The Christian birth story of Jesus is contradictory with other information in the bible.

I will start off with providing the evidence that you asked for. It seems like this debate has turned into a debate surrounding Jesus's true heritage, likely because PRO chose to do that since he had already completed a debate on Joseph's relation to Jesus. In fact, all of his arguments were copied and pasted from that debate. If you want, you can verify here: . http://www.debate.org... Isaiah 7:14: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. " (NIV) Matthew 1:23: ""The virgin shall be with child, and will give birth to a son, and they shall call him Immanuel; which means, 'God with us. '" (NIV) Both of these verses indicate that Jesus was not born of a father and mother, but of a virgin and the Holy Spirit. Pro raised some points on why this couldn't be, and why the Bible contradicts itself, so lets look at those. In order to keep my character count under the limit I have organized the arguments that Pro discussed: 1. --Jesus is said to be the son of David, or of the seed of David, and of the seed of Man, thus he had to have been born from a mother AND a father-- Pro used Matthew 1:1-16, Hebrews 2:16-17, Romans 1:3, Wisdom of Solomon 7:2, (A book that is not a part of the Protestant Bible) (1) John 7:42, Acts 13: 23, 2 Timothy 2: 8, and Acts 2:30. Let's first discuss the word seed. According to to two different sources: "In the Biblical vernacular the word seed (Classical Greek: sperma) has the basic meaning of tiny grains of plants, already fertilized and ready to bring forth new plants. E. g. mustard seed, the smallest seed of the garden plants in Galilee; grains of corn harvested for food or sowing-seed. In the same way the descendants of a person are his seed (Classical Greek: sperma), his offspring. Of course men and women belong to this offspring and not just men. So Mary was part of David"s offspring and her lineage is to be found in Luke 3:23-31. And that was the biological line from Jesus, being the son of Mary, to David. " (2) (3) It becomes very clear that the translation for seed doesn't imply male: it implies descendant. If Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, she still has seed in her body. .. since seed is necessary for a baby to be born. Picture it this way: I am related, through my mother, to Queen Elizabeth 1 of England (not directly related but related nonetheless. ) My dad used his seed to make my mom pregnant, however just because his seed didn't have Queen Elizabeth's genes in it, doesn't mean I'm not still related to Queen Elizabeth. For a son to be a "descendant" of someone else, he can inherit that blood from EITHER his mother or his father. We already know that Mary was a direct descendant of David through his son Nathan, thus Jesus was of the seed of David. It actually doesn't stop there. it is crucial to realize that Joseph is a direct descendant of the ancient Judaic King Coniah, whose lineage was cursed because of his rebellion against God. In Jeremiah 22:24 and 30, it says: As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;Thus saith the LORD; no man of his [Coniah] seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah. " Because Joseph was a directed descendant of Coniah, none of his offspring would be qualified to sit on David's throne. Since, according to scripture, Jesus will one day ascend to David's throne, it can be deducted that Jesus was not a blood relative to Joseph. 2. --Matthew's genealogy is superfluous-- This is an argument I have seen quite a bit. While Joseph was not biologically related to Jesus, the two were legally related in the eyes of Rome. Matthew, as a tax collector, understood the importance of keeping legal records. The account the disciple chronicles not only documents Jesus' legal lineage, but simultaneously displays Jesus' fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and helps legitimize the virgin birth. Many scholars currently believe that Matthew wrote to the Jews in particular to show how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament's messianic prophecies. Specifically, Matthew used Joseph's parentage to prove that Jesus was born of a virgin, which fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14. Matthew does this through a logical deduction about Joseph and Coniah, which was discussed earlier. Simply, Matthew had his reasons for recording the pedigree of a non-biological parent. 3. --Jesus was like Moses and unlike Angels, thus he had to have been born from a mother and a father-- For this Pro used Hebrews 2: 16-17 and Deutoronomy 18: 18. This is making a mountain out of a molehill. Specifically in these verses it is critical to look at context. In Deutoronomy 18: 14, it says, ""For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so. " We learn from this that God is telling his people to not participate in fortune-telling. Then he provides in verse 15 a reason why: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. " Basically God is telling his people that there is no need for fortune-telling because he will make sure that at any given moment, Israel has at least one prophet. This is consistent with the fact that up to King Saul and King David, there was a long series of prophets that ALL FIT THE QUALIFICATIONS laid down in Deutoronomy 18:18. Thus, we know: Even if Jesus was being mentioned in this verse, there were many other prophets who fit the same qualifications and who spoke the word of God. Even if the above point is incorrect. .. my opponent is stretching the words "like me (Moses)" If the word "like" implies that the two mentioned people have the same family structure, than where is the bright line of where the similarities stop? Does Jesus have to speak the same language to be "like" Moses? Does Jesus have to live in the same area to be "like Moses? What is the bright line? A much more simple explanation arises out of context. .. the context of the verse is exclusively the act of "speaking the Word of God. " It would make sense if the words "like me" were meant to mean anybody who spoke the Word of God, as Moses did. 4. @TheWordisLife brought up many more verses that "prove" Joseph had to have been the true father of Jesus, and I will do my best to respond to those now. Because I am running out of characters very quickly, here is a link to a professional and effective summary of several of the arguments I am trying to make. You will find more detail here under "Benson Commentary": . http://biblehub.com... Luke 2:48: Explained in link, but Joseph was both Jesus' legal father and was responsible for bringing the child up. He still played the role of a father. At the time the verse was written Jesus was around 12 years old, which likely meant Jesus was referring to Joseph as his father, since who gave birth to him didn't really matter at that point. Joseph was his fatherly guardian. Same with Matthew 13:55, John 6:42, and John 1:45. Another VERY IMPORTANT point is that the word for son as mentioned in all of these verses does NOT mean son in the Gospels' original language: Greek. In fact the word for son simply meant anyone that was sharing the same nature as their father. Read more about the discrepancies between languages here: . http://biblehub.com... and . http://www.biblestudytools.com.... (Notice part d. of the 2nd link says "in a wider sense. " Thus when our English bibles say "son" we can't take that completely literally as a true "son. " (Just like in Luke 3: 23 when it says Joseph is the son of Heli when in reality it has been confirmed that Joseph is the son-in-law of Heli. ) (4) 1 John 4:3 Being in the flesh does not mean he had to have come from man. Atheists believe that the first man came from an ape. .. and while he was in the flesh he most certainly did not come from man. You are discounting the possibility of miracles, which is not what this debate is about. We are assuming in this debate that miracles can happen since we are in the Bible. Wisdom of Solomon: This is not in the protestant Bible, its in the Apocrypha. .. the resolution says the Bible. (5) It makes sense that my opponent would bring up this verse though because the other debate that he copied and pasted these arguments from included the apocrypha. I do not accept that we are debating the apocrypha since I am not as familiar with it. The bible in the resolution is assumed to be the protestant bible since I am not catholic. We are not debating a catholic form of the bible. In quick summary: these so called contradictions, even though they are all focused on Joseph for the convenience of the Pro speaker, must be examined with the background of context and translation errors. Half of these alleged "inconsistencies" alone are explained by the fact that son doesn't have to mean direct sons and seed simply means descendant. I look forward to my opponent's response. (1) . http://bible.ccim.org... (2) . http://www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com... (3) . https://books.google.com... (4) . https://answersingenesis.org... (5) . http://web.archive.org...