Which of these Holy Books are divinely inspired?

[polonius]

Most of the world's major religions have holy books. Each are considered to be inspired by the members of certain religions.

Which do you think are divinely inspired and which are not?

And how do you know?

[Justin108]

Of course one can presume that the Divine Book is of divine origin without making the claim of being such, but in that case one could legitimately ask why, if God exists and (presumably) authored a book for mankind, he would neglect to, at the very least include this fact within its pages.

Because "God works in mysterious ways"? I could ask the same thing about why God doesn't show himself. God likes hiding for some reason. I see no inconsistency in God hiding his authorship in these holy texts.

[JehovahsWitness]

Of course one can presume that the Divine Book is of divine origin without making the claim of being such, but in that case one could legitimately ask why, if God exists and (presumably) authored a book for mankind, he would neglect to, at the very least include this fact within its pages.

Because "God works in mysterious ways"?

Presuming God wouldn't provide the information about the origin of the book IN the book and proceeding one search accordingly is one approach. It seems to me that the presumption of a negative to find a positive is a somewhat inefficient method, but it is a method.

Rather like an adopted child presuming his birth mother doesn't want to be found (because she in his opinion, hasn't tried to contact him) so instead of approaching the adoptive authorities, commences his search for his birth mother by interrogating passing women in his local park. A method, but not in my opinion the most reasonable, logical or time efficent one.



JW

[Justin108]

Presuming God wouldn't provide the information about the origin of the book IN the book and proceeding one search accordingly is one approach. It seems to me that the presumption of a negative to find a positive is a somewhat inefficient method, but it is a method.

You can speculate on what God would and would not do all you like. My speculation on what God would and would not do concludes that God would reveal himself. Clearly (assuming God exists), my conclusion is wrong. Our speculations are clearly not iron clad.

My point is your dismissal of any holy text that does not explicitly state to be of God is an assumption on your part that you know what God would or would not do. You cannot dismiss a text simply because it does not explicitly state to be "of God". So no, the first requirement of being a divinely inspired book is not the claim to be divinely inspired.

Rather like an adopted child presuming his birth mother doesn't want to be found (because she in his opinion, hasn't tried to contact him)

Are you saying God tried and failed to contact me?

[JehovahsWitness]

My point is your dismissal of any holy text that does not explicitly state to be of God is an assumption on your part

You can rephrase and repeat the above claim as many times as you like, it still doesn't mean that it is a point I made. I think I pretty much covered all the angles of my thought here in post 27. Is there a statement therein that leads you to attribut this point to me (please feel free to re-read the second paragraph that starts with the words "Of course... through to the end of the post (total 3 paragraphs)")

[JehovahsWitness]

Rather like an adopted child presuming his birth mother doesn't want to be found (because she in his opinion, hasn't tried to contact him)

Are you saying God tried and failed to contact me?

I'm not God so there is no way I can possibly even begin to answer that question.

Sorry,

JW

[Justin108]

My point is your dismissal of any holy text that does not explicitly state to be of God is an assumption on your part

You can rephrase and repeat the above claim as many times as you like, it still doesn't mean that it is a point I made. I think I pretty much covered all the angles of my thought here in post 27. Is there a statement therein that leads you to attribut this point to me (please feel free to re-read the second paragraph that starts with the words "Of course... through to the end of the post (total 3 paragraphs)")

That God would chose to neglect to mention the divine origins of the book, opting rather to leave those in search of it to have to search all "holy books" (books dealing with God and religion) the number of which could no doubt count in the thousands if not the hundreds of thousands, is dubious if we are to presume God is a god of both love and logic.

It would be equally as dubious of God to expect us to believe Biblical claims despite insufficient evidence for any of it.

In short the purpose of a book of divine origin would presumably to put mankind in communication with God

A poor assumption. I can imagine a God using a holy book not to have man communicate with God but rather to have man be instructed on how to live better lives. Essentially every holy text instructs us on how to live better lives.

for that one then to author such a book and not ensure that it's origins were clearly contained in the book is like someone telling you to "call you" but not providing you with the number; being deliberately obscure leaves one to question the authenticity of the offer.

The origins of the Bible are not "clearly contained". All we have to attribute the authorship of the Bible to God is a claim. If God truly wanted to demonstrate clearly his own authorship, he would have given us absolute and indisputable proof that he is in fact the author of the Bible. There is no such absolute and indisputable proof, so do we now conclude that God did not author the Bible?

[Justin108]

Rather like an adopted child presuming his birth mother doesn't want to be found (because she in his opinion, hasn't tried to contact him)

Are you saying God tried and failed to contact me?

I'm not God so there is no way I can possibly even begin to answer that question.

Sorry,

JW

Logic can.

If God failed to contact me, then he is not God. Failure implies imperfection.
Therefore, either God never tried to contact me, or God simply does not exist

[polonius]

[Replying to post 18 by Justin108]

So far at the most we have The Quran, I hazard a guess that not many of the other so called "holy books" make direct claim to containing the thoughts of God.

I'll stand corrected if someone provides a reference for me.

Jw

Why does it matter?

Well the OP asked

Which do you think are divinely inspired and which are not?

And how do you know?

As I said earlier, the first and simplest critera seems to me to check if the book CLAIMS to be of divine origin. If the book itself doesn't make the claim, and presents itself as for example the thoughts of a pious individual such as Buddah, then why should the reader consider it to be more if the author(s) himself didn't?

So it seems the very first step would be to find out if the book makes such a claim. My point is there probably are not that many books that make such a claim, there are plenty of "holy books" but many of them only claim to be instructions on godly living, stories of the gods, instructions for the pious, theological thoughts etc but not many claim to be of divine origin.

RESPONSE:

For the third time, asked and answered. Now we are awaiting your answer regarding any statement in the New Testament specifically from God about its inspiration.



In the Quran, God addresses Prophet Muhammad, You never recited any Scripture before We revealed this one to you; you never wrote one down with your hand (29:48). In other words, Prophet Muhammad, who was known to be illiterate, neither read any previous scriptures nor wrote the Quran.


Now please reply to my question.

Please provide a quotation from the New Testament in which God says that he inspired the New Testament. Not someone else making that claim.

[Clownboat]

"if you were inventing a religion, would you not claim that god was behind [...] its holy book?"

Yes, you would think so. The rarity of such a claim is in itself telling.

Humans as a group, seem to be unendingly religious yet very few books in existence make the specific claim to contain the words of Almighty God himself. You would think (given humans penchant for religion) that there would be millions of such books, its easy enough to write, and I think the OP was probably written on the presumption that at the very least all the holy books contain this claim. But the opposite is in fact the case, the claim is extremely rare.

While it is easy (and not uncommon) for people to say "God spoke to me and I'm speaking to you", its another thing to produce a written volume that can be examined and cross examined over the course of history, under the microscope of human discovery, science and logic. I don't have an answer for why there are so few books that make this claim. As a theist I suspect that, given that nothing would delight Satan more than have hundreds of thousands of Holy books all claiming to contain the words of the Almighty (thus rendering the search for the truth harder) that this may well be evidence of divine intervention. Others may disagree, that's just a personal view.

In any case, I'm only here to see if other posters can provide evidence there are (outside of the Quran) such claims in any of the so called holy books.

How many of the 66 books in the Bible actually make this claim though? I just don't understand what is impressive about such a claim, especially if you can only point to 1 (or so) out of the 66 books.

[JehovahsWitness]

"if you were inventing a religion, would you not claim that god was behind [...] its holy book?"

Yes, you would think so. The rarity of such a claim is in itself telling.

I just don't understand what is impressive about such a claim ...

Yes, I get that , but my point is "impressive" or not, it's RARE. So are you agreeing with me that the claim *IS* in fact rare or are you suggesting I am wrong and it is common? If it's not in the bible, then its even LESS common and my point even more correct. So rare or common? That's the only question I'm asking.