Scriptures in Western religions

The most precisely fixed canons are those that have been defined by official religious bodies. The Jewish canon, known to Christians as the Old Testament, was fixed by a synod of rabbis held at Yavneh, Palestine, about 90 ce. The semisacred books that were excluded were labeled by Christians the Apocrypha (Greek: “Hidden Away”). Roman Catholicism later included them in its canon. Jesus, the founder of Christianity, left nothing in writing, but he so inspired his followers that they preserved his sayings and biographical details about him in oral form until they were written down in the four Gospels. To these were added the letters of St. Paul and others and the Book of Revelation to John, the whole forming a sacred canon called the New Testament, which was ecclesiastically sanctioned by the end of the 4th century. There was also a New Testament Apocrypha, but it did not achieve canonical status because of numerous spurious details.

Where no religious body has provided sanction or authorization, scriptures have had to stand on their own authority. Muslims believe that the Qurʾān does this easily. The Qurʾān, their only sacred canon or standard of faith, authenticates itself, they believe, by its internal self-evidencing power, for it is composed of the very words of God communicated to Muhammad and recited by him without addition or subtraction. This faith of Muslims in the Qurʾān is similar to that of fundamentalist Christians who believe that the Bible, as God’s word, is verbally inspired from beginning to end.

Other religious or devotional literature

There exists a large body of literature that possesses less of the aura of true scripture than the works just noted. They are interpretations about divine truth and divine commands, or stories that illustrate how persons, exalted or lowly, have acted (with or without awareness) in response to a divine stimulus. They are, in effect, supportive of true scripture.

An outstanding instance is the Talmud, a compendium of law, lore, and commentary that to many Jews has very nearly the authority of the Mosaic Torah (the Law, or the Pentateuch). Indeed, in the postbiblical rabbinical writings it was generally considered a second Torah, complementing the Written Law of Moses. Another instance is provided by the Christian church. Its major creeds have, at one time or another, been regarded as infallible statements, to depart from which would be heresy. This is particularly true of the Apostles’ Creed and the three “ecumenical creeds” of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), and Chalcedon (451). Roman Catholics add to these the papal decrees summarizing in credal form the conclusions of the councils of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the sacraments, transubstantiation (the changing of the substance of the bread and wine in the mass into the body and blood of Christ), confession, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, papal infallibility, and the Assumption of the body and soul of the Virgin Mary to heaven. More or less binding for Protestants are their distinctive statements of faith: the Augsburg Confession of 1530 (Lutheran), the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 (Reformed), the Westminster Confession of 1646 and Shorter Westminster Catechism of 1647 (Presbyterian), and others.

During the last seven centuries in the West, some religious writings have attained a semisacred, if not fully sacred, status: Imitatio Christi of Thomas à Kempis (1379/80–1471); John Bunyan’s (1628–88) The Pilgrim’s Progress; Mary Baker Eddy’s (1821–1910) Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures; and the reputed discovery of Joseph Smith (1805–44), the Book of Mormon.