posted
I've had a project for a long time to read the scriptures of every religion on earth, starting with the major religions, and working my way through. A problem with this is there seems to be no definitive list of the religious scriptures of the world. I wonder if Hatrack can help me out with making the list more complete, or even with links? These are the ones I have so far.
Christian, LDS: Bible (Catholics and Protestants have different versions of the Bible including a few different books, is that right?) Book of Mormon Doctrine and Covenants Pearl of Great Price
Jewish: Bible including Torah Torah includes: Written Torah or TaNaKh (Nevi'm plus Ketuvim such as Psalms, Song of Solomo, Megillas) Oral Torah (Mishna and Gemara)
Islamic: Qur'an Hadith
Bahai:
Hindu: Bhagavad Gita Upanishads Rig Veda There seem to be lots more of these.
Buddhist: I've read lots of Zen koans and commentary, which I guess sort of serves the same purpose. Do Buddhists have scriptures? I've read books of the sayings of Guatama.
Taoist: Tao Te Ching
Shinto:
Jainist: ?
Sikh: The Granth
Confucianist: Analects of Confucious
Egyptian Book of the Dead
Modern Candidates for Canonization as Scripture: Roger Zelazny's Lord of the Light J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
posted
The Megillah is a Jewish scripture. Not sure if it's the kind of thing you're looking for though.
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posted
Sikhs read the Granth, also called the Guru Granth, as it is seen to take the same place of authority that the original leaders of Sikhism, called Gurus, occupied.
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I have to go work now but I will incorporate new stuff into the list tonight. I will add links, too, where I can.
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There's the Urantia Book , but be careful; it's twisted.
There's an English translation of the book of Jasher, which I've quite enjoyed. Interesting versions of the Tower of Babel story and the Cain and Abel story.
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One of the closest thing to a scripture Shinto has is the Nihongi, sometimes called the Nihon Shoki.
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From what I understand, the Book of Jasher that is extand is a pseudopigrapha, and is NOT the Book of Jasher as mentioned in the OT.
The Book of Enoch we have, while stil being considered pseudopigrapha, is the one that was referenced by Jude in the NT. Now That is a fascinating read. Killer Giant vampire-esque Angel-Human spawn running amok. Gotta love it.
posted
For Islam you will want to find a collection of Hadith (sayings of Mohammed.) I'm also not sure if the five pillars of Islam is actually mentioned in the Koran anywhere, but they are pretty important.
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posted
To clarify, the Jewish scriptures are composed of the Written Torah (or TaNaKh) -- the Torah (Five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings) which include such things as Psalms, SofS, and the five Megillot (Megillas); and the Oral Torah, which was written lest it be lost, and became the Talmud (the Mishna and the Gemara). Unless you are fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic, you will have to read translations. Good translations are not that easy to find, especially of the Gemara.
Additionally, it is worth noting that traditional Jews do not believe that study (of new material, rather than review) should take place alone (at least not primarily), but with a teacher, learning partner, or group. There is so much nuance that no written work can ever contain.
A site with many religious texts is here. If their page of Jewish stuff is any guide, they have some decent stuff, some mislabeled stuff, and some nonsense.
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right! that's the picture that jumped into my head on reading your first post, then I wondered "where are the other connections?" They've gotta be there. No human culture sprang out of the ground independently.
buddhism had it's offshoots. shinto seems like it might be analogous to christianity meets pagan folklore in the west.
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Hinduism has an enormous canon of scripture, including the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Mahabarta, Ramayana (which includes the Baghavad Gita), and the Puranas. There are probably more that I don't know about. This is just from the notes for my gospel and world religions class.
I believe the primary Buddhist scripture is called the Tripitaka, though I believe there's much more on top of that.
I believe Confucius had other works besides the Analects, including the Chung Yung, Ta Hsueh, and Meng Tzu (don't ask me what those mean or what they are).
I don't know about the Jains. I missed that day, and the material wasn't on the test, so I didn't get it.
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What are the origins of Judaism in terms of historicla evidence? I have some ancient egyptian archaeology coursework under my belt, but dim recollections regarding the origin of hebrew.
jon boy, do you remember time frames for any of the texts you refer to?
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I believe the Pentateuch dates to about 1250 B.C., but other than that, I don't know.
I don't have specific dates for any books, but I do have the dates of their authors. This is straight from my textbook.
Taoism, Lao Tzu (604–?) and the Tao Te Ching
Jainism, Vardhamana Mahavira (599–527) and the Angas
Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama (563–483) and the Tripitaka
Confucianism, Confucius (551–479) and the Analects
It says that the Vedas date to around 1500 B.C. CalvinMaker mentioned the Zoroastrian scripture, called the Avesta, which dates to around 1000 B.C.
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posted
For Catholics, there is the regualr Bible, as well as the Deuteronicals, which in a true "Catholic" Bible are integrated right in among the other books.
Along with the canon of scripture, both the teachings of the Magisterium and Tradition are authoritative. The two dogmatic statements of the popes (Papal Infallibility) are also authoritative - the immaculate conception and I can't remember the other statement.
Any Catholic who feels like correcting me please go right ahead, as I'm a bit rusty and my brian just froze up.
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You may want to list the ones that are regarded as such by the RC Church, because there are additional books in Apocrypha collections that have NOT been officially canonized (1 and 2 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, etc.)
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I guess I would be first thinking about arrivals of new folks to the Indian subcontinent, any corresponding dates (ballpark) for texts and what happened to be going on over in the middle east.
probably not a lot of historical data. certainly none that I've been exposed to.
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Jon Boy, The Bhagavad Gita isn't part of the Ramayana. It's framed as happening during the events of the Ramayana, but it's not the same thing at all. There is a big difference between the two works.
aka, I'm not sure what you're goal is for this, but if it's to understand other people's thinking, I'd suggest not diving straight into most other cultures sacred texts without some sort of explanatory preparartion. I've found that you get a much better understanding of them that way. It's completely up to you, but I found Mircia Eliade to be a great resource in comparative religions. Also, I'd highly recommend Joseph's Cambpell's four volume series on comparative mythologies called The Masks of God (I hate that people only ever think about his Hero With a Thousand Faces book).
As for a listing, I'f like to add a few books.
In Taoism: The Book of Chuang Tzu-a somewhat different flavor of Taoism from the TTC and just a funny book The Book of Lieh Tzu-a manual for leadership, sort of a strange concept from the standpoint of earlier Taoist writings, but there you go T'ai-Shang Kan-Ying P'ien-a treatsie on morals, an even stranger concept considering earlier writings
In Confucianism- You can't study Confucius without studying the "Second Sage" Mencius. The book I have on his writings is just called Mencius. I'm not sure if there are other books.
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