Data Is Beautiful

I can play devil's advocate too:

1 The Bible is not first and foremost a "historical documentary" in the modern sense. The very idea of a historical account striving for objective unbiased reality is fairly recent historically, and the Bible is meant to be a religious text that's trying to teach you something.

Yes people absolutely did write and read it as an historical account. You need to distinguish between multiple authors who did not sit in a writing room together and editors who collected the works. The reason why multiple reports were collected was to get at the truth. Long lists of names and events were included to establish historical credibility.

#2 The Biblical authors are aware there are contradictions.

Just no. Some of the authors wouldn't even have been aware of all the other authors.

#3 The Bible contradicts itself intentionally. It's an ancient Jewish way of teaching to have two rabbis take different stances, and argue publicly. Often, the truth of something is in the tension between two perspectives.

Yes, but using contradictions intentionally as a teaching device applies to the talmud(interpretation of the law), not to the tanach(biblical law). Contradictions in the tanach were seen as something that needs to be explained. And yes, some of them were explained, after the fact, as purposeful by theologians. But if we went to take a historically sound approach, we have to acknowledge, that they are a collection from many verbal sources separated by time and place. So it's far more likely that these unconnected sources contradict each other precisely because no written account has existed until then.

If contradictions in teaching had been a core part of Jewish theology beforehand, they would continue in writing. There would be many Toras. But the opposite happens: With the advent of the written word, correct word-for-word transmission of the written law immediately becomes absolutely central to the religion. So the conclusion is inevitable, that contradictions came first and ideology to explain them had to follow after the fact.

Verbal traditions can be contradictory, because contradictions are harder to notice. Once the verbal tradition is frozen as words on paper, the contradictions become obvious and ideology forms around them like a pearl froms around a speck of sand in an oyster, to protect the body of the teaching from the damage.