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

[Drich]

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?

So what is the ancient Hebrew word for Mammal?

The ancient Jews did not classify animals as we do, the word, or idea of the word mammals and all life classified under it is relitivly new. Your comparing a classification system that is only a couple hundred years old to a text/understanding of a people several thousand years old. A people who had no concept of your modern classification. How is that a fair compareson? How do we know your compareson is unfair?

One their is no ancient Hebrew word for mammal, two the word we translate to 'bird' in the English is:עוֹף ʻôwph in the Hebrew, it literally means ANYTHING that flies. Bugs, birds, winged insects, fish ect. Now because this is a word that describes a whole class of creature that does not conside with how we classify creatures, it should lead an Intellectually Honest person (would not only be able to identify that his system of classification was new/not available to the Ancient Jews,) who could understand that it would be foolish for God to have Moses write out a command using a term like 'Mammal' when no one he would be writing to for several thousand years would come to understand that term.

That said you are 1/2 right about one thing, people in that time could indeed subdivide various flying creatures into tighter sub catagories. This is exactly what Moses was doing here, just again not to the modern standard, using modern terms. why would he? who would be able to understand him? Rather God used terms the people he was directly speaking to could understand. just like Jesus did in the telling of his parables. For instance the act of obtaining the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the physical act of borrowing bread. Yet he used those very words to describe a process that one could obtain the Holy Spirit through. why? because that is the level the people Jesus was speaking to was on. It was simple and easy for them to understand. So He used their terms, rather than His own or ours.

Now, as for contradictions: We have a god alleged to be omniscient, yet continually asking questions out of ignorance

Such as?
Without an example this is a baseless claim.

. We have a god who is alleged to be omnipotent, and yet humans are sinful out of "free will".

This statement presupposes that God wants us in this life to all be perfect, and without sin. Which is not true. That (to be without sin) is the qualifier for eternity, not this life. Here we live in a proving ground. This life is where we prove to ourselves where/how we wish to spend eternity. for that we need to have the ablity to be outside of God's expressed will/Sin.

On the one hand we have Christ, the "Prince of Peace"; on the other, we have Christ himself saying he brings a sword.

Define peace.. Not what peace means to you in this time, but what Peace meant for the first century follower. The Peace here is to describe the peace/potential friendship God can now have for sinful man. where as before Christ, God only had wrath for sin, but now we can live in peace with God. the Death of Christ brought peace between God and Man.

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 don't see a contradiction here unless you are trying to superimpose some perverted bastardized modern version of the word 'love' which has one completely submit and tolerant of everything. Not one of the 5 greek words comes close to our understanding of that kind of Love. So when the bible speaks of love just assume you do not understand the concept. unles you know which of the 5 words are being used in the proper context.

Example:
The command in John used the word:ἀγαπάω agapáō, (ἀγαπάω agapáō, one another as I have ἀγαπάω agapáō, you) ἀγαπάω agapáō, Means to show a moral respect/To honor. It has nothing to do with submitting to another nor does it mean we must show a blanket tolerance as your word means.

Now lets look at the other verse you quoted.
luke 14:25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Do you see it? Probably not because you only understand hate to be one thing..

Look at to the passage in John "Love each other, as I have loved/Agape you." The Love here in John is based on Moral respect. The love between child and parent is called στοργή storgē the Love between a Husband and wife is called ἔρως érōs.

The Hate described in Luke 14 is μισέω miséō, it does means To hate as you understand it, but it can also mean to simply love less than.
From the Strong's lexicon:
μισέω miséō, mis-eh'-o; from a primary μῖσος mîsos (hatred); to detest (especially to persecute); by extension, to love less,—hate(-ful).

Or to contextually translate "any one who loves their parents or spouces More than me, or their own life more than me, is not worthy of me."

Once one get's over or past the idea that the bible was not originally written in English, and once said person can understand that even translating modern text some ideas or cultural are simply confused or even lost in translation, then that person can avoid looking foolish when trying to hold a ancient Greek textual standard to a modern English vanacular.

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

By all means.