I classify this one as one of the most inane charges of contradiction in the Bible. Here's our passages:

1 Samuel 31:4-6 Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.

2 Samuel 1:8-10 And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. [Saul] said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord.

So what's the issue? The issue is, who killed Saul -- did he kill himself, or did the Amalekite do it?

The answer to this one is so obvious that everyone who cites it should be ashamed themselves. Here's the solution. Ready?

The Amalekite was

He found Saul's dead body, then came in to David's camp with his made-up story thinking, "Hey, maybe if I say I saved Saul from humiliation, I'll get a big, fat reward from David!" On a personal note, I find it interesting that while so many self-proclaimed intelligent and sensible people miss the solution entirely, people they would call "less sensible and intelligent" don't see a problem at all. Back when I was working for the prison system, I asked an inmate (who was himself a sometimes-vociferous critic of the Bible) to read the passages in question. Our dialogue (colloquialisms included) went like this:

JPH: Is there a contradiction between the passages?

IM: Man, that %$#*@$ was a LYING %^$#^*%**!

So it took someone with a criminal mindset to see through the criminal intentions of the Amalekite! It seems that some critics can be too intelligent! (That this should be cited as a contradiction is even more ludicrous when we realize that the two books of Samuel were originally one volume!)

"Not so fast, Holding! There's a third version here -- 2 Samuel 21:12 says, 'And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa' -- so was it the Philistines after all and not a suicide?"

This objection needs to check back in the Hebrew a bit -- the word here is nakah, an all-purpose word that can mean to strike, beat, wound, kill, and so on. It's obviously being used here is a primarily figurative sense of "defeat" in battle (as in, one football team "beat" the other one).

That leaves a complaint from a member of a Skeptical Squad, which notes:

An example of glaring inconsistency can be found in the two accounts of the death of Saul, the first king of Israel, as told by the writers of 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles . Both writers claimed that Yahweh engineered Saul's death because of his disobedience, but the two versions of his disobedience differ significantly. This is how the Chronicle writer summarized Saul's ignominious death:

So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against Yahweh, because he did not keep the word of Yahweh, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance. But he did not inquire of Yahweh; therefore He killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse (1 Chron. 10:13-15).

The statement is too direct to be misunderstood. Saul consulted a medium for guidance but did not inquire of Yahweh; therefore, Yahweh killed him.

This person need to remember that verse divisions and punctuation didn't take place until much later -- the "therefore" applies to all that was recorded before, not just the "not inquiring" bit. But here's the real issue:

The significant thing to notice in this story is not the absurdity of the writer's apparent belief that a medium actually conducted a seance in which she conjured up the spirit of a dead man but his obvious disagreement with the Chronicle writer's version of Saul's death. The latter said that Saul consulted a medium but did not inquire of Yahweh, and so Yahweh killed him. The writer of 1 Samuel, however, said that Saul did not consult the medium until after he had inquired of Yahweh and had received no answer. Both versions of this story cannot both be right. The discrepancy is obvious, yet in the face of such glaring inconsistency as this, inerrantists will stubbornly argue that the Bible is a perfectly harmonious book from cover to cover. Go figure.

Go figure, indeed, by investigating the original Hebrew a bit. Let's look:

So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel [sha'al] of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it; And inquired [darash] not of the LORD: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.

The word sha'al is used of those who inquire of the Lord, including Saul in 1 Samuel. But Saul is condemned by the Chronicler for not darashing, which is a much stronger word meaning to follow, search, or worship. 1 Samuel also sees a difference in these words:

And when Saul inquired [sha'al] of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire [darash] of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.

Consider how these words are used together elsewhere:

Deut. 13:14 Then shalt thou inquire [darash], and make search, and ask [sha'al] diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you...

Note that sha'al requires the modifier "diligently" to match up with darash.

Ps. 109:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg [darash] : let them seek [sha'al] their bread also out of their desolate places.

Note that vagabondage is associated with desperate inquiry of others, whereas sha'al involves passive search in a location with no persons.

The significance: Saul is condemned by the Chronicler for his lack of diligence in seeking God's counsel -- which involved not action but attitude, reflected earlier in Saul's reign by his encounter with Samuel (1 Sam. 15). For Saul, God was a utility rather than the source of life and the object of worship, and that is shown further in his willingness of consult a medium and get direction by hook or by crook.

"One more, Holding! 1 Chr. 10:6 says "all his house" died together. What about his son Ishbosheth?"

Ah, a fun one. I offered this off-the-cuff answer to hold the fort down previously, until I could do more research:

What about him? Interestingly his name means, "man of shame" -- why would Saul name a son this? One suggests that it is because he was the son of Saul via an outside affair. That would put him outside Saul's house by definition.

As it happens, I have been doing research in the interim, and I'm still convinced Ishy was the son of a prostitute by Saul; his insecure behavior towards Abner (whose character he should have known well, had he indeed lived in Saul's care for such an extended period), and the fact that Abner so readily abandoned him, rather does suggest someone who hasn't been in the house for long, doesn't deserve the normal loyalty to family typical of the period, and isn't acculturated to the demands of honorable behavior. In other words, the right signs for someone who was Saul's son by an illicit affair; either that or Saul gave fatherhood to Steve Urkel. But enter now into the picture John Kesler, who replied back after a few gratuitous complaints about peripherals:

...the claim that Saul named his son Ishbosheth is dubious. The Anchor Bible Dictionary, volume 3, page 509, heading "Ish-bosheth," says the following: An alternative, perhaps artificially created name for Saul's youngest son by Ahinoam bat Ahimaaz, Eshbaal. The present form is found consistently in the MT text of 2 Samuel and is reflected in LXX's Iebosthe...while the form Eshbaal is found exclusively in both textual traditions of the Saulide genealogy quoted in 1 Chr 8:33 (LXX Asabal); 9:39 (LXX Isbaal). It is generally thought that the form of the name in Chronicles with ba'al "master, possessor" is authentic, and that the term boset, "shame," was later substituted for the former divine epithet ba'al when it became commonly associated with the fertility god Baal..."Baal" appears to have been an accepted epithet for Yahweh until the early Monarchic period, but after this time, it seems to have become restricted to use for Yahweh's main rival, the Canaanite storm God.

It's curious, is it not, how Anchor's "alternative, perhaps" mutates into Kesler's definitive "dubious". Of course Kesler would not be a Skeptic if he didn't make some molehills into mountains. Thus and so. If "-bosheth" is the original, I still vote for the above. But if "-baal" is the rule of the day? Either way, I still win. Actually, Kesler has done me a favor here by pointing up the utter absurdity of seeing a contradiction here in the first place, regardless of whether it's a Bosheth or a Baal. How? Heh, heh. After citing a couple of other sources who say the "-baal" form is the antique -- oddly, in one case, saying that "Samuel reflects the later sensitivity" (Hmm, "sensitivity" which somehow disappeared or didn't exist at the time of Chronicles? -- someone would stick a thumbtack in that one if someone used it to argue against him...in fact, I'll try it sometime. ) -- Kesler says next:

The Chronicler would have a good reason for saying that the whole house of Saul died, since the Chronicler never mentions that Ishbaal/Ishbosheth ever became king. 2 Samuel, however, mentions the house of Saul in the following verses, all after the death of Saul:

2 Samuel 3:1 There was a long war between the HOUSE OF SAUL and the house of David; David grew stronger and stronger, while the HOUSE OF SAUL became weaker and weaker.

2 Samuel 3:6 While there was war between the HOUSE OF SAUL and the house of David, Abner was making himself strong in the HOUSE OF SAUL.

2 Samuel 3:9-10a So may God do to Abner and so may he add to it! For just what Yahweh has sworn to David, that will I accomplish for him, to transfer the kingdom from the HOUSE OF SAUL, and set up the throne of David...

Ah, thank you, Mr. Kesler, for shooting yourself in the foot using ammo from ages past. How? Let's let him finish first; a condemned man deserves one last cigarette:

Apparently, one's "house" even extended to descendants, not just sons, for 2 Samuel relates the story of how David sought out one of the house of Saul and discovered that Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, was still alive (2 Samuel 9:1-12).

Ah...so one's "house" extends to one's descendants, does it? Yes, it does. It extends even farther than that. Does Mr. Kesler and the gang perhaps remember some of this?

What of the definition of "house"? It does indeed have a broader meaning: It may refer to an actual building, of course, but about a quarter of the OT usages imply something different or more abstract. "Building a house" means the same thing as "raising a family." "House" is even used to refer to a spider's web (Job 8:15). While there is indeed a broader meaning available, our Skeptic, regrettably, does not tell us what "Bible dictionary or encyclopedia" he gets his source material from. However, having consulted no less than a dozen such sources, and a variety of others - ranging in persuasion from the liberal Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible to the conservative Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary - I find, yes, references to servants being part of a "house," along with slaves (as household property), foreign guests (in line with Eastern rules of hospitality), concubines (as Sarah would have been considered in Pharaoh's house), adopted orphans, and sojourners.

Though his arm was twisted multiple times, the Skeptic I debated himself never produced a clear definition for "house" as we did. Nevertheless, who's included? Husbands, sons (though not sons by prostitutes, sorry), daughters, son's wives, slaves, foreign guests, concubines, adopted orphans, and sojourners. Now then! Let's re-read that passage, shall we?

And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise on the sword, and died. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his daughters, son's wives, slaves, foreign guests, concubines, adopted orphans, and sojourners.

Oh, my, Mr. Kesler! Imagine that! Saul brought all those people on the battlefield with him, did he? Did the concubines hold the water, or what? Were the slaves playing kazoos so Saul could hack and stab to the beat? Do be real. May I make a suggestion? Have a look at this book featured on Amazon.com UK. What's it called? Yes, The End of the House of Windsor. Do beg pardon, I wasn't aware Prince Charles, Prince Harry and the whole gang had died....what? That's not what it was saying? Silly me, of course. What it means is that the power of that House is on the way to the out...it has, as Williamson says [Chronicles commentary, 93] of the "house of Saul," what would be called "dynastic overtones." It means that, the house of Saul is "to all intents and purposes at an end." And all that bleck with Ishy and Abner? A bunch of lame ducks quacking in the wind. Little wonder Chronicles gives them the silent treatment of dishonorable non-mention.

I do thank Mr. Kesler for the chance to clarify and expand. It is seldom indeed that I can anticipate every anachronistic objection from the Skeptical crowd. Who knows? Perhaps next time they will quote Acharya S as an authority.