Why the "There are so many interpretations of the Bible" claim is confused

[Thumpalumpacus]

That being said, very few claims of contradictions and errors actually hold up under scrutiny. 

Really? According to whom? Unbiased folks? Atheists? Christians?

Here, we'll take one example:

Leviticus 11:13-19New International Version (NIV)

13 “‘These are the birds you are to regard as unclean and not eat because they are unclean: the eagle,[a] the vulture, the black vulture,

14 the red kite, any kind of black kite,

15 any kind of raven,

16 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,

17 the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl,

18 the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,

19 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

[Emphasis added -- Thump]

Now, you, I, and most folk alive today know that bats aren't birds; they're mammals.

The standard apologist rhetoric for this example is that the primitive Jews didn't know anything about taxonomy, but that's a baseless appeal. If you look at the hunter-gatherer tribes still extant in Africa and New Guinea, you'll find that the have quite the sophisticated understanding of the flora and fauna in their area.

So how is it that this all-knowing god is thinking that bats are birds?

Now, as for contradictions: We have a god alleged to be omniscient, yet continually asking questions out of ignorance. We have a god who is alleged to be omnipotent, and yet humans are sinful out of "free will". On the one hand we have Christ, the "Prince of Peace"; on the other, we have Christ himself saying he brings a sword. We have a Christ who commands "Love one another as I have loved you"; on the other we have a Christ who says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple."

I could go on, but I think that's sufficient for now.

Many skeptics study the issue just enough to support their conclusions and then ignore everything else. Then they blow the apparent discrepancy totally out of proportion.

True enough, I'm no Biblical scholar. But to paraphrase Justice Black's definition of obscenity, I know bullshit when I smell it.

But on the flipside, are the inerrantists who hold the Bible to be the literal, physical, magical word of God. Can't have two more ignorant groups of people go at it than these two.

Nonsense. One of them has read the Bible and compared it to reality. They can both be obnoxious, certainly, but it's been my experience that very few true believers have read the Bible for content.