Conflicting statements in the bible

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Are you really claiming the lower number was a news report from the front lines not a final number?

First, I'm not claiming anything. I'm noting that a simple explanation exists.

Without news reports from the front all numbers would be final tallies after the event. You are complicating things.

Second, you spin it as if the difference in time is short. It isn't. It's years.

You are aware, are you not, that such excuses were invented after an issue was made of the contradiction?

A person can have an old resume which shows their highest education as a high school degree, and another which shows their highest education as a college degree. If the latter was dated four or more years later than the former, no one would yell Contradiction! This isn't rocket science.

Nor is it rocket science to expect the author of the newer to have read the older and not explain the difference if in fact there were an explanation. How can the younger writer not know a different number was just sowing confusion?

To those saying that Christians are doing gymnastics to avoid contradictions: look in the mirror. You're doing gymnastics to try to uphold the contradictions. You'd be better off admitting that there's some crap in that chart and trying to make a chart with fewer but better charges.

The contradiction is there. Nothing is needed to uphold it. It is simply a matter of discounting explanations for it that make so little sense.