> 1) Was it written by a prophet of God?
>
> 2) Was he confirmed by an act of God?
>
> 3) Does the writing tell the truth about God?
>

How do you tell if someone is a prophet of God or not, without using the Bible as a source? Or is it if enough independant portions of scripture confirm each other? I'm trying to understand why certain writings are included in the Bible and others are not, and it doesn't quite work if you can use the Bible as a sole reference for deciding it's validity.

> 4) Does it have the power of God?

This point is the most interesting to me. How do you determine if something has the power of God?

>
> 5) Was it accepted by the people of God?

Who are the people of God? Since different sects (is this even the right term?) of Christianity offer different writings as cannon, how can you say which is correct and which is not?

> >Furthermore, how does one determine on an individual level that what you are getting is the authentic word of God?
>
> um.... I guess if it's consistent with biblical teaching. That's really the only way to know for sure, as far as I know

This was sort of a personal question that I phrased poorly. What I want to know is how do you, personally, know that what you consider to be God's word is indeed that? I do think you answered it in the first part of your post...

Stephen