A text becomes scripture for a community through how it is handled, not through any feature visible on the page. The practices that confer the status are remarkably consistent.
It is read on a schedule rather than at will
Scriptural texts are typically read according to a fixed cycle, in appointed portions, at appointed times, rather than whenever a reader chooses to open them.
Scheduling means the community encounters the whole text over time, including passages nobody would select, which shapes collective familiarity in a distinctive way.
It also means the same passage arrives at different points in different people's lives, which is part of how such texts accumulate personal significance.
It is recited aloud in company
Public reading gives the text a physical and social presence, and many traditions treat the spoken form as primary with the written copy as a record of it.
Sound conventions develop around this: cantillation, recitation rules, chant tones and prescribed pace, which mark the reading as different from ordinary speech.
Those conventions also transmit the text accurately, since a fixed melodic pattern makes deviations noticeable to everyone present.
It is treated as inexhaustible
Communities return to the same passages indefinitely on the assumption that more remains to be found, which is not how other texts are read.
That assumption generates commentary, and the commentary generates further commentary, producing the interpretive layers characteristic of scriptural traditions.
It also produces techniques of reading, including attention to word choice, order and even the shape of letters in some traditions.
The physical copy is handled deliberately
Rules about storage, cleanliness, carrying, opening and disposal are common, and they mark the object as belonging to a category apart from other books.
The specific customs differ widely between traditions and are not interchangeable, which visitors are usually asked to observe rather than to interpret.
These practices are learned early and are often what a child notices first, well before the content of the text is understood.
The boundary of the collection is defended
Communities generally have a settled view of what belongs and what does not, and processes by which that boundary was established and is maintained.
Texts excluded from the collection may still be valued and read, which shows the boundary is about status and use rather than about worth.
Where communities disagree about the boundary, the disagreement is substantial precisely because these practices follow the line wherever it is drawn.