Holy book

A dime a dozen
Scriptures

Divine scribblings

* Book of Mormon
* Dianetics
* Talmud
* Torah
* New Testament
* Tao Te Ching
* Kutub al-Sittah
* Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
* Oahspe
* A Course in Miracles
* Pearl of Great Price
* Bible

v \- t \- e

“”SCRIPTURES, noun; The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

“”What I’m saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job.

—Carl Sagan, Contact[1]

“”Why should one think that God performed the miracle of inspiring the words of the Bible, if he didn't perform the miracle of preserving the words of the Bible?

—Bart Ehrman[2]

A holy book is a text sacred to a particular religion. Not to be confused with a holey book, a book that has been eaten by worms, though there is some overlap between the two categories.

## Notable holy books[edit]

In order of approximate publication dates:

* The Vedas (~1500 BCE)[3]
* The Upanishads (primary texts written during 8th-6th Century BCE, but several minor texts produced as late as the 1500s.)[4]
* The Avesta (Zoroastrianism, compiled between 600-300 BCE)
* The Torah (compiled between 600-400 BCE from scrolls dating back to 1200 BCE)[5] Or maybe a much later date…[6]
* The Tao Te Ching (6th century BCE)[7]
* The Mozi (Mohism, c. 5th century BCE)
* The Tripitaka (Buddhism, compiled c. 1st century BCE)
* The Bible (compiled from books written between 1200 BCE and 150-200 CE)[8] (Incorporates the Torah, q.v. above.)
* The Seven Treatises of Manichaeism (3rd century CE)
* The Qur'an (roughly 650 CE)[9]
* Bardo Thodol/Tibetan Book of the Dead (14th century/1927)
* The Guru Granth Sahib of Sikhism
* Calculus textbooks (17th century)[10]
* The Book of Mormon (19th century)[11]
* The Aqdas (19th century)
* The Ofudesaki, Mikagura-uta, and Osashizu (Tenrikyo, 19th to early 20th centuries)
* The Canonical Codes (Cao Dai, 1920s)
* Dianetics (20th century)[12]
* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (20th century)[13]
* The Principia Discordia (20th century)[14]
* The Book of the SubGenius, Revelation X, and the Bobliographon (20th and 21st centuries)
* The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (21st century)

## See also[edit]

* Holy
* The Sacred and the Profane

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Contact: A Novel by Carl Sagan (1985) Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0671434004. Chapter 10 (p. 164)
2. ↑ Heyns Lecture Series, April 25, 2007
3. ↑ Internet Sacred Text Archives: Hindusim — The Vedas
4. ↑ Internet Sacred Text Archive: The Upanishads
5. ↑ The Hebrew Bible in English
6. ↑ This discusses some of the issues.
7. ↑ Encyclopedia Britannica: Lao-tzu
8. ↑ BibleGateway.com
9. ↑ Mr. Mohammed, Esq.
10. ↑ See Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, as in "simultaneously and independently", as they say in College Bowls.
11. ↑ Joseph Smith
12. ↑ L. Ron Hubbard
13. ↑ The honourable Douglas Adams
14. ↑ The Wholey Booque of Discordians Everywhere