Zhimbo and Revenge of Reason,
This is in reference to both of your concerns.
I think part of what has given rise to some of the numerical discrepencies is that unlike the English language, the Jewish people did not have a set of numerals. Consequently, not unlike English, larger numbers require additional words. Although there was no absolute rule, more often than not, the largest number would appear first, and then the next number and so on. However occasionally these numbers would be written in reverse order. (i.e: 12 years and 300 years).
When one examines the Biblical Hebrew or Ancient Jewish alphabet, it becomes easier to see how transcribing documents from one to the other could become very confusing and lead to copying errors. (Such errors are little different from a misspelled word in a text). Many of the words are very similar in spelling and even some of the letters are.
One must also keep in mind that later generations were not as familiar with the ancient alphabet as the original authors were. Indeed there are mistakes in the manuscripts but it does not follow that these mistakes are also in the original copies.
The following are some difficulties based on numerical issues;
- 2 Samuel 8:4
- Acts 7:14
- 1 Corinthians 10:8
- 2 Samuel 24:24
- 1 Kings 4:26
- 1 Chronicles 22:14
- 1 Samuel 13:5
- 2 Samuel 24:9
- 2 Samuel 24:13
- Numbers 25:9
- 1 Samuel 13:1
First of all not all of these are errors. Indeed some can be explained. However, some are numerical errors, and we know that they are errors because they are contradicted by another books version of the account. How do we know which one is right? We make a gues based on historical fact and logic. We may also check in older Bibles. How do we know these errors were not in the original one.
We are not certain but if the errors are not present in older documents it is certainly realistic that they are not present in the oldest source.
Hopefully this has been some help. Thank you for you patience. I do not get a chance to respond every day as I would like to at times.
Apostle