What's the Point?

I have begun thinking about the point of the Bible overall. There are several ways in which someone could look at it:

1) A historical document. The places and events recorded in the Old Testament are real places and the people written about were likely real people. It is a powerful research tool into the lives and customs of people and nations from over three or four thousand years ago.

2) A work of fiction. While the places and people are likely real, some may read the Bible as sort of a "Titanic" type of story. In that movie the events and some of the characters were real people, but the narrative was entirely fiction. If you look at just the narrative aspect of it yet don't believe any of the spirituality of the thing, it is still a fantastic story of love, redemption and change, and is the blueprint for thousands of stories out there. I mean there is a literary term known as a "Christ figure" - someone who sacrifices him or herself to help others. Lord of the Flies, LOST, video games and books all over the place use this idea in spades. And while I'm sure there were great acts of sacrifice before and after Jesus, that is the one most people think of.

3) The literal word of God. Many people believe that every word in the Bible was divinely inspired by God himself. Now some people have very different interpretations of what "divinely inspired" means. Some believe that the people who wrote the books of the Bible had a good relationship with God and through his goodness and kindness to them, they were inspired to write the books which they wrote. Others believe that every word on the page is the direct word of God and just transcribed by man. This interpretation is difficult for many people because of the many contradictions in the Bible. They would think "If God is perfect, why are there things that don't add up?"

4) A biography of God. This is where I am right now. I've mentioned before the idea of the Philosopher's God. This is the god that a group of philosophers designed around what they thought God should be. They decided that if there is a God he must be all knowing, all powerful and all good or loving. And then because they saw suffering in the world, they decided that God could not exist because he would have helped those people. I think what has happened is that image of God has bled into the Christian belief system. While God certainly is powerful, knowing and loving, my argument is that he is not these things in the way the philosophers believed him to be. This is already fairly evident to me in the half I've read so far.

So therefore, my conclusion would be to use this beautiful, intricate, divinely inspired narrative to determine who God actually is. I will accept that there are things that I will never be able to understand, but as one of my goals states, I want to be able to define God by the end of this project. I want to know what he is and is not capable of. I want to know why it is he loves us so much. I want to know why he went from super angry vengeful god to a sacrificial lamb. And the Bible will help me get those answers.