50 Symbols used by the Bible

     That is an excellent approach to biblical study. The real danger arises when people interpret biblical scriptures in a vacuum that excludes historical, cultural and contextual context. When a person ignores all those, then any interpretation can be put forth as viable.  For example, the term eye of a needle refers to a gate allowing entrance into the city for individual but far too narrow for camels and other such large animals. Yet most readers will assume a real sewing needle is being referred to.  True, the meaning is the same. But the reasoning behind the statement is better understood after we consider the social cultural context. 

     Another way to go we wrong is not to properly research the timelines of events and assume names are unique to one biblical individual,  For example, some people say that David could not have killed Goliath because Goliath  is spoken of fighting someone else later. If the person had taken time to research, he would have seen that it was speaking of another Goliath. The original Goliath did not have a patent on that name.  As you said, apparent discrepancies will be clarified once we approach the matter with a teachable mind.

    Unteachable minds will insist that the Bible teaches that animals talk. They will point to the snake in Eden, the Donkey who spoke or even a bush was depicted as speaking and call the Bible silly and believers in it gullible. But a little research will show that such instances are explained as the use of such animals and other things by angels who employed them as a puppeteer uses a puppet-nothing more.  In short, they see what they see because that is what they want to see and anything else is unacceptable to their anti biblical atheistic minds.