Miss Noland … you know Iconoclast did post the verse which removes any blame from the Prophet SAW and gives hims permission. The question now is whether you would believe the Quranic verse over the Tabari tafsir excerpt you have posted.
Your real issue is that your confused with too much information and that too mostly cyber based, which lacks the depth and discussion behind it. Most internet articles are written for a purpose and to present a certain perspective. You cannnot make an opinion of your own until you actually study thoroughly historical books and especially what kind of criticism has been leveled against many historical authors. Tabari though has to most comprehensive Islamic history book, it is also one which has the most contradictions because many things written in Tabari are not backed up with any other historical evidence. For example, the very thing you quoted from it. The verse which mentioned was conviniently revealed afterwards was not to justify the incident Tabari concocts but to break one of the popular customs in Arabic where adopted children were considered like biological children and their wives were considered mehrems. You would know this if read up more sensible and in depth material. Do you even own the complete Tabari bookset or did you just go by an internet article you found which quoted something from Tabari?