Personally, the scripture is divine, and God gives understanding to those that have experienced the gift of salvation. Without persuasion and arguments, just dish out the scriptures backed up with its divine power. When He (Jesus Christ) is lifted up, He'll draw men unto Himself.

Thank you

Olutosin

Hello

The truth of divine scriptures require some way of self authentication where there is no need for extrinsic evidence of truth or genuineness. True believers have certainly no doubt about the originality of scriptures. Only agnostics defy the authenticity of the holy scriptures because they tend to see the material weight of things in the world.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Dear Prof. MacGregor, I think you have already asked this question, albeit in another form ( https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_way_to_interpret_scripture_and_why#view=59e0879296b7e44d36234267 )

Saying that any text is divinely inspired may be true in specific cases, but is certainly not limited to so-called scriptures - the Christian doctor Scott M. Peck, for instance, stated that his 'The Road Less Traveled' was divinely inspired.

Beyond that, the first order of business when you do anything is to make sure that the tool you have in place is up to the job assigned to it: in this particular case, the job is to express and faithfully quote the thoughts of God by means of the tool of human language.

As noted before, there is overwhelming evidence that the tool cannot possibly do the job (see my answer to your previous above-quoted question)

Lack of such prior analysis leads to straightforward anthropomorphism - the age-old bane of established religions, blithely abiding to this day, and reducing Godhood.

Dear Colleague Firstly, I would like to apologize for not answering your previous questions because I was very busy with my students and other issues,

secondly, and in order to answer your question, I think It is not possible to argue in sacred speech, but it is possible to argue in the way the words of this Bible are transmitted through history.

Accept my respect Dear Colleague

Salam.

I agree with your point that the factual truth of an event is not proof that the divine or supernatural is involved. This has been my argument too. And more, that in science, we demand that claims be independently verified, before we tentatively accept them as being true. That too is often lacking in religion - the independent corroboration of events described in the sacred texts.

I don't know that it's possible to "convince" others about the divine origins of any text. It comes down to a matter of faith. With ancient texts especially, there are so many possible sources of error and misinterpretation. And too, ultimately, there are any number of inspired writings, even many that have no religious pretentions. Such as Maxwell's equations. Many examples of uncommon insight in the human record. How do we decide what is "divine"? Or perhaps, we might suggest that all such inspired writings are divine, in some way?

From a specific Roman Catholic point of view, please see the Dogmatic Constitution "Dei Verbum" of II Vatican Council, in its n. 11.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

This is a good starting point for further investigation on the matter. Roman Catholic authors like Joseph Ratzinger, Louis Bouyer, René Latourelle, etc can express in a more personal way what you will find in the Vatican Council. For instance, see https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Revelation-Including-Commentary-Constitution/dp/1608991423

Have a nice day.

Within a religious context, the arguments to be used are conviction in beliefs and faith, that the scriptures were the result of divine inspiration, having as mediators both virtuous and holy men and women, who were only the "instrument of their faith and of the divine mandate"

In a secular context, religious writings are the result of social, historical and religious circumstances. that influence in a powerful way, in especially humanitarian and sensitive people who interpret spiritually the confluence of this series of events, which are expressed in metaphors, epistles and parables regarding their Faith and Religion.

With respect

There are many of the findings of today's science in the Qur'an, which was revealed 1400 years ago to the Prophet, Like the conjugation of plants and creatures, the effect of sleep on health, the existence of clinical and biological death, etc. Although the Quran Prophet who was illiterate and did not have an educator. This is a miracle

Dear Kirk,

Scriptures belong to the mythico poetic. Scriptures can be said to be a poetic truth. Aristotle argued that poetic truth as superior to historical truth, a more literary down to earth historical narrative of the past. In modern time, Vico is the first to renew with this tradition of placing poetic truth as superior. This touch the vast question of the debate between the relation between the realm of imagination and the realm of litteral narrative discourse. The realm of human imagination encompassing all human artistic activities including the mythico poetic and even the most creative side of the litteral narrative discourse. Modernity began with a drastic rise of the status of rational mathematical discourse versus all other human artistic insights, and Descartes is the greatest prophet of this down grading of the imaginative side, the casting out of tradition versus rationality, of disembodiement versus embodiement, break with renaissance, neo-platonism and Aristotle and the tradition of the immanent of the divine. Then began the age of machines, our casting out of life. Leibniz and Spinoza tried to bridge the Cartesian casting out and return to Life but their attempts were not enough. Vico was more powerful because his departure was not mechanistic but a return to the classical rhetoric tradition of laws and a rediscovery of a way to re-introduce the primacy of the poetico-mythical, i.e. imagination both as an interpretation of the history of humanity, the development (enculturation) of the children and the primacy of the arts. Vico is the first to develop a rational for all that is not rational.. The romantics will further elaborates on Vico, starting with Herder and Goethe and all the historicism and phenomological tradition will follow up to this day on these insight. Vico was a great modern initiator of this tradition but it also stem from the modern biblical hermeneutic tradition central to protestentism. Biblical interpretation became then central to politic. Vico is the first who have made an interpretation of Homer authorship as being a collective. Vico is the first to argued that historical interpretation is more accessible to humans than scientific natural science interpretation of Nature because the first is our own creation. The interpretation of the human culture is done throw the same human imagination that has created this domain. William Blake will identified God with Human Imagination. It is not a materialistic theory as such a reduction tends to make us believe.. Here human imagination is not really something a human can control but what someone may decided to serve for the benefit of humanity, as being the God life cosmos creating force that can enter us if a will to serve and sacrifice let it enter.

The central question about the creation of anything, is the question of authorship. Is the prophet, is the poet author or messenger? Is human imagination an author or a messenger? For the romantic, for all artists from the most ancient times, they are the messengers of their muses, and their art are simple glimse into the divine generation roots of our world.

https://www.thewaytotruth.org/theholyquran/wordofgod.html

I tell people that the apostles were willing to preach throughout their lives that they witnessed Christ's resurrection. They did this even to their death. I suggest that it's impossible for someone to go to their death for a lie, and equally impossible to preach about such an event for 30-40 years without it being true. If they are not lying about the resurrection, if they have the bravery and integrity to continue to preach about it throughout their lives, they are likely not lying about anything else. Also, what is written by church fathers concur with most of what's written in the scriptures. Also, the earliest manuscripts are closer to the original date of the events than any other ancient documents.

Unless the person you are trying to persuade rejects entirely the historicity of the New Testament witness to what Jesus taught and did, I would point to Jesus' own affirmation of the Hebrew Scriptures as God's word. One could also point to his seeing his own career, including his death and subsequent resurrection, as fulfilling those Scriptures. This entails his acceptance of them as the inspired word of God.

Writing from the Biblical / New Testament Christian point of view... Christ's resurrection is a very well attested historic event, numerous factors such as the empty tomb (attested by secular Roman historians), the fact that Women were the witnesses to the resurrection (nobody would invent a story with women as witnesses in a society where women have only 1/2 a vote of credibility, as it was in Jewish society) first, the fact that all except one Apostle died for their faith, that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, some with extreme torture and numerous other factors point to a real resurrection of Christ. (See NT. Wright's excellent work)

Christ himself affirmed the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures (John 10:35 "Scripture cannot be broken"), his Apostles wrote down their eyewitness account of this resurrected man and his teachings. By resurrecting Christ, God vindicated his truthfulness. He must be from God because no man can raise himself.

Another fascinating approach is an examination of fulfilled, verified Old Testament prophecy, such as in Daniel 8 (Alexander the Great) or Isaiah 53s rendering of Christ's life and death, (verifiably written long before Christ), see Dead Sea Scroll - Complete Isaiah Scroll.

Ultimately John Piper has written 3 large volumes about the self attesting light of Scriptural revelation which I also recommend.

James,

The followers of Jesus were not the most traditional of the jewish society. It is evident that Jesus was more pro-women , a proto-feminist, than was the norm and so he was likely to have an unusal women followship , bigger than the gospel are reporting, and so that it is women reporting about his resurrection is not surprising. From the beginning christianity is more like the prevalent culture of the mediterranean , not as close to women, not so iconoclastic.

If today a group of people would testify in front of a judge that one of them resurected, they met the resurected and that the tomb is empty, would it stand in the court? Not more than alien abduction. So in terms of proof it is null. One needs to have a will to believe for accepting this resurection.

That Christ accepted the authority of the Bible as the words of God is not surprising given that he was a religious jewish. This can't be consider as an argument. He said so. The He said so is only an argument if one already accept the gospel and Jesus as the son of God and anyone doing so accept the Bible as the words of God and so it is not an argument but an act of faith.

The question does not belong within scholarly discourse. Ergo - it cannot be answered by scholars for whom - or so I thought - this forum is devoted.

Ask you priest, or your rabbi, or your imam, but not the scholars.

Looking at the answers, one can see that there is no agreement on what do we mean by "divinely inspired". Some think that "divinely inspired" means a direct link between God and a book, others think that it is a mere effect of the deep desires of humankind, expressed in a book, some think that it is impossible that God can meet men (or that men can meet God), so a "divine inspired book" is something impossible (or is something in the domain of "fantasy"). You have also an oppinion that admits an action of God in some men, who are acting like men (not "automatically", so to speak, nor in some kind of "over-human" way) and write something that is completely human, and complelety "message of God". And we can continue with other answers... Maybe, for this reason, some people think the dialogue on this theme is not within a scholarly discourse... I think that we can discuss in a scholarly level, probably we can agree in many false solutions, but it is not clear that we can find a common solution.

For me personally, the proof resides in the fact that so much of the Torah (Five Books of Moses, or first portion of the Bible) is outside of basic human nature. Human nature is to possess, to take what I desire regardless of the consequences to others, to fulfill my lust no matter what, to not think of how a donkey might feel if it were yoked together with an ox (Deuteronomy 22:10), or whether my wife is having her needs met or not (Exodus 21:10), or whether I ruin my environment (Deuteronomy 23:14), or whether I lust secretly after my neighbor's wife and his property (Exodus 20:7), or whether or not I should return a runaway slave to his or her master (Deuteronomy 23:16-17), or whether I should so much as consider exempting a warrior from military duty just because he recently got married or built a new house or just finished planting his vineyard (Deuteronomy 20:1-8), or consider taking someone's lost horse home and taking care of it at my expense for however long it takes for the owner to come and claim it (Deuteronomy 22:-1-3) , or to entertain any second thoughts about preventing my ox from nibbling while plowing (Deuteronomy 25:4), nor to so much as even imagining in my wildest dreams that I would render my orchard accessible to anyone who wanted to come in and pick its fruit (Leviticus 23:22 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21), and so on and on and on and on...

Nonetheless, it is important to note that "Divinely Inspired" does not imply perfection. The so-called Word of God still filters through the mortal chosen to channel it, and how it is translated is determined by the condition of the filter in the moment. And no mortal is or ever was infallible, no prophet without his or her faults or vulnerabilities, or bad hair days. This is clearly demonstrated throughout the scriptural narratives. "Divine Inspiration" involves a partnership. The Bible is not a monologue. It is not only God who speaks to man, but as much man who speaks to God. It is a dialogue, a wrestling of the mortal with the divine, a weaving of the Beyond with the Immanent. In the words of the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The Bible is more than the word of God: it is the word of God and man; a record of both revelation and response" (God in Search of Man, p. 260).

I have enjoyed reading the discussions and I side with all the authors.

I notice when discussing the Bible, etc, as divinely inspired the good parts only are selected for proof and reverence. In fact do they not also contain immense violence? Massacres and genocides? Are these too divine and approved of and adherred to events?

2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Few children torn apart in the name of YHWH-doesn't matter maybe?

Seriously?!

Dear Professor

Greetings and Regards

Regarding your numerous questions, my basic question to you is: Do you want to persuade yourself or another? Are you really looking for the truth? Or would you like to measure the information of others and their faith?

The Quran, as a "miracle", does not require our defense as Muslims. The Quran itself defends its rightfulness.

  To judge the Quran, you must read all its verses.But because the verses of Quran is two groups: "some of them is completely clear and obvious, and understanding", and " another group is multi-dimensional and complex ones, you should be able to interpret the verses together."

 You probably do not know the science of interpreting . Therefore, it is essential to use authoritative interpretation books in your scientific research. When you study all the Qur'an thoroughly and understand its concepts, compare the findings of the Qur'an with the latest scientific achievements in the world to see that science has been able to express a little bit of the Quran's science of the world for humanity.

When you correctly understand the Qur'an, you will notice the answer to your question.

 But

the important thing that the Qur'an has taught us is: to "give glad tidings to those who hear words and choose the best of words"

With respect

Minoo Asadzandi

Dear Minoo Asadzandi, please re-read the question twice or more!

What will happen during reading the Quran? totally or partially?

your answer is based on Muslim`s faith and believe and does not include any argument!

Kirk, I will immediately reject your assertion that they can easily be proved as factually correct! They most certainly cannot. There is not one genuine shred of proof for the Two United Kingdoms-

In fact proof appears, distorted it is true, by the 7th century BCE. Before that, emphatically no.

There is absolutely no proof for Abraham, Isaac, etc. They fulfil all the requirements of myth and legend, written to provide the beginnings of Israel (Jacob)and Judah (Abraham). As for the iconoclastic nature of Abraham, even the Bible doesn't claim that.

What the evidence does say is clear: the hill country inhabitants worshiped a number of gods under the post-Exilic period.

No argument would suffice. That's the sad truth, Kirk :)

Arguments have to be objective and look at evidence that support your views, aside from normal biases. (It needs to be scientific, based on facts.) Proof of what is being said in the scriptures, of any religious writings, must be tested with the results of those writings. Is there proof that what was being said actually occurred in the future? For example, If God or a prophet of God said something, did what He say come true? If it did, then you can argue that He is true and what he says is true. The Bible has hundreds of prophecies that have come true. This should be all the proof that is needed to construct your argument. If you are confining an argument to only one scripture or writing, then the argument gets more complicated. You then would need to go to the author and discover their character. If you can say the author is always correct, then you can assume that all they have written is true or correct. This is where the idea of authority comes from. Being derived from the word author, or originator of the work. As humans, we are fallible and get some things right and some things wrong. It takes a leap of faith to accept a being outside of this understanding. But, God is such a being and is infallible! Then I can be assured that all of His writings are as He is.

اذا كان موحى به؟ فلمن اوجى بهِ؟ ولماذ الذي تم الوحي اليه لم يكتبهُ؟ ولماذا لم يُكلف اتباعه في وقته ان يدونه؟ كتابة الاناجيل تمت بعد صعود السيد المسيح الى السماء

Many, many things in life can be held to be divinely inspired. Even a novel can be deemed to be divinely inspired, as may a painting, a piece of music, or everyday occurrences like falling in love. But specifically words, as in specific books ?

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, a well-known wordsmith who holds France's highest academic degrees in literature and is the author of several best-selling novels in Europe, wrote in 2015 a best-selling memoir of having, decades earlier, undergone a transformative mystical experience when he lost his way in the Hoggar mountains of Algeria.

He writes: "Words, pallid words, cannot begin to describe what I'm experiencing. They've been designed but to describe stones, things, feelings even, mere human or near-human realities. How could they ever describe what is so irretrievably beyond them? How could our limited words describe the infinite? How could the labels of the palpable ever be stamped upon the ineffable? Their job is to inventory the world, they're rooted in the soil, but I'm soaring so far away. No longer do I think in coarse sentences, no longer does my experience come from eyes, ears, or skin."

And indeed, supporting Schmitt's view on the built-in limitations of finite human languages, there are compelling mathematical grounds why any human-language text cannot possibly be 'the words of an infinite God'. Inspired, perhaps. But definitely not "God's words", unless we infinitely anthropomorphize.

People !

This is a question absolutely and totally un-scholarly.

It should NOT BE DISCUSSED on a website called "RESEARCH GATE" !!!

Witold,

Not quite true, you can analyse this pretty scientifically, as in :

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-you-believe-that-the-Bible-is-the-word-of-God/answer/H-Chris-Ransford

There might be a ton of arguments being made to convince someone of something, the more important question is are those arguments sound (and in my opinion an argument has to be sound to be convincing)?

In the cases of the many religious scriptures that exist, I have never encountered a single convincing argument for devine inspiration. Even the question is not well posed since first one would have to prove that there is in fact a god of any kind (or many of them if you follow a poly-theistic religion) who does inspire humans exists at all.

I am aware that many theistic people make their case based on so-called 'prophecies' from scriptures that come or came true but they usually kindly ignore all the stuff from the Bilbe, Quran, etc... that has turned out to be demonstrably wrong. Furthermore, if some book makes some vague claims about something that might possibly happen in the future and you wait for a long time (usually centuries in the case of many religious scriptures) you will encounter some events that can be interpreted a posteriory as prophecy that turned out 'right'. This is nothing extraordinary. It would be extraordinary if there would be testable prophecies in any religious scripture about some extraordinary events. An example would be if, say, somewhere in the Bible you find the sentence: On October the 23th in 2021it will be a sunny day with a red sky in New York. This would be a statement that could be tested and it is an extremely unusual one. But I have never seen any historic prophecy of that specific type that has turned out to be true.

On the other hand, if you find such an exact prophecy and it becomes observable true you still have no evidence for a divine inspiration because you cannot rule out any other possible explanation from a highly unlikely coincidence to time travellers.

So, to get back to the initial questions: I guess you can make a lot of arguments for divine inspiration and you will probably convince some people with each one of them but objectively none that really holds water.

It is not an historical argument either.

There is no argument that one could construct that would persuade someone that a scripture is divinely inspired? Nor is there any argument one could contruct to dissuade someone that a scripture he considered divine, is'nt. In the same manner, is there an argument that one could construct to persuade you that a music is beautifull. An argument is irrelevant, only your own musical appreciation can convince you or dissuade you. It is simply irrelevant. The artwork is doing its own argument as the scripture is doing. The. argument is in the pudding itself.

I agree with you Louis Brassard . I would add that, at the same time, there is no argument against the divinity of revelation

@Montserrat Gas-Aixendri - actually, there are a lot of arguments against divinity of revelation...

Dear Johannes,

Yes but notes that they are only re-inforcing the convictions of those that do not beleive in the divinity of revelation. So they only re-inforce already existing convictions. They never or rarely make any new converts. The same can be said of theological arguments for the truthness of divine revelation. They re-inforce the faith of the faithfull and never make new faithfull.

Pascal a convinced christians who himself provided a kind of argument for being a beleiver

''Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though (the Christian) God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).[2]''

Pascal's argument can only re-inforce the faith of a christian or the faith of a Muslim or any other traditional religion. It means nothing for an anti-religious edonist. Such argument has zero grasp on such person since such person will consider the promess of the religion as a fairy tale while the attraction of the eartly pleasures cannot be resisted on such weak promess. But Pascal himself did not think his own argument or any other theological arguments were of much value since no religion have been established rationally historically or in the life of an individual. It is live or it is not and rational arguments have not much to do with it. Only superficial re-inforcements. Anti-religious atheism is not inculcated throw arguments either. You simply let yourself goes to whatever your lower instincts attract you. This is not a rational argument which will entice you to resist or go for it.

Regards,

- Louis

Yes but also Pascal's wager has been refuted many times and it is simply not true that arguments against the divine (revelation) are not deconverting people. In fact, religion becomes less and less relevant - you can find many studies on this. Here, for example is a recent article from the Washington post, which sumarises this trend in the US: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/03/29/church-membership-fallen-below-majority/

This is a good indication that more people are deconverting (and, for some part, at least, due to arguments against the existence of a god) than people who convert from being atheistic to some form of religion.

Dear Johannes,

I did not say that it does not happen that a religious person at some point in her life abandon her faith. I also agree that in the last half a century, the West has de-christianize a lot. My point remain. It is not rational arguments against religion which explain this phenomena. Take the new atheism movement, a recent mostly US movement which is in decline presently, it is effectively trying to use rational arguments against christian tradition. It is philosophically a scientistic interpretation of science. Here science is given the supreme authority in domains far beyond the limit where science is really authoritative. I do not think the new atheism is significant in the reduction of religious practice in the US. Much more significant is the consumerism values promoted by the bulk of the marketing and films and all forms of entertainments to which the youth is exposed. This is the cultural crib , the cathedral of the rampant materialism which our economic market system naturally promoted. Traditional moral values are being gradually superceeded by One Value: the dollar whose all other values are obstacle to its circulation. So we have a dollar monotheism trying to impose itself. It is not new. Sodgenistine sudgest it began with renaissance humanism, the attempt to put Man instead as God as ultimate authority. I tend to see this as a consequence of the gradual prevalence or importance of banking whose fundamental role of wars, the wars of religions and all other wars that followed. This remind me of Tolkien's ring's verse:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.[note 1]

Regards,

- Louis