The thing about Christianity is that it does not conform to worldly reasoning practices, as faith never enters into the equation when reason and logic are used to exclusion. Doesn't mean reason and logic don't have their place, or that faith is blind.

For whatever reason, God expects trust in Him to come first, and the explanation follows. First believe in him and trust him (faith) and then the explanations that reason and logic can confirm come afterward. God doesn't tend to prove himself to a skeptic, but he does reveal himself to someone trusting in him, and the farther that trust extends, the more God substantiates later. God holds up a little faith with a little justification, which paves the way for more faith and more justification, and so on. In such matters of faith, belief comes before the evidence, instead of the other way around. It is thus that the faith becomes founded: if twenty leaps of faith are made that are later substantiated, is it not rational to make a twenty first leap of faith to trust that something seemingly awry is not?

When it comes to the nitpicking issues that you raise, I'm always torn between whether or not to discuss them or not, even in conjunction with the bigger picture. I have thoughts about the nitpicks you raise. The thing is, issues about apparent biblical contradictions are closer to the twenty first leap of faith than the first. It is similar to my recent post about the biblical basis for babies going to heaven: there is a biblical argument for that, but it doesn't make sense until you understand other more general things the Bible says about sin and redemption. In other terms, it does not make sense to discuss quantum mechanics with someone unfamiliar with relativity.

The first step is to establish whether or not the Bible is the unerring Word of God, Truth with a capital T. If it is not, the nitpicks you raise are moot; if it is, then maybe then, or a few leaps of faith further down the chain of prerequisites, one gets to where it makes sense to resolve those matters -- first, as with all steps, with the faith that somehow it makes sense, then seeking or awaiting the answer with prayer, patience, and continued faith.

Because taking that path, instead of the reverse, has you approach the matter of those apparent contradictions from a decidedly different perspective. From where you are now, indeed, the matter of Judas' death appears to have been reported by two incomplete historians. Maybe he tried to hang himself, failed, and fell down upon some rocks. Maybe one or the other suicide attempt -- probably the hanging -- failed, and he had to try again. But in any case, either one of the accounts is incorrect or both are incomplete. However, approaching the matter having already established for oneself that the Bible is the unerring Word of God, you come to the matter with a lot more than just the selection of "both incomplete" over "one in error." You come to the matter with the understanding that the true author of the Bible is God -- one being who breathed both accounts and meant for them to be taken together to provide the complete story, who never intended that one account or the other to stand alone. Ever seen a movie that jumps back and forth in time, showing events from multiple perspectives, each perspective being slightly different and offering a separate set of facts to paint the big picture? The director of such a film shot ALL the separate perspectives and certainly never intended that one account be taken in isolation from the others given in the same film.

Hopefully I've illustrated how different the issue of apparent biblical contradictions looks from the perspective of one who is already sold on its divine authorship. Again, though, that's a matter that's a few steps down the road. First one must (at least) determine whether the Bible truly IS Truth with a capital T or not, that is, the inerrant Word of God. And that wraps around to the beginning of my post. Faith comes first, and following that comes the substantiation, and the cycle repeats.

There's more to it than that, though. In reading the Bible with an open mind and heart, the Holy Spirit works in one to reveal Himself to the individual. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," so says a verse in Romans. Faith, you see, is not a step one has to make all on one's own, and if it were I'd give more weight to the thought that learning by faith is an irrational course. But Hebrews says that Jesus is "the author and finisher of [our] faith." Essentially, the fact that I *have* faith in God is because God himself inspired that faith within me. Why did he do that for me and not others? I hesitate to speak for God, but I believe it is because I believed. God respects our free will and will not force himself upon someone; but at an earlier time in my life I sought out that faith, and God granted it "by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

It's all a matter of perspective. If you don't believe in God, the path of faith does not make sense. And if you start down that path of faith even so, it does.