(b) Other so-called errors are to be explained as a permissible use of round numbers, which cannot be denied to the sacred writers except upon the principle that mathematical accuracy was more important than the general impression to be secured by the narrative.
In Numbers 25:9, we read that there fell in the plague 24,000; 1 Cor. 10:8 says 23,000. The actual number was possibly somewhere between the two. Upon a similar principle, we do not scruple to celebrate the Landing of the Pilgrims on December 22nd and the birth of Christ on December 25th. We speak of the battle of Bunker Hill, although at Bunker Hill no battle was really fought. In Ex. 12:40, 41, the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt is declared to be 430 years. Yet Paul, in Gal. 3:17, says that the giving of the law through Moses was 430 years after the call of Abraham, whereas the call of Abraham took place 215 years before Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt, and Paul should have said 645 years instead of 430. Franz Delitzsch: “The Hebrew Bible counts four centuries of Egyptian sojourn (Gen. 15:13–16), more accurately, 430 years (Ex. 12:40); but according to the LXX (Ex. 12:40) this number comprehends the sojourn in Canaan and Egypt, so that 215 years come to the pilgrimage in Canaan, and 215 to the servitude in Egypt. This kind of calculation is not exclusively Hellenistic; it is also found in the oldest Palestinian Midrash. Paul stands on this side in Gal. 3:17, making, not the immigration into Egypt, but the covenant with Abraham the terminus a quo of the 430 years which end in the Exodus from Egypt and in the legislation”; see also Hovey, Com. on Gal. 3:17. It was not Paul's purpose to write chronology—so he may follow the LXX, and call the time between the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law to Moses 430 years, rather than the actual 600. If he had given the larger number, it might have led to perplexity and discussion about a matter which had nothing to do with the vital question in hand. Inspiration may have employed current though inaccurate statements as to matters of history, because they were the best available means of impressing upon men's minds truth of a more important sort. In Gen. 15:13 the 430 years is called in round numbers 400 years, and so in Acts 7:6.
(c) Diversities of statement in accounts of the same event, so long as they touch no substantial truth, may be due to the meagreness of the narrative, and might be fully explained if some single fact, now unrecorded, were only known. To explain these apparent discrepancies would not only be beside the purpose of the record, but would destroy one valuable evidence of the independence of the several writers or witnesses.
On the Stokes trial, the judge spoke of two apparently conflicting testimonies as neither of them necessarily false. On the difference between Matthew and Luke as to the scene of the Sermon on the Mount (Mat. 5:1; cf. Luke 6:17) see Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, 360. As to one blind man or two (Mat. 20:30; cf. Luke 18:35) see Bliss, Com. on Luke, 275, and Gardiner, in Bib. Sac., July, 1879:513, 514; Jesus may have healed the blind men during a day's excursion from Jericho, and it might be described as “when they went out,” or “as they drew nigh to Jericho.” Prof. M. B. Riddle: “Luke 18:35 describes the general movement towards Jerusalem and not the precise detail preceding the miracle; Mat. 20:30 intimates that the miracle occurred during an excursion from the city—Luke afterwards telling of the final departure”; Calvin holds to two meetings; Godet to two cities; if Jesus healed two blind men, he certainly healed one, and Luke did not need to mention more than one, even if he knew of both; see Broadus on Mat. 20:30. In Mat. 8:28, where Matthew has two demoniacs at Gadara and Luke has only one at Gerasa, Broadus supposes that the village of Gerasa belonged to the territory of the city of Gadara, a few miles to the Southeast of the lake, and he quotes the case of Lafayette: “In the year 1824 Lafayette visited the United States and was welcomed with honors and pageants. Some historians will mention only Lafayette, but others will relate the same visit as made and the same honors as enjoyed by two persons, namely, Lafayette and his son. Will not both be right?” On Christ's last Passover, see Robinson, Harmony, 212; E. H. Sears, Fourth Gospel, Appendix A; Edersheim, Life and Times of the Messiah, 2:507. Augustine: “Locutiones variæ, sed non contrariæ: dlversæ, sed non adversæ.”
Bartlett, in Princeton Rev., Jan. 1880:46, 47, gives the following modern illustrations: Winslow's Journal (of Plymouth Plantation) speaks of a ship sent out “by Master Thomas Weston.” But Bradford in his far briefer narrative of the matter, mentions it as sent “by Mr. Weston and another.” John Adams, in his letters, tells the story of the daughter of Otis about her father's destruction of his own manuscripts. At one time he makes her say: “In one of his unhappy moments he committed them all to the flames”; yet, in the second letter, she is made to say that “he was several days in doing it.” One newspaper says: President Hayes attended the Bennington centennial; another newspaper says: the President and Mrs. Hayes; a third: the President and his Cabinet; a fourth: the President, Mrs. Hayes and a majority of his Cabinet. Archibald Forbes, in his account of Napoleon III at Sedan, points out an agreement of narratives as to the salient points, combined with “the hopeless and bewildering discrepancies as to details,” even as these are reported by eye-witnesses, including himself, Bismarck, and General Sheridan who was on the ground, as well as others.
Thayer, Change of Attitude, 52, speaks of Luke's “plump anachronism in the matter of Theudas”—Acts 5:36—“For before those days rose up Theudas.” Josephus, Antiquities, 20:5:1, mentions an insurrectionary Theudas, but the date and other incidents do not agree with those of Luke. Josephus however may have mistaken the date as easily as Luke, or he may refer to another man of the same name. The inscription on the Cross is given in Mark 15:26, as “The King of the Jews”; in Luke 23:38, as “This is the King of the Jews”; in Mat. 27:37, as “This is Jesus the King of the Jews”; and in John 19:19, as “Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.” The entire superscription, in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, may have contained every word given by the several evangelists combined, and may have read “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” and each separate report may be entirely correct so far as it goes. See, on the general subject, Haley, Alleged Discrepancies; Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 406–412.
(d) While historical and archæological discovery in many important particulars goes to sustain the general correctness of the Scripture narratives, and no statement essential to the moral and religious teaching of Scripture has been invalidated, inspiration is still consistent with much imperfection in historical detail and its narratives “do not seem to be exempted from possibilities of error.”
The words last quoted are those of Sanday. In his Bampton Lectures on Inspiration, 400, he remarks that “Inspiration belongs to the historical books rather as conveying a religious lesson, than as histories; rather as interpreting, than as narrating plain matter of fact. The crucial issue is that in these last respects they do not seem to be exempted from possibilities of error.” R. V. Foster, Systematic Theology, (Cumberland Presbyterian): The Scripture writers “were not inspired to do otherwise than to take these statements as they found them.” Inerrancy is not freedom from misstatements, but from error defined as “that which misleads in any serious or important sense.” When we compare the accounts of 1 and 2 Chronicles with those of 1 and 2 Kings