It's a mixture of different texts. Some of these make eloquent sense. Some make me scratch my head.
Patly it is a history of the Israelite People, and in that sense, it tries very hard to prove that the Israelites are the best people on earth. What better way of showing that than to state that they are the chosen people of God?
There are, of course, different texts, depending on which faith or group you choose to take seriously. Some of these are written in Hebrew (and Aramaic), some are written in Greek, some in Sanskrit, and so forth. different opinions maintain that different versions are the correct ones.
If you pick up any of these and just start reading, chances are excellent that in a few chapters the text, whichever it may be, will not make sense to you. In order to understand the text, you need to understand the customs and traditions that were in vogue when the text was written.
One major difference is historical truth. When we say the the most junior ensign in attendance received the surrender of the British troops at Yorktown, there are primary sources that so state.We think nothing of it. It happened that way.
This is a very, very modern view of history. Most ancient historians are assumed to be making stuff up to suit their own ends, and scholarly notations appended to these historians' works will point that out.
We need to do that same with the Bible. However, when it comes to historians, we argue about who is the most qualified; we even argue that certain objectively qualified experts are completely untrustworthy.
Depending largely on which of these experts you choose to believe, you are going to read the Bible differently; you are going to believe that what it says is literally different from the readings of others.
Then, too, the innocent little phrase "makes sense" is quite troublesome.
After all, the Bible, if we so believe, is the story of humankind's relationship with God. When dealing with interactions between humans and God, who are we to suggest that god has to "make sense" to us?
It is reported that Jesus healed the sick. He raised people from the dead. To some people, this does not make sense; to others, it makes perfect sense. It greatly depends on the viewpoint and basic understanding you have of the times of the first century when all of these things were happening.Did Jesus actually heal the sick, or was this simply the method used by his biographers to say, "Look! This was a very, very unusual man!" There is today no way for us to go back and re-examine the facts, so we cannot know. All that we seem able to do is go through life, grasping at whatever signs and portents we might happen to see, and try to put the hodgepodge of all of it together, and from this guesswork, decide what, to us, makes sense.
Oh, and another thing: you can change you mind anytime you want. Hundreds of us do it all the time.
I know a lot of people approach this whole matter with great fear and dread, thinking that they will be eternally punished unless they reach the right decision. I doubt that it works this way at all. I think that our lives are not so much arriving at the destination as the trip involved in getting there. anyway, that makes sense to me, and in that sense, a lot of the writings in the Bible also make a lot of sense to me.
Your mileage is going to vary.