It's just a different element of the story, as we should expect to happen occasionally when a story is recounted by different people. But it is an irrelevant detail. The theological point made by the writers is the same. There are lots of examples of this in Scripture.
I am about to incur the wrath of inerrantists on this site, but so be it:
Ask an inerrantist whether Jesus sent his apostles out with sandals and staff (
Mark 6:8-9) or without them (
Matt. 10:10), and the answer will likely come back “The gospels must have been describing two different missions.” Ask where the “must have” comes from, and the answer ultimately comes back, in words or substance, that the consistency of Scripture is a given.
Even for the inerrantist, it is not crucial to know whether the disciples were sent out with or without sandals for a particular mission. They don’t care
which instruction was given, any more than they care whether the law requires driving on the left or on the right side of the road. But they care deeply that
only one instruction was given, for otherwise their world would be as chaotic as a world in which the law allowed driving on both sides of the road. If the texts of two gospels give two different answers to any question―even to the issue of apostolic footwear―they care deeply that one of them be explained away.
It’s a slippery slope thing with them. It’s a Luke 16:10 thing. Most of us would not be scandalized in the least by one of two gospel authors getting a theologically-irrelevant detail wrong. But the inerrantist demands literal historical truth on every detail, however minor, because for him, there
aren’t two gospel authors. There is only one, and He cannot err.
Do we really care whether the centurion who wanted Jesus to heal his servant approached Jesus in person (Matt. 8:5-13) or sent an intermediary (Luke 7:2-10)? Do we really care whether “Saul took his own sword and fell upon it” (1 Sam. 31:4) or whether “the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa” (2 Sam. 21:12)? Do we really care whether Jesse had seven sons (1 Chron. 2:13-15) or eight (1 Sam. 16:10-11)? Do we really care whether “Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign” (2 Kings 8:26) or whether “Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign” (2 Chronicles 22:2)? Why couldn’t two different writers just disagree on these details?
The typical inerrantist will go to great lengths to imagine a harmonizing explanation for each of these couplets. I will concede that with sufficient presumptions and mental machinations indulging the improbable, virtually all of these facial inconsistencies can be harmonized. My question is,
why indulge them? The only reason I can see to do so is in order to shore up one’s initial presumption of inerrancy. And here is where I must dissent. This approach seems to me to be reasoning the matter backwards. Inerrancy should be a conclusion
from the evidence, not an axiom with which to
assess the evidence. My problem with Scriptural inerrancy is not so much that it presumes the thing to be proven as that it presumes that
no proof is needed!
I do not see the point in downplaying the human element like this. I expect
theological truth from my Bible, not factual accuracy on minute historical details. And I am not scandalized by inaccuracies as to the latter.
The better approach, in my opinion, is to focus on the inerrancy of the
message of a given passage, rather than of the extraneous details with which the passage is adorned. Consider, for example, Mark 2:26, which quotes Jesus as saying that David entered the house of God and ate the altar bread “when Abiathar was high priest.” 1 Sam. 21:1-6 is explicit that Ahimelech, not his son Abiathar, was high priest at the time. In my view, it doesn’t matter whether Jesus got this detail wrong or Mark got it wrong, simply because it doesn’t matter
at all―to the
message of the gospel story. The point being made by Jesus (or Mark) is theologically sound even if not historically accurate, originally or in the retelling.