How do you determine in a statement in the Bible is from God?

[Eight Foot Manchild]

How do you determine if a statement in the Bible is from God?

You don't. 'Revelation' is epistemologically vacuous.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You don't. 'Revelation' is epistemologically vacuous.

...I suppose that from an assumed, atheistic standpoint, revelation is vacuous.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

...I suppose that from an assumed, atheistic standpoint, revelation is vacuous.

From any standpoint. Even if I believed in a 'god', there would still be no reliable means of discerning his revelations from my imagination, or from the revelations of another being, or gleaning the truth value of those revelations even if I could determine their source.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

From any standpoint. Even if I believed in a 'god', there would still be no reliable means of discerning his revelations from my imagination, or from the revelations of another being, or gleaning the truth value of those revelations even if I could determine their source.

To some extent, I agree. In fact, I think the Apostle Paul would at least partially agree with you as well; there is no epistemological structure that in and of itself will provide a nicely formed set of axioms and conclusions by which one might have 'faith' in the biblical God. But, in my saying so, I'm placing the onus on the nature of epistemology and not so much on the biblical phenomena of revelation per say.

Moreover, Descartes might have something to say about this. Heck, Hillary Putnam might have something to say about this, too, if by 'imagination' we take it to mean something somewhat akin to a state of dreaming rather than our being in an awake, alert and purposeful state of mind. If we do this, then we are immediately moved into the field of Hermeneutics by which we each have to assess just why we each think we see the world and the things in it (like biblical revelation) the particular way we do.

So, it might be more fitting to say that revelation is potentially vacuous, but not necessarily so.