It is important to consider at least two types of contexts when wondering about contradictions. The first is the context or contexts in which Scripture was composed. The second is the context in which issues such as those you bring up became important, the contexts of people that identify themselves as Christians.
The first context or contexts are unclear to us. We don’t know as much as we would like to about the texts of the books of the Bible, when they written, what they drew from and so on. When the second chapter of Genesis was composed or placed after the first chapter, did anyone at the time think that it seemed to give a different account of creation - or were people content to leave it the way it was? The Greeks had contradictions about their divinities and seemed to be able to live with those. I imagine that this was common among other peoples. As far as adding and subtracting text, this seems to have been the case with the pericope of the woman caught in adultery as found today in the seventh chapter of John. It does not seem to have been there originally. If memory serves, there is a manuscript where it is found in Luke. Meanwhile, we have the Western Text of Acts which is about ten percent longer than in other versions. These two examples show that people much closer to the events written about had no problem with altering the text. The apparatus of my Greek New Testament and the textual commentary that goes with it give ample evidence of this. We can read St. Peter’s sermon on Pentecost and note what he said people had to do: repent and be baptized. He quoted Scripture but he didn’t say anything about inerrancy or how we should compare it with other knowledge.
The second context I referred to has to do with what is happening among Christians now or some other now, such as textual criticism and the reactions to that. Some argue that the whole business with creation science and intelligent design really has to do with bolstering the concept of inerrancy of Scripture. In this regard, people tend to keep company with those that talk like they do, in their particular echo chambers.
There are many details that we will not know, this side of the eschaton. We just won’t know. I figure that, if the Church was able to go on for many centuries, despite things that aren’t clear, I can as well. I did not become a Christian because I believed that it was scientific. I realized I had to turn my life over to God after running away for a long time. As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I have confidence that the Holy Spirit has influenced the Church in the way it should go since the beginning. The older I get, the less concerned I am with things that I don’t understand. They might be interesting but they are not faith-threatening.
