How exactly were the holy books inspired?

Arguably, the most important book in the life of a religious person is the sacred/Holy book. This is supposedly the biddings of a deity passed down through his chosen messengers to adherents of the particular faith. It is thus not unusual to hear statements that back up people’s beliefs such as ‘my bible tells me’ or ‘the Quran says. For such a believer, whatever the holy book says is fact. And cannot be questioned. Although most believers will agree that the book was written by men, they would insist that these men were inspired by God and thus the book contains the words of God and should be treated as though it were written by God. This usually ends the argument, but we should endeavor to go a step further and ask these people, what do you mean by ‘inspired by God’?

When we say inspired in the casual sense, what do we mean? The Cambridge dictionary defines inspire as: 

1. to make someone feel that they want to do something and can do it:
2. to make someone have a particular strong feeling or reaction:
3. to give someone an idea for a book, film, product, etc.

Of course, if we substitute these meanings for inspired into ‘God inspired the Bible’. Then it trivializes the concept of an infallible book written by men(conveying the pure thoughts of God). For example, if we say that God inspired the writers of the Bible by ‘making them feel that they want to do something(write the book) and can do it’(from the first definition of inspire). Then it means that this is God’s only contribution to the book. It is the same thing as saying that my wife inspired me to write a book, (by encouraging me). That in no way says that everything in that book(The plot, the characters, the very words) are my wife’s ideas. the same thing happens if we use the second and third examples. That is to say that my wife made me have a particular strong feeling or reaction to write a book, or that my wife gave me an idea for a book. Perhaps the later usage reaches closer to the type of inspiration we anticipate for the Bible. God gave the writers of the Bible an idea, to write the books. ‘Write about your interactions with me, and the rules I have given you, and call it the bible’. this seems fair enough. but then there are troubles with this view of inspiration. For example, it means that the particular words that the writers use(which a lot of christians are big on, insisting that the original greek wordings of a passage are God's own very words), and the particular stories that the writers choose to tell us about, are their own decisions. Even more, how does this work when a huge part of the Bible is about events and activities that the writers weren’t even part of? How did God inspire moses to write about the creation, if he wasn’t even there in the first place?

Since the standard definition of inspire does not satisfactorily explain the inspiration of the Bible, then we could get a special definition of inspiration strictly to be used in terms of sacred-text-writing. Maybe a fourth definition. So what kind of inspiration is this and what does it mean. how exactly does it work? there are certain aspects of the Bible that we know how exactly God inspired people. A good example is through dreams. God visited joseph, Jacob and numerous others in dreams to pass messages. Infact, the book of revelations is John writing down his dream. So this is one way that God inspired people. the Ten Commandments, were written by the finger of God. Also the handwriting on the wall. These texts are therefore passed down to believers directly from God. is the rest of the Bible ‘inspired’ like this? ofcourse not. so how then?

My favorite idea of inspiration for the holy books, is from the TV show Heroes. Where an artist, Isaac, paints the future by doing drugs and losing consciousness, then his body unconsciously paints the future. And his paintings are considered ‘sacred’ throughout the show. Is there a religious version of this? Where God possesses a writer of the Bible, and he writes unconsciously, God’s very words? Or One can imagine God dictating the words of the Bible to the writers (it is actually a long-standing jewish belief that the first five books of the Bible were dictated to moses by God). Corny, but it’s viable. Did God sit the writers down and say word for word what they should write? If either of these were the case, then the Bible is truly the word of God. however it is generally agreed by bible scholars that each author of the Bible has a particular style of writing, which does not agree with God dictating and the writer putting it down verbatim. Or did God show the writers, each and everyone a vision(we already know that John was shown a vision for the book of revelations), and then they wrote what they saw? If this is the case, then there is still a problem. What about the writers who wrote about parts that they were involved in? What about mark writing about the events of Jesus. Or Paul writing to the corinthians? How did God inspire him to write a letter to them? Ofcourse there would be no need for a dream or a vision to write this. But then how does God curate what he has written? A simple solution to this problem would be that, for events which the writer was a part of, then as a servant of God, he wouldn’t need any inspiration. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, He can ‘Godfully’ write and it will be in accordance with God’s wills. Ofcourse there is yet a problem with this view, because first of all, what makes the letter to the corinthians then, any more sacred than say, ‘Rhapsody of realities(‘both are written by servants of God, to congregations, and with this view of inspiration, being a servant of God means that your words are in line with God’s thinking)? Or any other text/publication written by any other servant of God? Since his writings are in accordance with God’s will all the time. Why even then, is there a selection of inspired sacred books, by the church. Refusing to acknowledge some books (such as bel and the dragon) as inspired, even when other books by the same author are considered inspired?

Since we cannot look for a one cuts all definition of the form of inspiration supposedly used in the Bible. Then we can generously divide this type of inspiration into parts. One form of inspiration for The events written by people who recorded what they saw, this inspiration is that being servants of God, they would be truthful enough to record the events correctly, to the best of their knowledge. Another type of inspiration for the events written by people about things that were far from them, either in distance or in time, this form of inspiration would most likely have been a dream or vision (or possesion if you like) to the writer and then he recorded what he saw. and the third form of inspiration are those written by God himself. (the ten commandments and the handwriting on the wall are all that I can think of actually.) we have already seen the problems with each of these. however, if God could write some things that were so important out by himself, why not just write everything? Not to mention cases where servants of God, including writers of the Bible such as moses, clearly doing something that is contrary to what God has instructed them to do, and getting punished for it. How then can we be sure that every single word that they write, was that which was instructed to them by God? even taking for granted, whatever part of the Bible we are looking at, and whatever type of inspiration was needed for that part, we just have to take the writers words as true that it was inspired(Although the church might refuse, then in that case we refuse too!). We just have to take the words of Paul and co that they were being truthful. And we just have to take the words of moses and John that what they dreamt was not an ordinary dream but one from God and also that they have written it down truthfully.

In conclusion, when people say that their holy book is inspired, they rarely even know what they mean. It is basically an evasive tactic to deny the deeper questions of the origins of the text which is the basis of all their faith. The major problem with this is that a lot of religions are faith based. Your faith is based on the Bible, but your assurance of the bible’s authenticity is based on faith. This does not sit well with any rational observer.