A challenging question when you examine it foundationally. One has to agree on just what a god is, and also what is or is not 'documentary.'
The evidence that best lends itself to abstraction is based in an understanding of the area of applied mathematics known as "probability and statistics." Back in the mid 90's Michael Drosnan, an unbeliever of Jewish descent, wrote an assuming and self indulgant book entitled "The Bible Code." Much of the book was downright silly, such as attempting to predict the future by information extracted from equidistant letter sequences found in the Masoretic text. The value of the book in a real-world sense is it's explanation of the mechanics of equidistant letter sequences themselves, rather than his 'messages.'
Many jumped on this phenomenon from both sides of the aisle. Hebrew scholars produced many coherent sentences, many of which repeated 3 or more times in succession, while others claimed to have 'debunked' the phenomenon by finding similar 'codes' in other hebrew texts. Since the publication of the original book, much genuine study has progressed, and a recent book, "The Bible Code Bombshell," presents presents powerful statistical evidence, consisting of long, coherent ELS sentences, pertinant to the topic of the surface text wherein they are contained. While some short ELS sentences can be found in some other hebrew texts, they lact the surface text pertinance, and also fail the statistical probability tests that many of the biblical ELS sentences pass with flying colors. To get a proper understanding of the issues, one must read the book, but the evidence is conclusive: The Bible had to have been written by an entity that had full control of the formation of language itself, and accurate knowledge of the future.
Does that entity fit your definition of "God?" You can lead a horse to water...
And if you run the stylus backwards over a vinyl copy of the Beatles' Abbey Road album, you discover that Paul McCartney is dead.
My friend, believe as you will--and I will defend to the utmost your right to believe it. But on this particular creed you are setting forth...sorry, this horse ain't that thirsty.
But always (I hope), cordially.
Thanks for the reply. There are many, many problems with Mr. Sherman's book, the execution of his idea, ELS, and "holy book codes" themselves. (For example, there is a "Koran code" that purports to do exactly what you claim for the Bible: proof its validity through the detection of coding.)
But, even putting that aside, improbability is not proof of the existence of a God, but of improbability. The computation of a statistic includes many, many variables, many of which are assumed. But more to the point, even something that is exceedingly unlikely (even to the order of 1 in 1x10^100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) CAN occur without the existence of a God.
But thank you for your reply. I don't think "Bible codes" fits the bill of "non-documentary evidence", but I respect your right to hold that opinion.
What about the other questions? (Let me repeat them:)
Second, what non-documentary evidence do you have that, if there is a God, that it is Yahweh/Jehovah and not, for example, Vishnu or Oden?Third, what evidence do you have that the Muslim interpretation of things, in which the Koran was given to the Jews and Christians who then perverted it into the current forms of those religions, is false (assuming that you do, in fact, believe it to be false)?
Fourth, on your believe in the Bible; if the Bible said something that you knew, from non-biblical sources, for an absolute fact was not true, would you believe the Bible? For example, if the Bible said "all cats reproduce by laying eggs out of which kittens hatch," would you believe cats lay eggs or would you conclude that the text is wrong and believe what you know to be the truth?
Ah. The Bible Code. ID in action.