Before we answer this question, it's actually very important for us to first be clear on what the Bible is. Brace yourself now though because this is going to be a very long run-on sentence; ready?

The Bible is a library of books belonging to a great variety of literary types (including history, law, religious and lyric poetry, didactic treatises, parable and allegory, biography, personal correspondence, personal memoirs and diaries, prophecy and apocalyptic writings, etc) written in three different languages at intervals over a space of nearly 1400 years by a heterogeneous number of people belonging to the most diverse walks of life and separated from each other by hundreds of years and hundreds of miles spanning lands from Italy in the west to Mesopotamia and possibly Persia in the east.

Now, any observant Bible reader will notice that there are apparent discrepancies or contradictions. But given what we just said about what the Bible actually is, how could there not be, especially if we combine this with the great number of sources to which we can trace these apparent discrepancies: errors of copyists in the manuscripts that have been handed down to us; the practice of using multiple names for the same person or place; the practice of using different methods for calculating official years, lengths of regencies and events; the special scope and purpose of individual authors, which sometimes led them to arrange their material topically rather than chronologically; and differences in the position from which an event or object was described and employed by the various writers.

The key to wading through the murky waters of apparent discrepancies lies in the attitude with which you approach them. If you go into them open to the possibility that what seems to be a contradiction actually might, upon deeper investigation, turn out not to be a contradiction at all, then you'll be surprised to find that what are alleged to be discrepancies or contradictions can indeed be reconciled or explained. St. Augustine goes even farther saying, "If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, The author of this book is mistaken; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood."

As bold of a claim as that might sound, lucky for us much work has been done over the ages to resolve alleged contradictions in the Bible. The following are some of the dates, authors, and works of those who have done such:

Here's the bottom line: attempting to address the alleged contradictions in the Bible can be a daunting task, especially given that entire books have been written to address specific claims, and scholars continue to discuss and debate them in academic literature. Taking this task seriously though can bring us a much needed sense of humility that will guide us to approach alleged contradictions in the spirit of openmindedness with patience so we can avoid some of the prevalent mistakes people commit when alleging Bible contradictions, and thus see what we could not see before.