And so the public has been given a binary choice: Either the Bible is horrible, or else it's divine and you'll go to hell if you don't think so.

I think that's a false choice., but after some looking, I couldn't find a reasoned defense of the book. Hence this post. Whatever flaws the Bible may have (and only atheists take the worst passages seriously), they pale in comparison to its virtues.

Compassion for the Other
Consider how many lives have been senselessly lost because of stirred-up hatreds. Almost like clockwork, rulers and their intellectuals go on sprees of portraying the outsider as an object of threat and disgust, often ending with mounds of corpses. 

So, can we ignore the benefits of a book that teaches the opposite? That teaches love of the other rather than tribal hate? This is precisely what we find in the Bible, and especially from Jesus. Consider what he says in this passage:

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Here's one that addresses the same thing from a different angle:

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.

Here's a call for loving outsiders from one of the earliest books in the Bible:

The Lord your God… executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Where but from the Bible or from people influenced by the Bible do we find such civilized and civilizing thoughts?