Although there are numerous translation glitches that ‘suit’ one population over another, only one Biblical contradiction has stymied my ‘fundamentalist’ attempt to render the Bible inerrant in every last detail. Doubtless there are others apparent, but I believe I’ve reconciled them all, including the Genesis discrepancies and the so called Calvanistic-Arminian discrepancies (i.e., God’s Sovereignty vs Free Will). But note this apparent discrepancy:
2 Kings 24.8 states: Jehoiachinb was EIGHTEEN years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.
Vs.
2 Chronicles 36.9 states: Jehoiachin was EIGHT years old when he began to reign and he reigned three months
Apologists have called this a transcriptional error.
(1) If, indeed, this is a transcriptional error, then a purely literal fundamentalist scheme of the KJV seems to fail (at least to a degree).
(2) If, on the other hand, I state that I believe the original manuscripts only were correct, then I concede God’s Word is at least partially obscured by errors.
(3) Jehoiachin tutored 10 years before really allowed to reign.
(4) Or, the words must become ‘surreal’ in their relations (as in the Poetic books) to impart a ‘higher’ meaning, e.g., Jehoiachin was ‘so young’, ‘premadonna-like’, ‘premature’, etc. before taken into captivity by Babylon.
(5) A devout Christian may add that the Gospel Word (i.e., the Christ dying for our sins and raising from the dead) must also be ‘symphonic’ with this scripture to be valid. (an offshoot of no. 4 above)
Anyone care to comment additionally on this ‘apparent’ contradiction?