If you do a web search, you'll find a lot of discussions on nitpicky inconsistancies in the Bible. All of the attempts to explanation them, like the one at the link above, need to do some (or a lot of) work interpreting what's written - that is, not taking it literally.
If literal accuracy were the way to judge the value of something, than a phone directory would be more holy than the scriptures of all religions put together. It's probably more useful to look a little beyond that for meaning.