Definition
Scripture is the body of written texts that a religious tradition regards as sacred and authoritative. Examples include the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Quran, and the Vedas. Within each tradition, scripture carries a status no ordinary book holds.
What "authoritative" means varies widely. Some communities treat scripture as the literal word of a deity; others see it as divinely inspired but humanly mediated; others as a record of a community's evolving encounter with the sacred.
Why it matters
How it works
Religious traditions surround their scriptures with methods of interpretation — commentary, scholarship, oral tradition, and accumulated reasoning. These tools mediate between an ancient text and present-day life, and they explain why a single scripture can support a wide range of readings.
Dawkins focuses on the gap between ancient texts and modern moral intuitions, arguing that readers inevitably filter scripture through values formed elsewhere. Traditions reply that interpretation is not a betrayal of scripture but the normal and intended way of engaging it.