[SoothingDave]

>To simply approach the text as piecemeal nuggets of absolute truth which can be divorced from context and applied as one sees fit is to do a disservice to its meaning. <

To treat God's word as simply a piece of literature and put more emphasis on the thoughts and context of the transcriber than the author is to twist its meaning.

Who said we regard it "as simply a piece of literature"?

Like I said, it is divinely inspired. But it is also literature and it helps to understand what was being written, by whom, to whom and why.

I find it hard to understand why this is a troubling idea to you. Shouldn't we take these things into consideration?

And, by the way, the human author is more than a "transcriber." He did not fall into a trance and find his arm magically writing words. This may be a large part of your difficulty in understanding the Bible, if you regard the humans as mere thoughtless automatons.

SD

[Petronski]

He did not fall into a trance and find his arm magically writing words.

That's how Stephen King does it, although it's not God on the other end...