If the Bible (specifically the gospel) is full of contradictions, why didn't the first Christians correct it? Why would they let the book stay that way?

 Origen, one of the early christian writers, who lived from mid/late 2nd century to mid 3rd century, wrote in his commentary on Matthew that it was obvious the gospels did not always say the same thing about the same incident. It was not a problem for him because his attitude was that the ‘truth’ behind the texts remained valid independent of the telling of the story by the different authors. In my opinion, and it is just an opinion, the early christians did not really consider the texts in the same light that moderns do. The gospels were literary works, and followed in general a pattern of similar writings made by non-christians. They were / each was written very carefully to convey a specific message to a specific group. That message was not limited to the specific words on the paper. In the same way, at least for a while, the epistles of Paul were understood to be letters between him and some churches, and not necessarily intended to be books of instruction. But humans, being human, always seek a set of rules or instructions to follow, and so that’s what the canonical texts became.