HOW MANY ISRAELITES WERE FREED FROM BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY?

Due to the length of the text, I'm not going to include it here, but in 2 Ezra and 7 Nehemiah, there are similar lists of families who were freed from Babylon, but with some discrepancies in the individual families.  The list in the book of Ezra was drawn up while they were still in Babylon, while the list in Nehemiah was drawn up after they arrived in Jerusalem.  These two lists were made several years apart, so the actual number of members in each family would naturally have changed over time (due to deaths and births). It should also be pointed out that both Ezra and Nehemiah give the same number (42,360) for the total number of people who went along (Ezra 2:64 & Nehemiah 7:66), although if you add the totals in each list, Ezra adds up to 29,818 and Nehemiah adds up to 31,089.  Many point this out as an obvious contradiction, but the lists given in Ezra and Nehemiah give only those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and people of other tribes (though their specific number is not given) may have totaled around ten to thirteen thousand.  It's quite possible that another source had given the total number as 42,360 and both authors, though describing different ends of the journey, borrowed this number. Not a contradiction.