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 "Religious texts,
also known as scripture, are the texts which various religious traditions
consider to be
sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition. Many
religions
and
spiritual movements believe that their sacred texts are
divinely or
supernaturally
inspired.
The oldest known religious texts are
Pyramid texts
of
Ancient Egypt
that date to 2400-2300 BCE. The earliest form of the Phoenician alphabet
found to date is the inscription on the sarcophagus of King
Ahiram
of
Byblos.
( The Sumerian Temple Hymns). The
Epic of Gilgamesh
from
Sumeria
is also one of the earliest literary works dating to 2150-2000 BCE, that
includes various
mythological
figures. The
Rigveda
of
Hinduism
is proposed to have been composed between 1700–1100 BCE making it
possibly the world's oldest religious text still in use. The oldest
portions of the
Zoroastrian
Avesta
are believed to have been transmitted orally for centuries before they
found written form, and although widely differing dates for
Gathic
Avestan
(the language of the oldest texts) have been proposed, scholarly
consensus floats at around 1000 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that
the
Torah's
composition took place over centuries. From the late 19th century there
was a general consensus around the
documentary hypothesis,
which suggests that the five books were created c.450 BCE by combining
four originally independent sources, known as the
Jahwist,
or J (about 900 BCE), the
Elohist,
or E (about 800 BCE), the
Deuteronomist,
or D, (about 600 BCE), and the
Priestly source,
or P (about 500 BC). The first scripture printed for wide distribution
to the masses was
The Diamond Sutra,
a
Buddhist
scripture, and is the earliest recorded example of a dated printed text,
bearing the Chinese calendar date for 11 May 868 CE"
Source:Wikipedia |
