Most skeptics won't go as far as saying these verses are outright wrong, but they do set them against these verses:

So is the Bible telling us there were a few sinless people? Not at all. The NT folks are described as "righteous before God." This does NOT mean that they never sinned either (the word nowhere and in no way implies perfection!), but it does mean - as the next part clearly says - that they followed all the commandments. Now even if this is not an exaggeration for emphasis, if they followed the law, then they did what was required in the law to make them righteous before God - that is, they brought the appropriate sacrifices. By the OT covenant, that made them righteous before God.

As for the OT folks, we can start by using as a framework comments offered by James White in a letter in the #69 issue of the BE newsletter:

The Hebrew terms used in these passages do not mean sinlessness. Rather, the Hebrew word is tam, which refers to completeness, not sinless perfection. When applied to man, it would refer to a complete man with moral integrity (see: Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew lexicon for details).

In answer to this, McKinsey said that White "apparently adopted (a solution) from some prominent apologists to escape this problem." -- apparently being unaware that Driver, Briggs etc. are not "apologists" but eminent scholars of Hebrew whose shoe McKinsey is unworthy to tie. Beyond this, McKinsey simply ignores the distinction between the words:

Complete in what way? Complete "with moral integrity," says JW. But that's sinlessness. What's the difference? He is either complete morally or he isn't. If he is complete then he's sinless; if he isn't complete then he's a sinner like everyone else. To say someone is a complete man with moral integrity is to say he is sinless...He is either perfect or he isn't.

White's explanation was not perfectly clear, but it is clear enough that tam is not "sinlessness", as its usage elsewhere shows:

Ex. 26:24 And they shall be coupled together beneath, and they shall be coupled together above the head of it unto one ring: thus shall it be for them both; they shall be for the two corners. (Can inanimate objects be "sinless"?)

Songs 5:2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

The actual word for moral perfection in Hebrew is tamiym (cf. Gen. 17:1, 2 Sam. 22:31). Tam might better be equated with "well-rounded" or "fulfilling one's duties" or "in the right place" (which would include proper reaction to sin), but it does not mean "perfection". ("Tamiym" is used to describe Noah in Gen. 6:9, but it refers to him as "perfect" in his "generations" [towledah], the word used of physical family descent. One suggests that, in the context of Gen. 6:4, this refers not to Noah's moral behavior, but to the fact that his line was untainted by interaction with the "sons of God" who came unto the daughters of men.)

Now for a wee boo-boo from the Ebon website. Ebon asks us to start by "dealing with the issue of whether anyone has ever been genuinely sinless" by saying, "let's consider what the Bible has to say about whether anyone is simply righteous. While the Epistle to the Romans says not, there are verses that describe both Old Testament and New Testament figures in such terms..." Romans 3:10 says, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." Here again, Ebon seems reluctant to do his homework. "(I)t is written" somewhere, but Ebon manifests no awareness of genre in the course of his excess; most telling, he apparently fails to take note of Paul's explanation of what is meant in the Psalm quoted: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Thus, we see that a person could be "righteous" in terms of the law, yet not counted "righteous in his sight" - the more important of the two, seemingly. In short sum, Ebon has equivocated again through miseducation of the context. This answer, in essence, was there for the reading but the light bulb fails to so much as flicker for Ebon.

Ebon follows with quotes of Luke 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:7-8, in which persons are called "righteous", but having missed the above, plus what he should have learned by now about ANE use of hyperbole, let's put it this way:

"He drew a perfect circle."

"Perfect circles only exist conceptually."

Has a perfect circle ever been drawn, given that they only exist conceptually? Is the word "perfect" the same word in each case? Obviously, in each case the word is the same, yet the words are used with a variance of intent that is common in English, as it is in other languages. In the former instance, the circle that was drawn is taken to be an excellent approximation of perfection. In the latter instance, the practical impossibility of drawing a truly perfect geometric form (especially with an instrument so microscopically crude as a pencil or a pen) is recognized; thus the latter statement is an absolute use of perfect, while the former represents an approximation accepted in the language culture. This is exactly the sort of point that Ebon misses over and over as he does his exquisite imitation of a Biblical fundamentalist interpreter.

But not having learned yet, apparently, that the ancients didn't speak as we did and really didn't go grabbing for a can of Raid when someone said they had ants in their pants, Ebon implores us to read Luke 1:6, etc. again and asks, "How can this be understood as describing these two in any other terms but sinless?" Wow, what desultory miseducation. How can we understand in any other terms than that a person really and truly does have ants in their pants? Ebon professes to be astonished that we can say "the text doesn't mean what it says" and, oblivious to the lessons in genre he has been given, proposes the possibility of semantic emergency: "Maybe Noah's flood was only local but its extent was exaggerated for emphasis? Maybe some of Jesus' miracles were exaggerations? I really wonder how he knows where to draw the line." It's easy, Ebon, it's called G-E-N-R-E S-T-U-D-Y. It's called socio-linguistic awareness. By the same means are you aware that reports of the WTC exploding, as reported on CNN, were not taken to be exaggerations; whereas a news reporter who called those events "earth shattering" was to be taken as "hyperboling". That said, Ebon mutters, "What exactly is Mr. Holding implying here? That following the OT laws in every detail may make you righteous, but it won't make you sinless? What a curious position to take." Curious? It would be if that was the position I really took. The sacrifices were coverage for sin, so the law itself implies that a Jew would never be able to be sinless; otherwise there would have been no sacrifices. Thus I am indeed of the line, as Ebon says, that "the OT laws were designed to be impossible to follow - to show our own inadequacy in the face of perfection and lead us inevitably to the realization that only through grace could we be saved." Ebon just "don't get it" (and jerks tears when he begs for a law code that could have been followed! -- that might work if the only law was, "Thou shalt drink beer"!).

Moving to the OT, I noted the meaning of tamiym and Ebon objects that I gave but two examples. No doubt had I given 5, there would be complaints I did not give 18. Tamiym appears 142 times in the OT and if Ebon has any beef he can study every one of them. Most have to do with a sacrifice being "without blemish" (which obviously would mean, free of any clear problems, since no animal can be perfect or sinless!) and Ebon claims that "the first example is irrelevant and the second actually weakens his case." The first example, contrary to Ebon's claim, is compellingly relevant to the idea that tam does not innately refer to sinlessness. The latter example supports the same idea, as the sixth chapter of Song of Solomon provides no contextual justification for supposing that "undefiled" means "sinless". On the contrary, physical perfection or completeness seems to be the referent (note particularly the intimation that his "dove" has all of her teeth!). In reply Ebon can only play the homograph game and, while admitting that "it would be absurd to speak of an inanimate object as being sinful or sinless...plainly a word can have more than one meaning - which tam does. Its meaning in relation to inanimate things has no relevance to its meaning in relation to conscious moral agents. As for the second example, this verse translates tam as undefiled, a concept which undeniably encompasses 'sinless'." What ho! We passed right over the justification on that one, we did! Ebon starts with the idea that it must mean "sinless" and then hangs on for dear life as the linguistic whirligig gives him the shaking vomits. (He also can't read well; he tells his readers that "[Holding] admits that the explanation he cites" is "not perfectly clear" while failing to note that I add clarity to it.

In closing Ebon trots out the immature buffalo of an argument that Eccl. 7:20, "For there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not," is "[s]imple enough, surely" to prove his point. But, he recalls wistfully, I earlier corrected him for abusing proverbial literature, and then plops down the idea: "Well, if Ecclesiastes 7:20 is proverbial literature and cannot be read as if it were stating an absolute, as Mr. Holding has claimed, then there is only one conclusion - namely, that there are just men who do good and sin not, in blatant contradiction to the verse from Romans and a fairly significant part of Mr. Holding's theology." Fair enough. There are indeed such men; they are called "infants", young children, and mental deficients. Did Ecclesiastes forget those, my fundaliteralist atheist friend? No, he didn't. Moreover read what I said in full: "In conclusion: Material in the Bible that belongs in the proverbial/wisdom genre cannot be read absolutely and used to claim error and/or contradiction." --- the latter clause is indispensable to understanding, but Ebon missed it.

Even so, Ebon remains a klutz on the genre scale. Here is the argument that Ebon wants us to focus on (paraphrased): "If it is not absolutely true that all men are sinful, then there is at least one righteous man." However, this argument is actually tangential to the issue. Our issue is not whether or not the statement in Ecclesiastes is absolutely true or not, but whether or not the author intended them to give an absolute teaching regarding the existence of sinless man. Stripped of the gloss, Ebon is arguing:, "if Ecclesiastes does not explicitly teach the universal (absolute) sinfulness of man, then at least one man must be actually sinless." Absolutes are not absolutely absent from proverbial and wisdom literature, and would not be, in principle; it should simply be understood that absolutes would be a rare exception to the norm and that caution is needed when regarding them. Proverbial literature is therefore to be taken as a poor foundation for explicit doctrinal truths. IOW, if the only place in the Bible that stated that people were inevitably sinful appeared in wisdom/proverbial literature, that conclusion would be based on a weak foundation (in terms of exegesis, leaving aside issues of church authority & the like).

Ebon therefore took his lesson in genre too far and ended up over the cliff. The "general pattern" he claims to see is a chimera. He tells us: "[I]n Old Testament times God grants his followers earthly security and prosperity when they are faithful to him and obey his will, and only allows them to suffer defeat and persecution when they stray. But in New Testament times, things have changed, and even God's most faithful messengers suffer persecution and torture, even death." He claims that in the OT, the concept of "martyr" is virtually unknown (oh? what of the prophets killed by Jezebel? what of Elijah fleeing into the wilds? what of Elisha being taunted and hounded? what of Jeremiah being thrown in a pit? what of Daniel and friends being punished for their beliefs? what of Esther having to rescue the Jews from extermination? etc.) The difference Ebon sees is due to his contextual miseducation. Persecution occurred in the OT when the opportunity arose, but was less "opportunistic" in a religiously homogenous situation as occurred in Israel/Judah (versus the diverse setting of the Roman Empire and politically-charged atmosphere of Judaea) where also most people were more worried about their next meal than persecuting the guy who was different. Ebon's "dramatic change" is part of his contextual miseducation.