It seems to me that the reason why the Koran deviates so pronouncedly from the Bible, and has so many inconsistencies within its pages, is because Muhammad repeatedly failed his tests of temptation. Muhammad turned his people away from the Christian revelation, which was available to him and instead indoctrinated the Arab world with a social and cultural form of Judaism 1600 years out of date for his generation, simply because temptation overpowered him.

Admittedly, to say that Muhammad failed his tests of temptation is a theory, but not one that is implausible. Let me explain. In the beginning, I take it that Muhammad received a genuine revelation from God. Having made business trips to Jerusalem where he became exposed to the Jewish teaching of one God, and desiring to gain the approval of this one God, Muhammad began taking retreats to secluded places to pray. Then one day at age forty while on a prayer vigil he had a vision, which said to him: "Read!" I view this first vision of Muhammad to be a genuine communication from God in response to his sincere prayers. While asleep or in a trance, Muhammad heard a voice say: " Read !" Two hundred years earlier, Augustine had heard a voice say, "Take up and read." (Augustine. St Augustine's Confessions , Translated by William Watts, Loeb Classical Library series, Vol. 1, 8.7. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), p. 465. ) Augustine obeyed the voice, picked up a New Testament Scripture, read it and became Christianity's first theologian of lasting stature. I have a strong feeling that the voice, which Muhammad heard in his first vision came from the same source as the voice that Augustine heard. However, unlike Augustine, Muhammad was illiterate. He could not read. Three times he heard the voice give the same command: "Read!" The third command was joined with these additional words:    

"Read: In the name of thy Lord Who createth.

"Createth man from a clot.

"Read: And it is thy Lord the Most Bountiful

"Who teacheth by the pen,

"Teacheth man that which he knew not."

(Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning Of The Glorious Koran , (New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. p. x.)

It seems so clear! God was ready to teach Muhammad “that which he knew not” by the “pen” that had rested in the hands of Scripture writers of ages past. After hearing the voice, Muhammad's wife, Khadijah, wealthy and fifteen years his senior, took her seeking husband to her aged cousin in Mecca who knew the Scriptures of both Jews and Christians. Khadijah wanted Muhammad to be the prophet of her people and was not reticent about it. With the help of her cousin, the two of them persuaded Muhammad that God was leading him to do what in fact history records he did. (Ibid, p. ix-xxix.) However, Muhammad did not share their confidence, at least not at first, and maybe never completely. Muhammad reminds me of the prophet from Judah, as described in the first book of the Kings, who received a legitimate word from God. He obeyed part of God's command and would have obeyed it all, had not an elderly prophet intruded upon his mission and lied to him by saying that God had changed up some of the original orders by sending him (the older prophet) to expand upon what he had received earlier. ( I Kings 13:1-32.) As the old prophet of the tenth-century B.C. wrongly influenced the younger prophet from Judah, it seems that Muhammad's older wife wrongly influenced her younger husband. Eight hundred years later, the same happened to Joan of Arc. Public figures in France enticed youthful Joan to go beyond her Heavenly voices, and as a result she paid with her life. As a result of Muhammad's enticement, the whole Arab world was turned away from Christ. 

Soon after Muhammad had yielded to the persuasions of Khadijah and had accepted the counsel of the sagacious ones in Mecca, he began having serious doubts as to the authenticity of several subsequent revelations. (Surah X, 95.) For instance, Muhammad had great misgivings about the revelation that denied Jesus as the "Son of God." (Surah X, 69-70.) Were not these misgivings arising from Faith? The angel or angels who spoke the Koran to Muhammad seemed to have never fully earned the prophet's trust, as can be seen here in this apparent angelic reassurance: "Naught is said unto thee (Muhammad) save what was said unto the messengers before thee." (Surah XII, 43.) There are many other places in the Koran where the statement of the angel portrays the fact that Muhammad had reservations about what he was being told, shoring up more evidence that his Faith was in good working order, at least in the early days. Faith always sends “doubts” into consciousness whenever “Truth” cannot be “re-cognized”. But the telling fact remains. Muhammad never put forth the courage to establish the deception of his revelations. He never applied the New Testament exhortation that says: "...believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits (to determine) if they are of God." ( I John 4:1, author's translation.)    

Who can deny it? Muhammad did not obey the voice that spoke to him in the beginning. He never took the time to learn how to "Read" as the vision had commanded. Instead, he took the shorter and easier route; namely, that of relying upon others who already knew how to read. Understandably, the choice to remain illiterate would definitely put the Meccan native at a disadvantage in every respect and especially so with regard to the existing Scriptures. The Old Testament and the New Testament would be crucial to Muhammad's work. It is not so much that being unlettered would make, only, the author of the Koran vulnerable to the prejudicial renderings of men and to the artifices of Satan. To be sure, a handicap of this magnitude would be a detriment to any public figure whose work in life might be of a literary nature.

Now the big question facing us all is this: Why would Muhammad not obey the voice that instructed him to learn to read? Of course, part of the answer may be related to the impatience of his older wife, Khadijah as already enumerated. Her time was short, and her aspirations for her husband were large. Equal to this however, if not greater than, was the wealth of Khadijah. The older woman whom Muhammad married put him among Mecca's finest. It was the norm of that day in Arabian culture for people of substantial means to use slaves or hired servants to do their reading for them. The rich have always used those of lower social status to do tasks they deemed tedious, boring or difficult. In all honesty, it seems that wealth, along with his wife's ambitions for him, were the strongest factors contributing to Muhammad's resistance toward the Divine command to learn to read. Maybe it should be remembered that Jesus warned that wealth could have disastrous consequences upon one's Spiritual destiny, (Mark 10:25.) not to mention that He also stressed that the desires of family members should never take precedence over Him. (Matthew 10:37) As I see it, pleasing his wife and being a person of substantial means, enticed the prophet of Mecca to yield to his first and perhaps greatest temptation, which was, rationalizing to himself that God did not really mean for him to learn to “Read”. Having put aside the first and foremost command of his earliest vision, the prophet would subsequently succumb repeatedly to the temptation of expediency.

There were many Jews living in close proximity to Muhammad at the time of his vision. Arabs of the seventh century thought rabbis held "intellectual ascendancy". (The Meaning of the Glorious Koran , p. 32.) Not a few of these literate ones were sought out by Muhammad. They were his earliest counselors and advisors. Therefore it is not surprising that he would develop a preference for the Old Testament, since his earliest teachers were Jews. Neither is it unseemly that his regard for the New Testament would be lacking since the rabbis had taught him that Jesus was nothing more than an average Jewish prophet whose life had been corrupted by his followers. Although in time Muhammad would separate himself from the rabbis because of their supercilious demeanor, what he learned from them would influence him to the end of his days.    

As a result of Muhammad's break with the Jews, he would make Mecca instead of Jerusalem the city toward which to face in times of prayer. (Surah II, 142.) However, he would retain for all intents and purposes the rabbinical assessment of Jesus. Why did the Apostle Paul wait three years before going up to Jerusalem to speak with the religious pundits following his vision of Christ on the road to Damascus? (Galatians 1:16-19.) Why did the Tarsus convert go first into Arabia, and then return to Damascus before going to Jerusalem? Was it not, at least in part, to steer clear of the very thing that Muhammad did not protect himself from? And that was, to put a buffer between himself and the overweening temptations that would spring from family, friends, and Jewish superiors -- not to mention quelling his own tainted ambitions. However, no wisdom of the Pauline type was forth coming after Muhammad's vision.         

Not heeding the voice to "Read," Muhammad embarked immediately on his Spiritual venture by listening to others read. Surah XXIX, 48, vouches that Muhammad never did learn to read by saying "thou (O Muhammad) wast not a reader of any scripture..., nor didst thou write it with thy right hand...." Again, Surah VII, 158 mentions the same limitation: "the Prophet who can neither read nor write." Apparently those who did the reading for Muhammad did not always read unbiased to him. Historical scholarship, for example, has found that several rabbinical interpretations (not translations) have departed widely from Christian interpretations with respect to the same texts. Instead of learning to read for himself and studying the Scriptures for himself, Muhammad began all too quickly dictating to a secretary, committing the very transgression he warns against in Surah II, 78, where he says, "Among them are unlettered folk who know the Scripture not except from hearsay. They but guess." In this passage, does not Muhammad unintentionally put himself in the same category of those who “but guess”? Or to look at it another way, could it be that the Koran intends to place him in this category?

Would not learning to read for himself have led Muhammad to Jesus Christ, as was the case with Augustine? And speaking of Augustine, a bishop once said confidently to Augustine's mother, "...Let him alone a while" (said he) "only pray God for him, he will of himself by reading find what that error is, and how great its impiety." (The Confessions of St. Augustine, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 24.) As Augustine continued to search for Truth through his own reading, he in fact did discover the error of Manicheism as the Bishop had so assuredly predicted. Had Muhammad learned to read the Scriptures for himself, and not have had to rely so completely on the interpretations of others (being himself a victim of hearsay), he too would have discovered his errors. Perhaps if he had been able to read, he would not have gotten the story of Gideon and the few who fought the Midianites confused with Saul, as is evident in Surah II, 249.     

Muhammad not only failed the first test of temptation by refusing to humble himself and learn how to read, but he repeatedly failed other tests as well. The Koran says "(O Muhammad)..., ask forgiveness of thy sins...." (Surah XL, 55.) The sins of Muhammad are pointed out in several places in the Koran. For example, one day Muhammad was talking with a prominent gentleman of his own tribe, attempting to persuade the man to Al-Islam when a blind man approached and asked a question. Angered by the interruption, the prophet frowned and turned away, snubbing the handicapped one. For this sin born of pride, the Koran rebuked Muhammad.    

Before saying more about the sins of Muhammad, please allow a brief comparison with Jesus at this point. Unlike Muhammad, Jesus was "in all things tempted just like us, but without sin." (Hebrews 4:15, author's translation.) At the end of chapter three in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus hears a voice from heaven saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17, KJV.) Then the next voice from out of the Spiritual realm heard by Jesus is that of Satan, tempting Him to downgrade His mission. Satan first tried to get Jesus to focus His mission exclusively on the social and physical needs of people, while ignoring their Spiritual needs. (Matthew 4:3-4.) Second, the Devil tempted Jesus by quoting a Scripture out of the Old Testament designed to make His mission Spiritually spectacular but essentially irrelevant. (Matthew 4:5-7.) Third, the Devil tempted Jesus by taking Him up on a high mountain, where he endeavored to persuade Him to become a mighty ruler over the kingdoms of this world rather than the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 4:8-11.) It seems to me that it was this last temptation upon which Muhammad stumbled most noticeably. Listen to these words Jesus said to Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight...." (John 18:35, KJV.) Muhammad and his servants did fight, showing that their mission was directed to the things of this world and not to the things of heaven. Unlike Muhammad, Jesus refused every enticement of Satan. He remained loyal to God, His Father, even unto death. (Philippians 2:8.)