The most frustrating issue for anyone reading what another person has written is determining its truthfulness. When most people become convinced of an author’s reliability, they tend to take what the person says as fact, even when it is not.
For instance, a scientist will demonstrate to people scientific discoveries and how this has advanced human technological skills. The people, usually students, will marvel and then start to accept even unproven theories as true, simply because the scientist says it is so. This applies to history as well.
If I wanted to demonstrate to you that the Bible cannot be a reliable book because it is full of immorality, all I would have to do is quote the many socially degrading stories of injustice, genocide, war crimes, assassination, murder, hatred, deceit, lust, incest, drunkenness, and a host of other crimes that would be unacceptable to society today, and point to how those who committed such things were accepted by God and found favor in his eyes. Then to totally discredit the Bible, I would point to the certain wordings that would imply that Mary the mother of Jesus was unfaithful to Joseph to whom she was betrothed, so a cover-up was concocted by the author of Matthew, saying that the Holy Ghost impregnated her, and the writer of the book of Luke thought a ghost was too unbelievable, so he said that “an angel came in unto her” by the name of Gabriel (who was really some man staying overnight).
After I demonstrated how evil the people in the Bible were and how it was obviously a Jewish myth that God favored Israel over other nations, I would then proceed to debunk the virgin birth and the fact that Jesus consorted with criminals, just like Joseph Lewis has done in The Bible Unmasked. However, if you were a thinking person, you would wonder why the Jews would include all this degrading human behavior in their holy book, and why they seem to despise their nationality by recording that, as a race of people, they are evil. Really, it just does not make sense. But Jews are not Christians, so the birth of Jesus does not concern them.
The birth of Jesus concerns Christians. However, the virgin Mary was a Jew and so was Joseph and even Jesus of Nazareth. As for Mary becoming pregnant and playing the harlot or having been raped or seduced by another man, it would have been easy for her to prove that she was still a virgin. In fact, all Joseph had to do was see if her hymen was intact. If a Jewish girl did not have an intact hymen at the time of marriage, her husband could divorce her. Evidently, Joseph must have proven this for himself. To suggest otherwise only demonstrates that a person does not really want to be true to the truth.
The prophet Mohammed had no difficulty accepting the virgin birth of Jesus. One of the reasons for this would have to have been because of the cultural tradition of young women who are betrothed to be married, having their hymens intact or being declared whores.
Mohammed had difficulty accepting that Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose from the dead. This being the criteria to become a Christian and being included in the family of God, according to the Bible. Jesus even claimed that Abraham, from whom the prophet Mohammed claims to have descended, saw his day and was glad (that is, his death and resurrection and was filled with joy of salvation).
But then Mohammed was a war lord and to follow Jesus, one has to become a lover of peace and believe that the kingdom of God is not on this earth, but within each person. Jesus said that those who do the will of God are his family, not those who willfully transgress the commandments of God and do not love their neighbor as themselves.