The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Pyrrho]

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I'm so very glad you asked.  Mark, as we both know, if the first of the gospels in the Bible to be written.  Mark does not include a birth story.  It starts instead with Jesus preaching.  That it is only in later gospels that the virgin birth is mentioned is suggestive.  But when Jesus does begin preaching in Mark, people accuse him of being possessed by the devil.  And his family, think he has taken leave of his senses.

Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.  When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

 Mark 3:20-21

If Mary had been a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, and been told by an angel that he was to be the son of god, would she have thought he was crazy when he started preaching?  I don't think so.

It is this kind of thing that shows that not only is Christianity not true, it can't be true.  The Bible is an incoherent mess that could not possibly be true.

As I am sure you know, there is a similar story in Luke 2:


41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.

42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.

43 And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.

44 But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.

45 And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.

46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.

47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.

49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?

50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.


That, too, does not fit the virgin birth/God is the father of Jesus story.  There is no way they would forget the virgin birth and being told that God is his father, so if that were true, then this story in Luke 2 could not be true.

I am reminded of the words of David Hume:


So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_264


It would, indeed, take a miracle to get a reasonable person to believe in Christianity.