When God Speaks: The Bible, the Qur'an, and the Book of Mormon
What happens when a god speaks to his believers? In the past, various people have claimed to have spoken directly or indirectly with the supreme being, and there are various books that supposedly contain the word of a god. How can these intermediaries convince their fellow human beings of the authenticity of the divine message and how is the sacred text passed on, preserved and used again and again in different circumstances? Geert Lernout investigates how four different religions deal with their sacred books, where the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon come from and how believers read the texts today and read them yesterday. A fundamentalist reading of the Bible and the Koran determines world politics today and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) is the fastest growing. We cannot afford to ignore the problem of speaking gods.