Some popular apologists argue that their particular holy books qualify as evidence supporting their claims that their god(s) exist. One method might be to point to the supernatural events recorded in these books as requiring the existence of a god. Or they might point to how influential the scriptures have been, arguing that this would not have been possible without the help of a god.
Another example is that they might try and argue that these ancient texts have made predictions about science or events which turned out to be true - without supernatural help, such predictions would not be possible. Finally, they might try to argue that their scriptures are somehow “perfect” — they are without flaws, without errors, or are written in such a perfect style that they cannot be imitated by mere mortal humans.
The strength of these arguments is minimal at best. The argument that relies upon scriptural miracles is simply a repackaging of the Argument from Miracles, and so suffers from all the same problems - and more, considering the age of the reports. The argument that relies upon the influence of the scriptures suffers from problems similar to those in the Argument from Religious Experience.
After all, just because an idea or book influences people does not mean that it is even necessarily true, much less of supernatural origin. Witness, for example, the influence of the book Mein Kampf and the ideas contained therein. A good example to use with conservative evangelicals making this argument would be the influence of Karl Marx’s books and ideas — is such influence in any way indicative of the truth of Marxism?
The question of predictions in ancient scriptures is thorny. Although it is often claimed that such predictions cannot be found, advocates fail to demonstrate clearly that the predictions in question were definitely made before the events they were supposed to predict. Quite often, the alleged “prediction” is grossly ambiguous, applicable to a wide range of possible events.
And there is always the problem that “true” predictions can be retained in the records while “false” predictions can simply be deleted — and prophets with poor track records are just forgotten. If the only prophets and prophecies which have survived are the vaguely successful ones while all the poor ones were simply forgotten, what kind of argument is that for the supernatural origin of scriptures?
As to the idea that some set of scriptures are more “perfect” than is possible without divine aid... well, that is at best a matter of personal interpretation. It certainly cannot be empirically argued that a written work is beyond human capability to produce, and it has not been demonstrated that any set of scriptures from any religion is error-free.
One final version of the Argument from Scriptures which might appear is the idea that all of the holy books from all the major religions agree on substantial, important points. It isn’t the minor details that matter, but the big issues, like the existence of a creator-god. Since they agree, it is more likely that they are accurate on these points of agreement than that they are not.
The factual premise that all the holy books of the major religions agree is doubtful at best. There is certainly good reason to say that it is false — for example, the holy writings of Buddhist and Jains don’t even appear to share with other major religions the basic premise that there is a god. If there is no agreement on that issue, then other points of possible agreement are not nearly so interesting or persuasive.
But even if it were true that the holy books all agreed on major points, that would not by itself be reason to think that they were also accurate on those points. As with the Argument from Consensus, truth is not determined by majority vote. The mere existence of agreement does not automatically confer any higher degree of accuracy.
