Bible contradictions: A fundamentalist preacher reacts

Many years ago when I was a Christian, a friend of mine showed me an apparent contradiction in the Bible that a non-Christian friend of his had pointed out. I looked at the passages and it certainly appeared to be an obvious contradiction. 

The two passages are from Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9. These passages deal with the story of the sudden conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Christianity on the road to Damascus, who would later be called the apostle Paul. Saul had been persecuting Christians, and was headed to Damascus to do the same. Here's the passage from Acts chapter 9 (King James Version):

9:3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
9:4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
9:5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
9:6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
9:7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

Then, in Acts chapter 22 Paul is recounting his conversion to a crowd in Jerusalem, and says this:

22:6 And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
22:7 And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
22:8 And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.
22:9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

So which was it? Did those who journeyed with him hear the voice but see nothing? Or did they see the light but hear no voice? 

My friend and I were puzzled by this apparent contradiction that we'd never noticed before, so we took it to a fundamentalist preacher. He looked over the passages and was dumbfounded. He clearly had never noticed the contradiction before. Realizing he could not explain it away, he instead launched into a rant as to why anyone would want to attack the "Word of God" in this manner - by pointing out a contradiction!

Well, I think I can answer that. No one really cares about contradictions in Bible stories, except that people like you TAKE SUCH AN EXTREME POSITION that is clearly both indefensible and ludicrous - the view that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God, and that it contains no errors or contradictions.

This extreme view that was debunked by critical-historical Biblical scholarship centuries ago is still being propagated by fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity today. And their leaders demand from the flock what amounts to blind faith in this absurd claim. 

That is the only reason people who otherwise couldn't care less take the time to point out these contradictions.