I think that people have always tried every way that can be imagined to make the world and life make sense.

Not much argument on that assertion, especially from a view that is at least somewhat relative to modern times (the past several hundred years or so). Personally, an exception to this is that it is difficult to accept the "always" component. Who, if any human, presently on this earth, really knows how long always has been ongoing, other than, it's been a really long time so far? Nonetheless, at least in view of relatively recent history, I agree, people have imagined many ways to make some sense out of their world, and I continue to be no exception to this situation. There is some irony in this, though, found mainly in the observation of people who tend to have a great propensity to follow instructions given to them by somebody else as to how to make sense of their world. This sort of rings true with an old saying "if you wanna improve the chances of something getting done correctly, you probably should do it yourself rather than expecting/wishing/hoping somebody else to do it for you". Does it make sense that a Creator desiring "his word" to be faithfully preserved down through the ages would delegate this job to be handled by human creations that Creator observed to be flawed begining with the very first generation of such Creator ever created? As far as making sense goes, it makes more sense that a Creator, especially an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipotent, jealous Creator would have expressly reserved this job to be done by Creator. Does it make sense for a person wanting to make some sense of their world to rigedly follow a book written for them by some other human, translated for them ad nauseum down through the eons by some other human, and preached to them on special days by some other human? 

It is said to be written that Adam & Eve were the Creator's first-ever human creations. It is also said to be written that Adam & Eve failed to uphold the will of their Creator by way of eating the fruit of the tree that the Creator forbade them to eat. Does it make any sense for the same Creator to expect that subsequent generations spawned by & through this same human twosome would get it right - uphold his will, by way of genuinely preserving forever that which humans have ever since called "the word of God the Creator"? The subsequent ever-ongoing series of human offspring laboring and toiling to apply human-authoring, human re-authoring, human translation, human- re-translations, human authorizing & reauthorizing of said book.... a la "microsoft security patch download XYZ" seems to be resounding face-value  evidence of the answer - NO!. Be this as it may, and despite it's perpetual history of corruptions and revisions down through the ages since it's alleged first-ever-authoring, the present-day renditions of the book most likely contain several snippets here and there of original truth that, by necessity, have been cloaked, wrapped and larded in masses of deceptions. It makes some sense for a person to avail themselves to the book in seekign out such snippets so as to benefit from whatever sense-making value they contain. It also makes some sense for such a person to also learn how to discern, to have their BS'ometer ever on alert so as to improve the chances of them recognizing among the snippets truth from deceipt-dressed-up-to-appear-as-truth.

Up until about 1600 or so, most people in any part of the world didn't know how to read ...

Again, generally no argument from me on this understanding of history. Just taking this assertaion at face value, for those looking to make sense out of the book, does it make sense for the book to have been allegedly & initially first-authored during an age long before most having learned how to read, anything, the book, or other reading material?; even those who were native to the original languages the book are said to have been originally cobbled into beginning with Hebrew, Aramaic? By default this seems to place people in the position of perpetually needing to get a good portion of their sense from some other person, people or agency. The only chance for this making half-sense or pseudo sense is if one contiues to accept the age-old notion that people are required to be held hostage to having an otherwise unreadable book read / translated / preached to them by somebody else.... and the beat of this age-old deception goes on.  The only exception that I have thus far become aware of in my life is from having observed on occasion other people claiming their experience of having sat down with a version of the book, afterwhich they were then set upon by divine intervention that allowed them to make perfect sense out of this otherwise thoroughly-altered book. Personally, I can respect that somebody else has had a kind of experience that thus far I cannot lay claim to, AND, whether or not it makes any sense at all for me to do, I can and do still hold out hope that perhaps one day I too will experience such intervention. In the mean time, though, I continue to have doubts about the book.