Personal Background and Disclaimer
As a college student who has not taken any theology, my musings may be subject to criticism. This is not to say that I am without sound knowledge. I was raised in a Christian church, somewhat Southern Baptist, and can at least sufficiently argue my point from a Protestant perspective, but I invite all readers to partake in what I have to say.
It may apply to other walks of faith, though any harsh criticism or questions will be directed to Christianity. It does not look at any widespread theological studies of the Bible nor use any special terms, but rather it is largely personal insight of how the Bible may be fallible and what that means to me as a Christian.
“The Bible is Infallible”
Surely, the majority of Christians entertain the notion that the Bible is infallible. Have you ever heard any of these phrases?
“You can't contradict the Word of God”
“God only lets the things He wants you to know be put in the Bible”
The Church will stand by the Holy Bible and teach out of it whole-heartedly. It is not a crime to believe this or teach this. In fact, the basis of Christianity depends on the Bible being true. At the same time, people do not look at how human error, or even human bias, could seep in.
History
The Holy Bible we read today is a conglomeration of texts that were believed to be Scripture - the Old Testament - and accounts and letters of Christ's followers - the New Testament. A council convened in order to determine what makes it into the New Testament long after the writings were collected. Out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of letters and accounts in the days of Christ were sifted through and evaluated for accuracy and veracity.
Here lies the problem: how can anyone be certain that all the council included was true? The council could not question the authors. The authors had all died, many of which had been martyred. There is no way a first-hand account could have been verified. If you look in some Bibles, an introduction to a book or epistle may have pertinent historical information, summaries, and authorship. Much of the time, the author is only what most scholars agree upon as the true author. In other words, they do not really know, but attempt to determine who the author is based on what they do know.
Aside from what made it into the Bible and may err in authorship, what was left out? Several letters and books of the Bible never made it because the council suspected dubious authorship. They may be forgeries of apostolic epistles. Some may have simply left out accounts they felt unnecessary to the whole of the Bible. If you look around, various texts not in the typical Protestant Bible exist in Catholicism or the various Orthodoxies.
Still further are disparities in how the Bible is finalized. The Protestant Church wanted to unify under what was essentially the same Bible across the various denominations. That means Baptists, the Church of the Nazarene, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so forth all convened to determine what goes into the Bible. Representatives had to agree on a general version of “truth” that could appease every denomination. A result of that is some verses have whole phrases missing from the original text. Some Bibles will include alternate versions or extensions in the footnote.
In all, how much did God lead the selection of what goes into the Bible we know today? Varying editions already show that not all of Christianity agrees upon what is and is not the Word of God.
Divine Inspiration in the Hands of Men
Another common idea is that God inspired the authors of the Bible. It is a nice thing to believe and is not necessarily inaccurate. However, in the hands of men, things are bound to change. For instance, the pastor for my church once mentioned that one of the men who did notable work in spreading the Good News was actually a woman. The authors had changed the gender when they committed it to the New Testament. I will say that I forget who it was and if it was the author of the epistle who changed it or if it was the Protestant council or still another. The fact remains that somewhere along the line, a historical fact, a whole person, changed at the hands of men. Of course, this particular example deals with patriarchal society.
Other parts may be difficult to swallow as purely divine inspiration. The first five books of the Old Testament - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy - are all attributed to Moses. It seems strange, though, how vast a number of works there are, and stranger still, the detail of the accounts at least a thousand years before his birth.
