>The thing I find most disturbing is the idea that somehow "God" - an anthropomorphic construction
>in man's image - has "spoken" and created a users manual in a collection of disparate documents
>assembled, deconstructed, mistranslated and rewritten over 2500 years by committee and that
>ultimately this is the authority for questions of human existence, when the only authority for its
>primacy or integrity is itself.


The part that you're missing, Charles, is the acceptance or ability to accept that God is not like things we have or know here upon this Earth. He is Spirit. He is eternal. And He has purposes in the things He does which go along those lines (spiritual, eternal). And, being completely sovereign, He does not have limitations that are imposed by men or men's evil intents or deeds. What He wants to have happen will happen, no act of man or men withstanding.

With regards to the Bible, there is one author. It is God, His Holy Spirit guiding men to write things which contain parts that are incomprehensible outside of being born again. God did this for His own purposes. "Ever hearing, yet never understanding. Ever seeing, but never perceiving," and so on.

When a person seeks to know the truth, desiring honestly and truthfully to know the truth, they find it. It is God being sought in that case because God is truth -- literal truth.

We come to faith by hearing the word of God and by seeking the truth. When you're willing to do that, God will have already been moving everything in your life toward that day because He sees outside of time. Until that day, no person can ever come to know faith, or God.