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Through a leap of faith, one can believe in an infallible, perfect God. Through simple observation, one can believe in fallible, imperfect human beings. With this latter understanding the question may not be "is there an element of fiction in the Bible", but rather, "Is there an element of truth".

In passing a message along, we can depend that human frailties will accidentally and purposefully distort that message. We misquote the message; misunderstand, mistranslate, miscopy, exaggerate, insert our own ideas, and so on. It is surprising that any message arrives intact, when it passes among many people over a long period of time.

The Old Testament was passed down for centuries by oral tradition - a path notorious for losing information, and gaining misinformation. The Old Testament wasn't put to paper until the Jewish Exile in Babylon (597 B.C. 538 B.C.). The priests and leaders were afraid that the Jews would lose contact with their roots and become assimilated. Therefore they ordered that their religious stories be committed to writing. The Priest and Scribes faced with this daunting task dared not leave any of the old tales out for fear of losing the true message of God. Thus we have the peculiar situation of having two different stories about the creation of Adam and Eve. Also, it seems more than coincidental that both the Babylonian religion and the Old Testament have a flood story. The Scribes probably borrowed the story from Mesopotamian myth.
The Old Testament is replete with contradictions and inconsistencies. Given the circumstances of transmitting the message, this is not to be unexpected.

The New Testament has its contradictions and inconsistencies as well. The Gospels were written several decades after the death of Christ.
They were second and third hand accounts based on what "eye witnesses" believed what they saw or heard. What were Jesus' last words on the cross?
Each gospel has a different version.
What exactly were the events and participants upon learning that Christ had arisen. Each Gospel tells a different story. This is not to deny these events, but rather to illustrate the fallibility of human beings to carry a message intact.

For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, they gravely misunderstand the human propensity to distort a message. For those who conclude that the Bible is filled with too many inconsistencies and contradictions, the problem is develop a means to extract the real words of God from the highly suspect Bible.

As said in the introduction, God may deliver his word perfectly; humans can change that message through their fallibility.

Learn more about this author, Lorne Yacuk.
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