It has been a great year for King James I, but has it been so good for the Bible? On the 400th anniversary of the translation that bears his name, everyone has been praising the monarch for his initiative, but ignoring a problem. Once we have finished admiring the elegance of the translation, we still have to deal with the meaning of the actual text. It may flow beautifully, but do we like what it says?

One example is the declaration of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" spelt out in Exodus 21:24 as a principle of justice (and considered sufficiently important to be repeated in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy). However much sense it might have made in a nomadic society 4,000 years ago, it is totally inappropriate today. Should we send the police to the homes of the London rioters, with instructions to loot them and then torch them? Unthinkable.

The rabbis of previous centuries also realised the verse was both unworkable and immoral. However, they felt unable to alter the text itself, either because they believed it was divine in origin or had been sanctified by time. Their solution was to interpret away the surface meaning and read it as if it meant an eye's worth for an eye. Instead of a victim poking out the eye of his attacker, he could claim financial compensation for the pain, the public embarrassment, the medical expenses and loss of income.

What sounds like modern industrial relations legislation was actually written in the Talmud, the rabbinic commentary on the Bible in the second century. However, the unpalatable text of Exodus is still in place and is read every day by millions who are unaware of this benign reinterpretation, and the verse has become a theological albatross around Jewish necks. Equally problematic is the Bible's propensity to issue the death penalty for a wide variety of crimes. These too have been kicked into religious oblivion through later expositions, but the larger issue of the unacceptable text remains to this day.

But if there are awkward and time-bound verses, the resilience of the Bible is due to the moral challenges that permeate it and span the ages. Cain's cry "Am I my brother's keeper?" is never answered but is left for us to provide the response in every generation. Noah's Ark tells how easily it is for the world to go under, consumed both by nature and by its own evil, and yet the story also offers a rainbow of hope for those who are willing to see it.

The Tower of Babel teaches about the dangers of over-ambition, as well as the need for communication between people if society is going to survive. The Joseph saga is still a handbook for social workers, showing the ultimate dysfunctional family and warning of favouritism, sibling rivalry and how parents can mess up their children's lives (and vice versa).

Perhaps – in keeping with the Trade Descriptions Act – the good book should be renamed The Complicated Bible, a reminder that we have the task of sifting between the acceptable and unacceptable parts, and, just as importantly, not to be worried by such an admission. As the 10th-century Jewish scholar Saadiah Gaon put it: "The main causes of irreligion are the weak and ridiculous arguments advanced in defence of faith."

So whereas in the days of King James believers would have felt obliged to justify every verse, we can be more honest and more relaxed: not denying its weaknesses and thereby not tarnishing its strengths.