The New Testament Contains No Genuine Contradictions of Consequence

I look forward to a rigorous and engaging debate. Contradiction 1: From which of David's sons did Jesus descend? This discrepancy is a complicated question, however it is not insurmountable. Part of the answer is revealed in the nature of Jewish Geneaological Traditions. The purpose of a geneaology in ancient Hebrew cultures (as is the purpose in most cultures) was to establish a legal inheritance lineage. Since inheritance was passed down through the male lineage, Hebrew culture did not typically include women in the geneaological tree. Simply put, Matthew traced the lineage through Jesus' legal standing as a legal son of Joseph. This legal establishment traces him up through Solomon by way of legal inheritance. Luke however, traces the lineage up through Mary (Likely having interviewed her). However, as Mary was legally joined to Joseph at the time of Jesus' conception (betrothal was a binding contract that required divorce to annul) it would be improper to indicate Mary rather than Joseph. However, we can see that he does not consider Joseph to be Jesus biological father by including the parenthetical (as was supposed). Contradiction 2: Was Jesus born of a virgin? As I indicated in my resposne to "contradiction" 1, Mary was also descended of David, so according to the flesh he was a descendent of David. The word "spermatos" is used broadly to indicate descent. In addition, the very definition that my opponent quoted we see that the final definition includes the activity of the Holy Spirit, which is exactly what the Gospels attribute Jesus' birth to. Contradiction 3: What year was Jesus Born? My opponent points out the aparent historical descrepancy present between indicating that Jesus was born during Herod's reign (ended 4BCE) and during Quirnius' reign in Syria (Began in 6-7 CE). There are several possible answers to this. Option 1) The accepted date of Herod's death is wrongOption 2) The accepted date of Quiriniu's rise to power in Syria is wrongOption 3) Both dates are wrongOption 4) The Bible is wrongObviously, Option 4 is out of bounds for this debate, so I will not address it. However, Let me explain why the other three are possible. Option 1)We have several records that indicate that Herod captured Jerusalem and began rebuilding the temple. These dates range from potentially 45 BCE all the way to 34 BCE. The historican Josephus indicates that this capture took place during a Sabbatical Year and a Year that Tishri 10 fell in September. This greatly limits the possible years. This excludes 45, 42-37, 35-34 BCE. Josephus also indicates that Herod's reign lasted 34 years from when he captured Jerusalem. This leaves us with possible death dates of 9 BCE, 8 BCE, and 1 BCE. Now, we see flat out that these dates do not match the accepted date of 4 BCE. In addition, if Luke and Matthew are both correct then we know that Herod may have died later (in AD 6-7 during the reign of Quirinius). I have shown two historical documents (The Gospels and Josephus) that contradict the accepted date. Unless my opponent can show that both the Gospels and Josephus are incorrect, we can safely say that the traditional date that is given for Herod's death is potentially incorrect. [A]Option 2)Many point to Quirinius' rise to power in 6-7 AD and believe that this proves that either Luke or Matthew was wrong. However, there are several reasons to doubt this assertion. We know (as much as we know any historical fact) that Quirinius did rise to power in Syria in 6-7 AD. However, "It is known that Quirinius was made governor of Syria by Augustus in AD 6. Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay discovered several inscriptions that indicated that Quirinius was governor of Syria on two occasions, the first time several years prior to this date" [B] If this prior rule was even as many as 10 years earlier we already have him during the potential dates of Herod's reign. As we have seen in the case of Herod, dates in this period of history are not always reliable. Option 3)Both are wrong, I have demonstrated that either could be wrong, so obviously both could be wrong. If Herod's dates were a little later (Demonstrably as late, having Jesus born in aproximately 3 BCE) and Quirnius' dates were a little earlier (Reasonably as early as 3-4 BCE) we hae no conflict. Thank you, I look forward to future rounds. [A] . http://www.biblicalchronology.com...;[B] Habermas, Gary R. , The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 1996. - Quoted from . http://carm.org...;