There are contradictions in the Holy Bible.

Well, my opponent has closed his account, so once I successfully refute his 2 assertions the debate is mine. Contradiction 1) This is easily explained. There are often several ways to describe the rule of a leader. One is to describe when they are NAMED as the future leader, and one is to describe the actual years of their official reign. For example, when asked when Barak Obama became the President, one may answer "In November, when he was elected. " Or one may answer "In January when he was innagurated. " Is this contradictory? Of course not. We see a similar dynamic in the case of Jehoachin. It was a common practice for a King to declare a Co-Reagent (typically a son) in order to dictate who the next successor would be, in such a case, we may describe the reign of the future king by indicating how old they were when they were declared Co-Reagent (In Jehoiachin's case, 8 years old), or we may describe it when they officially become the king (10 years later, when Jehoiachin was 18). We see this action in King David when he has Nathan annoint Solomon prior to his (David's) death in order to name his as the next king rather than his other son Absolom. This has been reflected by most major modern translations (ESV, NIV, Etc), but has historic attestation as well. The Geneva Bible notes "36:9 Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD. That is, he began his reign at eight years old, and reigned ten years when his father was alive, and after his father's death, which was in his eighteenth year, he reigned alone three months and ten days. " (Geneva Bible published in 1560) Contradiction 2) This is a case of mistaken translation. My opponent writes "we can rephrase that passage as this, '. .. God cannot be tested with evil, neither testeth he any man (with evil). '" However, that is not the way that translation works. The Greek Word πειράζει (peirazei) has a semantic field that includes words like "Tempt, Test, Try" however, it does not mean that those words are interchangeable. When the author wrote it, he had a specific usage of the word in mind and we cannot simply rephrase it. To understand this, consider the word "Scan" in English. It has many meanings. .. I could scan a book quickly (read it quickly) or I could scan my hard drive for viruses (perform an in-depth analysis of the hard drive for viruses). Just because the word CAN mean "read quickly" doesn't mean you can substitute "read quickly" when I meant "perform an in-depth analysis. " You must look at the context to determine what I mean. In James' case, we see that does not peirazei anyone with evil, nor can he be peirazei. However, in the context, we see that he does not mean it as "test. " Previously in the passage he uses a word that has a more narrow semantic range, but a range that overlaps with the word in question. That word (δοκίμιον dokimion) means to "assess for validity" and was used to describe the process which was used to verify the authenticity of money. James treats this kind of testing as a positive thing. However, when he refers to peirazei, it is a markedly negative thing (associated with evil). So we must look to another portion of the semantic range to understand the meaning. James is referring to the traditional way we use the word "tempt," which is "to incite to sin. " God cannot be incited to sin, neither does he incite anyone to sin. In reference to Abraham, God was not inciting Abraham (then Abram) to do evil. God had no intention of allowing Abraham to sacrifice his son, the plan all along was to stop him. Rather, he was testing his obedience to see if he would comply with the commands of the Lord. In this sense, he was assessing Abraham for validity, discerning if Abraham was genuine. In this sense, God was dokimion Abraham, not peirazei him. There is no contradiction in these passages.