Is The Bible really the word of God?

This is a crucial question. Really it should be simple. Around 1500 to 2000 years ago a book came into existence. Believers hold that it is the true word of God to be followed to the letter, skeptics believe it is the work of primitive, nasty, misogynist men cleverly designed to entrap the gullible into slavery and submission. A third grouping of individuals hold that it is the word of God interspersed with man-made additions (the nasty bits). This stance is convenient as it allows for picking and choosing between what is and what isn't the word of God on an ad-hoc basis. This is the basis for the term 'Religious Apologist'.

I use the term 'grouping of individuals' to describe the apologists because there is absolutely no agreement among them. What you will never see from any Christian religious authority is a clear publication identifying what is and what isn't the word of God. When the Pope or any other Priest, Pastor, Bishop, Curate or Vicar holds the Bible in his hand and prays he holds the entire Bible. I think it is safe to assume that he hasn't gone through it striking out the parts he doesn't believe are the word of God. In order to deal with all the advocacy of murder, rape, oppression of women and slavery found all over the bible a new term has been invented by the apologists: 'Bible literalist'. By creating a segregation of people who believe the Bible to be the word of God to the letter they cleverly create a new mainstream position out of thin air that assumes that everyone knows which bits are and which bits aren't the word of God.

This is plainly just trying to create rationalizations and excuses to get around the problem of a book that appears to have been written by those primative mysoginist men.

So we are left with only two real possibilities:

1) The Bible, as promoted by all the worlds religions that are based on it is the true word of God, perfect and absolute. To be sure it was written by primitive men but only as a conduit for the words of God.

or

2) The Bible was written by primitive men without any divine input.

I think that most people would agree that if the Bible is the word of God, the creator of the universe and everything in it then we should make sure that it is followed to the letter, right now, without delay. If on the other hand the Bible was written by primitive men in order to further their own selfish agendas then it should be discarded out of hand as possibly the first documented case of human fraud and deception.

Of course some might argue that even if the Bible was just written by man without any divine input we should still hold it up as a model of morality because of all the goodness it contains. If anyone would put that case then they have either not read the Bible or if they have they haven't understood it.

If however we start with the premise that the Bible is the word of God then we can, by reading the Bible gain some insight into the nature of that God. That insight may well be quite shocking to many due to the abundance of repulsive content, advocacy of murder, human sacrifice, rape, slavery, animal brutality and more.

In Psalm 19:7 the Bible says:
The law of the Lord is perfect.

So where do you stand at this point in the discussion? Any suggestions for what the BS might stand for?