Silly "Bible Contradiction" #29: 800 or 300?

This is a case where copies of the Bible have conflicting numbers for a common account. This is the best example of a proposed contradiction that I have seen so far, however, it actually deals with a simple scribal error. In 2 Samuel 23:8, Josheb-basshebeth is described as wielding his spear against eight hundred enemy soldiers. In 1 Chronicles 11:11, he is described opposing three hundred.

It is important to note that the existing Hebrew manuscripts for 1 Chronicles 11 are corrupted by copy errors. In other words, at some point in the history of hand copying the manuscript, a scribe needed some coffee. He didn’t get it and so wrote down the wrong thing in this case, skipped some text in another case, etc. The commentaries describe a number of examples for this section of the book. At 1 Chronicles 11:11, both Hebrew words for “eight hundred” and “three hundred” begin with the same letter. The second letter in each word has a common shape in them. Given these features, one can see how our sleepy scribe could get confused and jot down the wrong word. What I’ve just described is an example of textual criticism where one carefully studies the habits of the scribes in order to resolve things like spelling issues and copying errors, etc. when viewing ancient manuscripts.

Despite our sleepy scribe, the ancient Syriac Bible tradition has the correct reading, which was perhaps based on a Hebrew manuscript from a more alert scribe. So, with careful study, everything becomes clearer and the contradictory numbers are resolved in favor of 800.

Principle: When copying the Bible, drink plenty of coffee.