What does a book have to contain for you to accept it is of divine origin?

[fantome profane]

I don't know. I've read that the three synoptic gospels were the same book just in 3 different languages. Mathew in Hebrew, Mark in Latin and Luke in Greek. So that the whole empire could read it. We don't have the originals. Short of a archaeological discovery, I don't have a clue how we could know.

Of course we cannot know anything in the absolute sense when it comes to history, especially history from 2000 years ago. But I do think we can determine what is or what is not likely to be true. I have respect for scholars and historians who study these matters and I don't think they are just wasting their time.

I think we can look at the evidence and determine with a reasonable degree of certainty that none of these documents were actually written by someone who was an eyewitness to the events they describe. And eventhough we don't have the original manuscripts we do have good evidence that those original manuscripts were originally written in Greek.

 

[Aquitaine]

I still find it hilarious how these super powerful deities all rely on the same ancient and inefficient method to communicate their divine intentions to humanity: a book, usually written in just one language.

Even I, a mere human, can think of better ways for a god to communicate with humans.

 

[Sapiens]

A repeatable recipe for the transmutation of lead to gold would be nice.

 

[Milton Platt]

Ok so many of you don't believe in the bible, many of you don't believe in the Qur'an or the Vedas or religous texts. What would manuscripts have to contain for you to say they are of divine origin? If we just have the text itself what must it contain? Would you even accept a document?

Even if it detailed how to construct a thermonuclear device, or build space ships, or give detailed information about genetics, no book can be evidence in and of itself for divine origin. You would simply have a mystery. You cannot possibly know the origin of the book, so why insert "god did it" in place of your lack of evidence?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ok so many of you don't believe in the bible, many of you don't believe in the Qur'an or the Vedas or religous texts. What would manuscripts have to contain for you to say they are of divine origin? If we just have the text itself what must it contain? Would you even accept a document?

Another way of looking at it: what could a book contain that you would find compelling but can demonstrate conclusively that it can't be faked or the result of coincidence?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A repeatable recipe for the transmutation of lead to gold would be nice.

Why would this point to the existence of God more than, say, the existence of magic?

... or the existence of a future advanced civilization that has mastered both alchemy and time travel by purely naturalistic, materialistic methods?

 

[Demonslayer]

If the book opened up and started flapping it's pages, and then the pages slowly transformed into dragon wings, and the spine of the book took on the form of a great serpent, but you could still see the page numbers on the tips of it's leathery wings, and then the book flew out the window of my house and through the sky over to the library, where it breathed a jealous fire on all the other books, destroying them so it could be the one and only most powerful book in the universe, and then it flew back into my living room, gradually transforming back into a normal book as it came, and landed in my lap with a soft PLOP, still warm from it's adventure, and when I looked down I noticed a book mark that hadn't been there before, and when I pulled the book mark out I saw that it had stars and planets on it, but the stars and planets were moving and I got sucked into the book mark and was floating around in space when a booming voice said "HEATHEN, THIS BOOK HAS BEEN MADE BY GOD" and then I came back out of the bookmark and found myself back on the couch where I glanced down and notice the copyright date was the symbol for infinity...then I would admit the book was divine.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If the book opened up and started flapping it's pages, and then the pages slowly transformed into dragon wings, and the spine of the book took on the form of a great serpent, but you could still see the page numbers on the tips of it's leathery wings, and then the book flew out the window of my house and through the sky over to the library, where it breathed a jealous fire on all the other books, destroying them so it could be the one and only most powerful book in the universe, and then it flew back into my living room, gradually transforming back into a normal book as it came, and landed in my lap with a soft PLOP, still warm from it's adventure, and when I looked down I noticed a book mark that hadn't been there before, and when I pulled the book mark out I saw that it had stars and planets on it, but the stars and planets were moving and I got sucked into the book mark and was floating around in space when a booming voice said "HEATHEN, THIS BOOK HAS BEEN MADE BY GOD" and then I came back out of the bookmark and found myself back on the couch where I glanced down and notice the copyright date was the symbol for infinity...then I would admit the book was divine.

If that happened to me, I would wonder what I had been drugged with.