Conflicting statements in the bible

[A_Nony_Mouse]

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

I don't know what you're getting at with this.

How could different numbers arise when they are both after the fact? Where would an interim number come from?

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

And? I would think most explanations for alleged contradictions are made after the allegation.

There is no allegation. It is a fact. One would be much more impressed had believers "explained" it before critics pointed it out.

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?

We don't know that he had read the other account. Alternatively, it could have been common knowledge. I doubt he was writing with you in mind.

What are the implications of not knowing of prior writings? Obviously if inspired then inspired without explanation is to deliberately sow confusion. If a human creation then it is difficult to see how the creator of such an important historical document would not know about other historical documents.

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.

A difference is there, but there is an explanation by which the two are not mutually exclusive, and so the difference is not troubling for the inerrantist. Whether you feel that it's a likely explanation is irrelevant. As I noted myself, I personally find it more likely that they both said the same thing initially, but a copying error was introduced into one at some point.

The simplest explanation is always the most likely. That believers are willing to engage in contortions is their business. To believe it is inerrant is as invention beyond the contents of the books. It is also an invention of the believers.