When thinking about religion and its claims to truth it is impossible to ignore how any religious tradition relates to its sacred texts. Sacred texts often underlie such claims about the nature of the world and our place within it, as they are said to reveal God. Yet how different religions, and even religious believers, understand their sacred texts varies widely. It is important to recognise this variety in order to develop a rigorous understanding of religion, and this article will consider the many possible ways of conceiving the nature of scripture.
In considering the nature of scripture we cannot avoid addressing the view of ultimate reality expressed by each religious tradition. There are, for example, important differences between Semitic and Indian religions. However, as these differences are explored we should remember that each religious tradition is sufficiently diverse for most of the approaches outlined below to be represented by one school of thought or another.
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