Identifying the word of god

[robvalue]

As I was considering your question, I was wondering if the question is answerable? In your proposition, 'given two texts, one authentic and one counterfeit', you ask: how do we know the counterfeit from the authentic? To answer this we would need a standard with which to measure the two against. The standard in this proposition would be the word of God, but that is the very item in question. How would you propose determining the standard itself?

That is pretty much the thought process I was trying to get at In my opinion the question is not answerable, and that is the point. It's the process you would use that is important, and how that applies to the real situation we have in religion. Take away the assumption that any of them are in fact the word of god for sure, and you are there. We don't have a word of god to compare to, because you have to assume something is the word of god in order to "prove" that it is, by comparing it with itself- which makes no sense.

If the word of god is "self evident", then it should still be so even if you had all memory of what you know about the book removed from your brain first, so even the names wouldn't mean anything to you. Hence my example.