A sixth attempt at finding my way back to the bible would be take one problem at the time and explain it away.
For two problems (contradictions in the infancy stories and the question of a cruel war God in the old testament), I did a bit of this (with the help of a website the content of which has much more substance than the credentials of its author and the design would let you think). I was surprised that it did help – it helped much more than I expected it would and really did mitigate some of my worries.
However, it didn’t silence my problems completely. And the list of problems seems to be so long, that, in the end, this approach seems not very promising.
P.S.: You know what’s strange? When I try to think of what the specific problems are that I have with the bible (such as specific verses or specific claims), it’s not so easy for me to give examples. This surprises me because my overall impression about myself is that I just have tons of problems with the bible.
A sixth attempt at finding my way back to the bible would be take one problem at the time and explain it away.
I think this is an entirely valid approach!
Contradictions in the infancy stories I don’t really care about – if we accept that these stories were written down by fallible humans (irrespective of their divine inspiration, or otherwise) then I don’t mind a few inconsistencies.
But the cruel war God in the old testament – this I do have a problem with. This portrayal of God seems repeatedly at odds with the apparent revelation of God in Jesus.
I had a look at the website you mentioned. As an intro, I started to look at the presentation, explanation, and mini-argument for the faith. I’ve only read part way through it, but a couple of things leapt off the page:
“The most complex unit that appears in this universe is the human personality. The ’cause’ must therefore be at-least-as-personal as we are.” WHAT? That sounds like complete nonsense to me.
“This ‘person’ … created a universe/reality that has an incredible amount of diversity and beauty in it.” Yes, but you neglect to mention that this ‘person’ also created a universe/reality that has an incredible amount of suffering in it – natural disasters, disease, etc.
So immediately I’m tagging this guy as someone who makes elaborate and well-researched arguments, but isn’t above making fundamental mistakes or omissions (in my opinion).
So anyway, I read What about God’s cruelty against the Midianites? This seemed like a good discourse on the “war God” question.
OK, he puts together a detailed argument about just how bad the Midianites were, and the Israelites had no real alternative but to put them all to death. I don’t really buy his assertions that the remaining young girls were on average 5 years old (seems like a random number) and that “The realities of life in the ANE precluded absorption of the residual boys into the people—in keeping with realities of the time” (this is God we’re talking about – surely anything’s possible?).
But aside from those points, his bottom line is that “God says sometimes it’s justifiable for humans to slaughter other humans.” (My statement, not a quotation.) To me, that just CANNOT be the same God who is revealed in Jesus. As I’ve said before: just think what a better place the world would be if God had taught the Israelites to live the Jesus way instead of the warmaker way.
So, while I agree with the approach of explaining one problem away at a time, I rarely find any satisfactory answers!
Ref your PS – sometimes (when my motivation is high) I take a book of the Bible and read through it, one chapter a day. Each day I make a few simple notes about my response – what resonates, what doesn’t make sense, maybe a cross-reference that I look up. When I read it back, it’s generally a catalogue of specific problems with the bible!
I just had another look at the 5-year-old survivors thing. It seems the writer is being deliberately misleading here: what he really means is “0-12 years”, but by repeatedly referring to “average 5 years” he’s painting a misleading picture of a bunch of nursery schoolers.
Anyway, I had a quick look at various translations of Numbers 31. In all versions that I checked, v18 is unclear whether those being spared are young women or girls, but v35 always states “women who had never slept with a man”. These are not children of age 0-12! Or if they are, then in this case God’s word is so obscure that EVERY professional bible translator for the past 2000 years has misrepresented it.