My last attempt
While our interpretations may be fallible, that has no impact as to Scripture's infallibility, or lack thereof. Because we are fallible, doesn't mean we need to throw our hands up and say screw it all.
I think it's a worthwhile endeavor to learn all we can from Scripture. Some might not agree, and that's fine. Just a thought anyway.
Oh, yeah, I (mostly) agree -- that is, with not needing to throw up our hands and say screw it all, and with endeavoring to learn all we can from a text that is chock full of wisdom.
As for divine infallibility though, my dated, slightly-more-than-novice view is that there are multiple places of direct contradiction in the Bible, and the scholarly explanations I've heard to reconcile them always sounded a bit like a verbal shell game to me. If one accepts those contradictions as being real, then accepting infallibility is not a logical conclusion.
Again, I recognize there are scholarly arguments for reconciliation -- particularly from an allegorical POV -- but then we're back to arguments created through the prism of inherently fallible individual consciousness. Thus, if divine, true contradiction isn't possible. If non-divine interpretation is needed, fallibility is possible/likely. Happy to consider whether this logic is flawed.
Which is where the subjective, ‘I view it this way which is the best way I’ve found, therefore I’m able to make conjectures on what a god intends’ comes into play. People do it...
I can’t for the life of me understand how some can confidently assert that scripture is not chock full of contradictions, or that those recognizing that fact simply don’t have the biblical knowledge necessary to comprehend it.
Yup. My own calculation is that a truly loving, sentient God would make His divine text (and resulting eternal salvation) readily accessible to the large majority of His creation without the need for intermediaries to explain it -- particularly given His intimate knowledge of His own creation's ready fallibility in abusing intermediary authority.
Otherwise, isn't He just running a glorified Pledge Week, where most of us either end up on the sofa with Mohammed, Jugdish, Sidney and Clayton or, if you're one of the lucky ones, you end up bent over, holding your ankles saying, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"???