I know alot of work has been done to postulate likely purposes for the disparate stories, versions of similar stories and various texts that exist in the Bible. What work has been done to determine the purpose for editing and compiling the story? Were any of the common assumptions of ancient interpreters shared by the editors or at least expected? There seem to be different reasons why the Bibles source texts were written, but presumably reorganized and edited for a unifying purpose; were ancient interpreters in touch with this purpose?
It seems like simple negligence and carelessness can’t account for the overwhelming number of contradictions and left over evidence of redaction and compilation. Why didnt the editors take more care to unify the texts? Whatever their purpose was it seems like providing a unified, perfect, and divinely transmitted document wasnt it.
