The New Testament contains no genuine contradictions of consequence

My apology for the foreign Characters, I was cutting and pasting Greek text into the debate and it didn't quite make the transfer.B) I was not defining that the word "believe" has multiple meanings. I was defning that the Greek word (Pistis or Pisteuo) used in the passages you're refereing to has multiple meanings. The word "believe" DOES in fact appear in those main verses, because the Greek word Translates as "Faith" (Verbal - Have Faith) is the same word that means "Belief" (Verbal - Believe).Allow me to summarize my argument. When James uses the word "Pisits" in this context, he is refering to what you might call "Intelletual Belief" or "Factual Acknowledgement." We see in James 2:19 that the demons have this kind of "Pistis" in Jesus. However, it is not a "Pistis" that saves them. It is simply them acknowledging that Jesus is who he says he is, but that in itself is not enough. This is the sense that James is ALSO using the same word in James 2:24. So pehaps a better translation would be "Factual Aknowledgement without Works is dead," since this is the way that he is using the word.However, in Romans (and all of Paul's work) he uses the word "Pistis" in a different way. Paul is refering to a "Pistis" which is better defined as Trust (Verbal - To place one's trust). In essence, this is a matter of linguistic difference. If different words existed in the Greek vocabulary (as they do in English) they would have used different words, however they did not have different words to use.A similar phenomena can be observed in English with the words "Read (Past Tense)" and "Read (Present Tense)". If I say "I read only magazines" and then "I read books" it appears to be a contradiction. However, if in the surrounding context of the first sentence it is clear that I am talking about a past event, and the context of the second one makes it clear that I am talking about a progressive event (Yesterday I read only magazines. From this point forward I read books.) then there is no contradiction. This is similar to the linguistic phenomena that caused this apparent contradiction.C) The passage I was refering to was the passage you cited. I apologize for not making it clearer. Also, when you are working with the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and parallel passages, it is common to refer to them as a single passage.D) This is a complex issue that has many moving parts. I will explain each book's account below.Mark 16:14-19: Nearly al modern translations contain a footnote that states that Mark 16:8ff is incredibly suspect. The manuscript evidence shows greater variation between manuscripts than any other portion of the New Testament. In addition, the earliest manuscripts do not have this section. As such, most modern scholars do not believe this was originally in the text. This alone is enough to dismiss the contradiction, but I shall also give an explanation. In Greek, there are very few words that show temoral sequencing. As such, it is often difficult to get a sense of the passage of time between verses. In some instances we see events that appear to be immediately sequential, but in reality were likely hours and days later. One of the ways that Greek distinquishes this is with the word "Euthus" which means "immediately." When a Greek author wants to highlight that an event happened immediately, he uses this word to introduce the next clause. Since this word is not used, all we know about the sequence of events is that Jesus said something, then sometime after that he was taken up into heaven. When just reading Mark, we do not know if this was later that day, later that week, or years later.Matthew 28:16-20: Matthew ends the story after Jesus appears to the disciples on "the mountain which Jesus had directed them." Again, we do not see any sort of temporal indicator, so we only have a sequence, not a sense of time. This mountain is most likely Mt Olivet as that is where they gathered immediately before their entry into Jersalem (Matthew 24) and Christ delivered an apocalyptic message to them about the end of the age. Their instinct at seeing Christ resurrected would be to assume that the general resurrection of the dead had begun, so they naturally would have gone to the place Jesus taught them about the end times. However, since this sequence is absent of temporal indicators, we only know that this meeting on Mt. Olivet was sometime after he appeared to them in the upper room.Luke 24:50-51 - Bethany is a village "about 1.5 miles to the east of Jerusalem on the south-eastern slope of the Mount of Olives" (Mt Olivet). [A]John - Not mentioning an event does not mean that the author is saying it did not happen. In fact, John makes a specific note that there are things that happened that he did not include. "Now there are lso many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself cound not contain thebooks that would be written." (John 21:25)Acts 1:9-12 - This does not contradict any of these prior accounts, and I'll demonstrate why presently.The principle we must remember is that ambiguity does not equal contradiction. What we have in several of these texts is ambiguity. Matthew and Mark have ambiguitity in temporal sequencing because of the lack of temporal words in the Greek Language. John has ambiguity in the fact that he does not recount the ascension at all. However, when we have multiple historical accounts that are ambiguous, we should look to the other accounts to fill in missing gaps. By doing so we can create a rather whole timeline of the events.Jesus appears to the 11 while they are eating and rebukes them (Mark 16:14)Jesus appears to many people beyond the 11 Apostles for the next 40 days (We see him appearing to people beyond the Apostles in the Gospel of Luke)After 40 days, Jesus meets with the 11 Apostles and leads them out of Jerusalem and to Mount Olivet (Matthew 28 and Acts) on which the Village of Bethany sits (Luke 24)He shared one last message with them (Matthew and Acts both record a final message on Mt Olivet and likely reflect different parts of a whole sermon)He was then taken up from their into heaven (Mark 6:19 and Luke 24:50-51)The story is coherant, despite the various perspectives and ways of retelling it.E) This is what is known as a difference between Functional (Economic) Statements, and Ontological (Existential) Statements.The first one is an Ontological statment. It explains how things actually exist.The second is a Functional statement. It expains how things are functioning.Observe the following parallel.I am human and therefore my boss and I are equal (are one).I am an employee, therefore my boss is greater than I am.In John 10:30 Jesus is saing that as far as essence and nature, that he is equal to the Father and in fact is unified with the Fatherin that equality.In John 14:28 Jesus is saying that he serves as a functional subordinate to God, and therefore the Father is greater than he is.No contradiction.I would like to thank my opponent. I have posted this debate several times and consistenly get minor contradictions that bear no real weight even if they turned out to be contradictions. I appreciate that my opponent has taken the time to research and present "contradictions" that would bear actual consequences if they were true. However, I have shown my opponent's contradictions to be based on mistranslations or poor interpretation. This is not a knock on my opponent... he has done a wonderful job, if anything it is a commentary on the shortcomings of Christian education... but that is a debate for another day.This is also a gentle reminder to my opponent that this is his last round to introduce contradicions or offer rebuttal to my arguments.Thank you, I look forward to the next round. [A] http://en.wikipedia.org...(biblical_village) - Wiki cites http://www.bible-history.com...