that most Jewish law doesn't apply to gentiles, because Jesus was a new covenant with all peoples.)

Gospel harmonies deal with the biggest hole: The gospels don't have any reason to be inconsistent. But that's easy to respond to too: They were written in response to other writings, each other and popular ideas, in dialogue with each other, just as the "historical" books etc. or modern history books and internet comments are made in dialogue with each other. Christians say this approaches truth, where the order of events of Jesus' thorning are less relevant than his message of love etc.

This lens leads to many interesting readings, e.g. the bible can be seen as a vengeful god killing off other gods (by his chosen people killing worshipers of other gods) and then learning to be nice and instead choosing all peoples.

[galaxyLogic]

And, if you can't believe many parts of the Bible because they contradict each other, how could you believe that God has anything to do with the (creation of the) text of the Bible. Bible is clearly imperfect but we are supposed to believe that God is "perfect", because Bible says so.