As far as I know, God never sat down with pen and papyrus and wrote any biblical passages. In fact, he was never directly responsible for any verse, book, edition, translation of the bible -- there was always some human intermediator. In most cases, we have no idea who this intermediator was, and in many of the cases where we have some idea, there are serious doubts as to the veracity of the claim that so-and-so wrote the Book of Such-and-such.
All right.
All you have is the assurance of humans that God is indirectly responsible for the biblical text, in that he put words into somebody's head and that person wrote them down. What you haven't got is any reason to believe any of the following:
I have reasons, I'll write about them below.
1) That the message was in the form of explicit sentences, and not just a general idea.
2) That the person who got the message wrote it down himself, instead of passing it along orally.
3) That the people who passed it along orally, or the person who finally did write it down, didn't change it, reinterpret it, or forget parts of it and make up stuff to fill in the holes, as this occurred.
4) That the people who translated the book from whatever language it was written in didn't change the meaning, either in error or intentionally.
5) That the early Church, as a result of its constant internal power struggles and disagreements over what should be taken as canonical and what was apocryphal or even heretical, actually maintained any of the original text.
6) That early Israelite tribes, as a result of their constant internal power struggles, actually maintained any of the original text.
7) Any way of checking any of points 1-6.
1) I believe that's correct.
2) Also correct.
3) It was not orally.
4) That happened sometimes. Translations are not inspired by God.
5) I believe that didn't happen.
The original texts are supposed to be lost (may be because they got too old and were not readable any more), but that's not sure, the Vatican may have texts that the rest of the word don't have access, so we cannot be sure what is lost and what isn't.
6) Similar to 5)
So basically, why do you have any faith in what the Bible says at all?
OK, This is the "big question".
I see to ways that could help to answer this question.
A) To explain why the human are now in such a problem.
B) To explain in practice what can someone do to solve this problem.
B) is practical while A) is more intellectual and also will have the same problem, because I'll explain A) with what the bible says; but at least you'll have a logic that explain what happen (may be you could like to call it "a theory", but for the one that already believe, it is not just a theory).
So... I'll start with B):
After God revealed his Word, He didn't go on vacation. He is still working. He is a spiritual being, nor matter neither energy, spirit is another thing. Spirit is in another level, but spirit can interact with material level.
From the material level there is no way to see spirit: you cannot put spirit in a particle accelerator and see something. You cannot take a tester and measure spirit. I don't know for sure if the physics will ever be able to see spirit interacting, but it is more likely not.
Of course, you can say: but why do you think that? OK, I learned all that after what I'll explain as the "practical" of point B).
The practical thing is: someone that really want to know the truth, that has the questions:
I) Why there is this universe?
II) Why we live? What is life's purpuse?
III) Is there a God?
IV) What is the truth?
V) What do I do here?
VI) What happen after death? Is there anything or is it the end?
And the more important one (at least in practice), but it's not a question: If there is a God I want to know Him.
People that has an internal power that diligently think and seek for these answers, people that internally whould like to believe that God exist, will find the answers.
Because God is seeing that situation and attitude, and He sees the interest of the person and the problem that he/she has to believe.
The experience of the person may vary from one to another, it is something very personal, but God will do what's necessary to help you to convince (whatever is needed for you, every person is different and require different things to be convinced).
For example: some people in a situation may pray: "if there is a God, please help me with "something", and he got an answer that it would be very unlikely to happen otherwise.
But it is only for some people, because other ones will think: may be it was a coincidence, or may be it was my mind interacting with the environment, etc. So they would need another thing to be convinced.
I am not telling you my own experience because it was something personal, but I am trying to extract the general truth involved. But better let's see what is what God himself says about that in the bible:
Matthew 7:7-8"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
After crossing that line (a cliff, if you prefer) and you start to believe, now other things are available to you.
When someone start to believe (He need to believe specifically at least
Romans 10:9-10) he receives holly spirit, and it allows a direct comunication with God (impossible before).
But at this point I'll start with point A):
At Genesis 1 God created the man, and they (Adam and Eve) had three parts: body, soul and spirit. Body is physical, soul is the life, and spirit is the part that had a direct conection with God (because God is spirit).
So, the man had three parts, two of which were for comunicating with the world, the environment, all that you can see, hear, taste, etc with the five senses, and the other part, the spirit was for comunicating with God.
(I can give you all the bible scriptures to show you that, but it would be too long to put all here now).
God said: don't do something, because when you do that you will die. But you can see that they didn't die physically when they did that, but what happened is that they died spiritually, they lost the third part, the spirit. So they became just body and soul, without spirit.
They still could have comunication with the environment (because they didn't lose body and soul), but not with God directly thru the spirit as they used to have. They became limited to the five senses to acquire information. When God said "you'll die" it meant to lose the holy spirit part.
I can explain more about what happened there but I am trying to keep it short.
Then God inmediately promised a redeemer (remember omniscience in the other thread? God has the solution to any given situation, at the moment). God promised a solution to this situation, He had a plan to solve that (and also to solve other things).
The consecuences of losing holly spirit were critical. After that every time that God wanted to comunicate with someone He needed to do something physical, like the burning brier to Moses and other examples.
Also when some people believed, He put holly spirit on them, but conditionally. Some people in the old testament, mostly prophets, had holly spirit on them, but if they went appart from God, they lost the holly spirit.
In this way they could comunicate with God directly, as Moses and other prophets did.
Jesus Christ also had holly spirit on him, and he received it only when he started his ministry, not before.
Look:
Ephesians 2:1,5Why the bible says that we are dead (before we believe in Jesus Christ), if we are in fact alive? Because we have not spirit. We are dead spiritually, without spirit.
What does this of "transgressions and sins" means? This is not talking about something that you did, it is talking about the consecuence of what Adam did. We all now are born spiritually dead as a consecuence of what Adam did. It was not a punishment from God, but is is how the things works, spiritually are also rules, like in other fields. Because, if it was a punishment, then why God endeavors in changing all that with a redeemer? God doen't punish people, He is good, and He always try to help the people.
OK, let's see. Then when someone accept Jesus Christ, he receives holly spirit. He/she again has three parts: body, soul and spirit.
The person with spirit now has the possibility of direct comunication with God. (That's why the veil of the temple was broken when JC died. meaning direct access to God now - a priest is not needed any more to be intermediary with God as it used to be in the old testament, because in the OT the common people didn't have spirit on them -)
As an ilustration I'll say that the holly spirit is like a radio receiver. The waves are there, but you can't here anything... unless you have the proper receiver.
God is there, but people don't have the receiver - holly spirit - to comunicate with Him. Of course you can pray, but it is only a one way comunication in such a situation.
After you receive holly spirit, the receiver, then you have the tool that allow you to understand spiritual things.
Look:
1 Corinthians 2:14The "natural" man is the term the bible uses to refer to the man without spirit.
It is very important this verse, please read it.
see also:
1 Corinthians 2:15The spiritual man (with holly spirit, and using it) can understand spiritual things and of course also natural things.
But this man is already on the other side, he crossed the line that can be crossed only believing.
There is a problem to the man too scientist, that only believe what he sees, because he won't see spirit, never. But as I already said, God himself will help to anyone that really would like to know Him and believe. He would do whatever is necessary for you.
But one warn:
Don't try to force God into something: for example demanding some miracle or a demostration.
The one with the problem is you, not God. The one who need help to believe are you. So be humble in front of God.
God sees your attitude, your heart, and He will answer to you.
James 4:6God will do what He knows is necessary, but don't try to command God in some direction that you think is what you need (or you want).
After you can believe in JC and receive holly spirit, there will be a direct comunication, so God can reveal things to your heart and guide you to know and understand the truths in the scripture.
Of course I know I didn't cover all here, but at least I tryed an explanation.
Life gets another dimension with God. You pass from a "flat" life to a three dimension life (of course it is a figure).
It is something similar as in the Matrix movie: do you want to take the blue pill or the red one?
Life don't get a paradise instantly, but you awake to another reality that always was there: the spiritual reality. You'll also see a lot of problems that you didn't see before, even though they were there all the time you didn't realize of the spiritual nature involved behind them.
Of course, the best of all is God's blessing (and to have a relationship with Him), and to know the truth, at least some of them, it can't be priced, and worth all. I am not regretful of what pill I took.
So, going back to your questioning of the bible, I think that the information to "cross the line", I mean the information needed to receive the holly spirit - and by the way, this is the moment when we become son of God, not when we are born from our natural parents - is clear enough: to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord, and to believe that God rised him from the death. After that we have the holly spirit, the tool to help us, along with studying the scripture, to discover the truths there, even with the translations and copys and all the problems that you pointed above.