The question in the first person plural - How do WE know the Scriptures are the Word of God? There is a corporate aspect to determining the extent of the Scriptural canon - the list of inspired books. The early Church was infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit through a long and tedious process to discover the extent and limits of the canon of Scripture. As a new Christian I began reading a Bible containing 66 individual books. I did not need to scrutinize and evaluate hundreds of ancient books to determine where I could hear God speaking. Nor do I look now for new additions from modern literature to supplement the collection of inspired books. The process of evaluating and adopting the canon of Scripture is complete. I'm glad that this is the case because as a fallible individual, left to myself, I would likely err in excluding or including some specific writing. The Westminster Confession which lays out the criteria for determining inspiration, also specifies the list of 66 books which the apostolic Church had recognized as God's Word. In the 16th & 17th centuries the big issue was the inspiration of the apocryphal books. The Medieval Church had erred in regarding them as inspired. The Reformation Church rejected their inspiration, as did the Early Church. To conclude, a wonderful and fascinating process took place in the first Christian centuries - The Word of God called the Church into existence and the Church recognized the Word of God.