Bahá'í Library Online . . . . >>   Encyclopedia articles   by
Robert Stockman  In both the field of comparative religion and
in Bahá’í Studies, scripture is not a simple term to define.
From a sociological point of view, a text becomes scripture when
a group of people begin to treat it as such, by venerating it
and viewing its authority as superhuman. Perhaps the classical
Islamic definition of scripture–that it consists of the Word of
God, as revealed through Muhammad and preserved in the Qur’án–is
the simplest and clearest definition one can find; yet even in
Islam the words of Muhammad Himself—the hadíth or traditions–are
highly respected and venerated, and sometimes are treated by
Muslims de facto as scripture. Furthermore, for many Shí’ih
Muslims, the words of the imáms are authoritative supplements to
the Qur’án.           While Christianity and Judaism both
possess sacred books–the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh for the Jews,
the Old and New Testaments for the Christians–in neither
tradition was the content of