6. Worst story Old Testament: Judges 19–21 In those days Israel had no king; each one did what seemed right to him (Judges 21:25). This chapter is related to the next one in two ways. Firstly, the stories discussed in them are completely opposite: here we are talking

7. Best Story Old Testament: Messiah The people who walk in darkness will see a great light... For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given... (Isaiah 9:2, 6). As the best Old Testament story, I chose not just one episode, as was the case with the worst, but great theme, which

Biblical history of the old testament

Biblical History of the New Testament This “Manual” is a necessary addition to the previously published similar “Manual of the Biblical History of the Old Testament,” and therefore it is compiled according to exactly the same plan and pursues the same goals. When compiling both

CHAPTER 8 HISTORY OF THE TRANSMISSION OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT For the textual scholar interested in the restoration of the original New Testament text, it is important to study the history of the textual tradition from ancient times to the end of the Middle Ages. Among other things, this means that he

The Bible is an ancient book, composed of texts written long before the beginning of our era, as well as those that appeared immediately after the crucifixion of Christ. However, its antiquity is very doubtful.

If we talk not about individual texts, but about relatively complete copies of the Bible and the oldest ones that have reached us, then the situation looks like this.

The oldest manuscript of the Bible is the Vatican, so called because it was discovered in the Vatican. This happened in the second half of the 15th century, and no one knows where it came from. Next comes the Alexandrian Bible, the history of which can only be traced back to the first half of the 17th century, when it was received as a gift from the Alexandrian Church by the English king Charles I. The Alexandrian period of life of this manuscript is unknown. And, finally, the Sinai manuscript, which “surfaced” only in the 19th century.

The above three handwritten Bibles are considered the oldest, because they were allegedly written in the 4th century. However, there are no reliable facts indicating this. Before the 15th century, their fate cannot be traced, and where and how they were stored for more than a thousand years is a mystery.

Even more interesting is the history of the first printed editions of the Bible.

In the mid-15th century, Johannes Gutenberg (d. 1468) invented the printing press, and the first book to come out of his press was the Bible. Some of its copies, printed by Gutenberg, have survived to this day and are now kept in various museums around the world. Let's see what we know about them.

The oldest book, based on references in sources, is kept in the British Museum. Made from parchment. It came to Great Britain in 1775 from France. It is known that in France it was owned by the collector of ancient books, Girardot de Prefont, who bought it from one of the French collectors. He, in turn, purchased this Bible in 1768 from a monastery in Mainz, which did not hesitate to sell a holy book, and such an ancient one at that. In the monastery, traces of its presence are found in the inventory of 1728, which notes that the Bible was donated to the monastery by a certain Gutenberg Faust. There are no further mentions of this book and nothing is known about its fate before 1728. It is also unknown whether Faust indicated in the inventory and the first printer Johannes Gutenberg are the same person.

There is information that Johann Gutenberg opened a printing house with the money of a certain Johann Faust, with whom they shared the income from the profits. Later they quarreled, had a lawsuit and separated. It’s hard to say how much you can trust Gutenberg’s biography, which describes this - all this happened a long time ago. But now we see that in the papers of the monastery there is someone presented who combines the names belonging to the two aforementioned companions. This fact has given historians grounds to assert that we're talking about about a gift from Johannes Gutenberg himself. But the history of the first printer becomes vague and unreliable.

Portrait of Johannes Gutenberg, made by an unknown artist in the 17th century, that is, one and a half or two centuries after his death.

The next oldest copy of the Gutenberg Bible, a parchment one, is located in one of the libraries in Berlin. It is mentioned in the book "An Essay on the History of the Royal Library in Berlin", published in 1752. What happened to this Bible before this date is unknown.

The third copy has been kept in the Library of Congress in Washington since 1930. This book is also printed on parchment. The German antiquities enthusiast Volbert, who sold it, in turn, four years earlier, bought this Bible from the Abbey of St. Paul in Southern Austria. Before that, it belonged to one of the monasteries built by the Benedictines in southern Germany. In 1809, the monks, fleeing the invasion of Napoleonic troops and taking the Bible with them, fled first to Switzerland and then to Austria. It is assumed that it was Folbert who acquired it, although what happened to it for more than a hundred years up to this point is unknown. As for the storage of this Bible by the Benedictines, the abbot of their monastery, Martin Herbert, mentioned it in 1767. Until this date, its history is not visible.

Another Bible, already printed on paper, is kept in National Library in Paris. In 1763, the book “An Instructive Bibliography or Treatise on the Knowledge of Rare and Exceptional Books” was published. Its author, bibliographer and publisher Guillaume François Debourg, described this Bible by calling it "Mazarin's" because he found it in the library of Cardinal and First Minister of France Mazarin. However, the famous bibliographer Gabriel Naudet, who created the library at the request of Mazarin and was its librarian almost until his death, does not mention the Gutenberg Bible in any of his treatises. So it is not possible to trace the fate of the “Mazarin” Bible before 1763.

The remaining copies of the Gutenberg Bible became known even later. At the moment, their number has grown to almost fifty, but they have no history earlier than the second half of the 18th century, and in many cases even later! The elegant marroquin bindings for a number of copies were made in the same 18th century.

That Bibles printed by Gutenberg appeared so late is not surprising. Considering that in the 18th century there was a sharp increase in interest in antiques, the sale of items of which turned into a profitable business, “finds” of ancient books were quite natural. Moreover, it was not difficult to pass off a modern item as an ancient one back then: art criticism and related technologies designed to distinguish a fake from a real item did not yet exist. What can we say if even in the 20th century it was not possible to cope with the flow of counterfeit products.

Gutenberg's biography is vague, and the history of his Bibles unreliable. In this regard, the traditional dating of the first printed books to the mid-15th century is questionable.

Moreover, in Russian history, the printed Bible appeared almost a century and a half later! Why is there such a lag, because the Russian state was in Europe, and not at the other end globe? For comparison: thirty to forty years after the invention of Gutenberg printing presses worked in many large European cities. And only a century after this, in 1581, the Ostrog Bible of Ivan Fedorov was published. This picture of the spread of new knowledge is implausible and shows the fictionality of Western European history.

Title page of the Gutenberg Bible from the British Museum. Material - paper. The text begins immediately with holy scripture. There is no title page with names and dates.

The Gutenberg Bible is the most expensive book in the world. Recently one of her copies sold for £1,200,000. Naturally, with such a “price of the issue”, no one is interested in the present, that is, the later history of its appearance. The older, the better. And the Bible is obviously no exception here.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever,” wrote the prophet Isaiah.

This is a quote from the Bible, the Book, which is also called the Word of God. According to it, God never left His creation without His word. This word has always been with humanity: in the form of cuneiform on stones, hieroglyphs on papyrus, letters on parchment, and even in the form of the Man Jesus Christ, Who Himself is the Word made flesh. Probably everyone understands why people need the Word of God? Man has always thirsted and thirsts to know "three eternal questions": where we come from, why and where we are going. There is only one truly authoritative answer to them - the answer of the Creator Himself of all that exists, and it is found in the Bible.
At the same time, supporters of other religions are trying to prove that their sacred scriptures are true, because they also explain in their own way the world around us. To confirm their words, they point to the supposedly very ancient age of their books. Although antiquity is not synonymous with truth, it seems to many a convincing argument. The antiquity of pagan books, as well as some similarity of plots, allowed some philosophers to even put forward the hypothesis that the Bible is supposedly secondary in relation to ancient pagan books, and that, supposedly, Biblical Christianity borrowed its religious system from the more ancient pagan religions that preceded it. Moreover, the supporters of this hypothesis are not only atheists, but also people who call themselves Christians. An example is the Orthodox writer Alexander Men, who defended the theory of evolution not only in the development of earthly life, but also in religions. But is the Bible really younger than pagan sacred traditions?

The first book of the Bible is the book of Genesis, and therefore the degree of antiquity of the Bible, and therefore the religion of Christians itself, depends on the determination of its age. If we accept the point of view that the entire Pentateuch was written by Moses, and this dates back to 1600 BC, then, of course, it will be true that the Bible is younger than many Hindu, Babylonian, Egyptian and Tibetan records. However, the authorship of the entire book of Genesis by Moses alone has long been disputed. There was even a version that the authors of the book were 4 people, designated by the letters J, E, D and P. In general, the developers of this version were deeply mistaken, attributing the authorship to some nomads who lived much later than Moses himself.

However, the book of Genesis is mentioned 200 times in the New Testament, but notice that it is never said that the author of any phrase is Moses! In general, the majority modern people, and sometimes even Christians, for some reason thinks that the prophet Moses began to write the Pentateuch only on Mount Sinai, where he also received the Tablets with the 10 Commandments. But that's not true! The first time the command to make a record in a certain Book is in the book of Exodus: “And the Lord said to Moses: Write this for a memorial in a book...” (Ex. 17:14). What preceded this? Having crossed the parted Red Sea on dry land, the Israelites entered the Sinai Peninsula and were attacked by the Amalekites in the area of ​​Rifidim. God gave Israel victory, and this is what the Lord commanded Moses to write down in the Book. Therefore, THE BOOK ALREADY EXISTED!

Who was the author of Genesis? – you ask. In a Christian way, you can immediately answer without hesitation: the Holy Spirit, that is, God Himself, inspired the scribe-prophet to record His words in the Book. Therefore, the only question is who were these first prophets who wrote down the First Book of the Bible.
The Pentateuch, indeed, was all written down by Moses. He was an eyewitness and participant in the events that he described in four books. The events of the book of Genesis tell about what happened long before his birth, including long before anyone else’s birth. The very word "being", conveying Greek word"Genesis" means, by the way, "genealogy", "genealogical record", that is, something clearly related to history, to the past. The Gospel of Matthew begins with this very word: “The Genesis of Jesus Christ...” Therefore, it is logical to assume that Moses simply collected, edited and rewrote what had already been written down by someone before him, accompanying it all with his own comments! Naturally, such work was carried out by him through inspiration from above.
God has never left humanity ignorant of Himself. Man first had direct communication with his Creator in the Garden of Eden, and it is likely that he could speak with God personally after his fall. However, gradually, moving further and further away from God, building his own earthly civilization, sometimes turning to dark forces, Satan, man lost the ability direct communication with the Lord. New generations of children and grandchildren grew up and needed to pass on information about their origins. It was then that the need arose to tell descendants about God and His creation of the world, about the path of salvation from sin and death. In antediluvian times (before the Great Flood), people lived 800-900 years, and this allowed us to limit ourselves at first to oral tradition alone. But in the book of Genesis we read about the development of civilization among the ancient descendants of Cain, about the development of science, music, and poetry among them. Why, in fact, did we decide that they did not have writing? The advantages of writing are its durability, precision of wording, the ability to store, accumulate, compare, view and send over distances in large quantities without the need to memorize. With the development of civilization, it is unthinkable to talk about the absence of writing. There was writing. And so, first one, then another person, then another and another, wrote down what God said and did in their lives, not forgetting to reproduce or save the records of their predecessors. Signatures are usually placed at the end of the letter. In the book of Genesis they are also there, several of them: 2:4, 5:1, 10:1-32, 37:2. These tedious genealogies, which were mocked so much by atheists, are the SIGNATURES of the patriarchs who wrote the Word of God in ancient times!

However, there is no signature in the first (1:1-2:3), clearly finished, passage. And indeed, who could be an eyewitness to the creation of everything that exists: the sky, earth, stars, plants and animals? Who could write the first chapter so accurately and clearly that it has not yet been refuted by any science? Only God Himself! God! Just as the Tablets of the Covenant were inscribed on Mount Sinai “by the hand of the Lord Himself,” so the account of the creation of the world was written by God and then given to Adam. The first chapter is a record of God Himself.

Adam's records speak only of what he himself witnessed. His records end at Genesis 5:1. This, by the way, explains why in the 1st and 2nd chapters in the original God is called differently. In the first passage, God Himself writes about Himself, and in the second narrative, the man Adam writes His name. This also explains the repetition of the events of creation in chapters 1 and 2. Adam, outlining the history of the origin of all living things, including his wife Eve, did not dare to destroy the previous words of God Himself. Two complementary views of creation remain in Scripture. All subsequent scribes and prophets of the Bible did the same - they left records of previous authors word for word, sign for sign. This is how the Word of God was preserved for centuries. The first Bible consisted of only five chapters, but it was already the Bible - the Word of God. It already contained the news of the One who would be born of the “seed of the woman” and bruise the serpent’s head.

Who was the second author of the Bible after Adam? Perhaps it was his son Seth, but it is possible that it was one of his great-grandsons, because Adam himself lived 930 years. However, we know for certain that the last copyist and keeper of the Word of God before the Flood was Noah. He not only preserved the Holy Scriptures inherited from his predecessors, but also turned out to be the first post-flood patriarch to have this Word, because all people were destroyed. From him the Bible, supplemented by the story of the Flood, passed to Shem, from him to Eber, Peleg, and, ultimately, to Abraham. Not all of them wrote anything into the Bible, but they may simply have been the custodians and copyists of the true Word of God, the people responsible for passing the Bible on to the next patriarch. It is likely that some copies of this Bible were distributed throughout the world of that time, preached and copied by everyone. In this regard, the king of Salem Melchizedek, who was at the same time the priest of the true God, to whom the patriarch Abraham brought tithes, is noteworthy. This suggests that people in ancient times who believed in the true God always existed, had true concepts about God, about the creation of the world, and even served Him.

The last signature in Genesis comes before 37:2. Then there is a story about the sons of Jacob, about the resettlement of the Israelis to Egypt, that is, about the history of the emergence of the Israeli people. A book with such content could well have existed among those ancient Jews who were to be led out of Egyptian captivity by Moses.
Moses, as a direct descendant of Abraham (this is again reported by the genealogy), who studied and lived in the court of Pharaoh in complete safety, had and kept these Sacred Records of his ancestors. They, apparently, were scattered, written on papyri or some other short-lived material. It was these that Moses systematized, rewriting and combining them into a single Book, for which he was allotted 40 years of life in the desert, when he was hiding from Pharaoh. This book was later called the FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

After Moses, the Bible passed to Joshua, about whom we read about the assignment to write down in I. Joshua. 1:7-8. Then the Israelite judges, the prophet Samuel, kings and priests also kept and continued to record the Word of God. By the time of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament was known in a Greek translation (called the Septuagint) far beyond the borders of Judea. So the ancient Bible has reached our days absolutely undistorted, which is confirmed by data archaeological finds. For example, ancient Qumran papyri containing records of the books of the Old Testament, found in 1947, confirmed that the text had not undergone any distortion for 2,000 years.

During the coming to earth of God Himself, who became man, Jesus Christ, the authority of the Bible was fully confirmed by Him, and the Bible was given to Christians as the “faithful prophetic Word.” Therefore, to summarize the above, we Christians have every right to claim that we are the heirs and custodians of the Records that originate from the VERY CREATION OF THE WORLD! The Bible is the oldest book in the world, the most unique, harmonious, consistent, internally consistent and the truest!

The writings of people of other religions, alas, are only weak shadows and echoes of this Book. It’s like information from a “broken phone” that has something different at the output than what was at the input. We have already said that the people of antiquity were aware of the true faith in the true God. All nations descended from the same people - Noah and his sons, who had a complete understanding of the true state of things in the world. After the Babylonian Pandemonium, which was a rebellion of the new population of the Earth against God, different peoples were formed and scattered across the planet. Naturally, they lost their common language; they could not or did not want to read the Sacred texts in the original, or perhaps they deliberately refused. Perhaps after finding your national languages and having dispersed, they began to recreate previous Bible stories from memory, coloring them with their own fantasies and plots, supplemented and distorted by subsequent generations. It is also likely that the forces of darkness – the devil – will intervene through his supporters in the clergy. Revelations, dreams and signs inspired by Satan could be added to the true Word of God and thus distort the true face of God's original religion. As a result, what we have today is that all the religious texts of the world in describing some ancient events are often very similar, being in essence either a more or less exact copy of the Original. Of course, some distorted versions of the Original look very beautiful and logical, but still, for the correct resolution of the main issues of life and death, the guidance of only a trustworthy, verified Original - the Christian Bible - is necessary.

Proponents of pagan religions, such as Hindus, say that their scriptures are true because they are the most ancient. For Christians, this, of course, is a weak argument, because Satan, the enemy true faith in God, also a very ancient person, and could well be the author of very ancient, alternative Divine Bible, scriptures. But in fact, it turns out that, indeed, the most ancient Book is also the truest! This is the Bible! But it is true not because it is older than other books, but because it originates from God Himself - the Creator of everything visible and invisible. To know it and live according to it means to go to the true God and to the eternal life given by Him through Jesus Christ!

Gutenberg Bible - Approximate age: 559 years

This book, also known as the 42-line Bible (based on the number of lines on a page), is included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive Bible in the world. It is also considered by many to be the world's first printed book. Actually this is not true. The book created by Gutenberg is one of the first printed editions. It differs from other incunabula in its excellent design quality. Its first copies were printed in 1454-1455. Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany. There are 48 known original copies of the Gutenberg Bible.

Celtic Psalter – 938 years old

Next in the top 10 old books in humanity is a pocket psalter kept at the University of Edinburgh. It is believed to have been created in the 11th century AD. This makes it Scotland's oldest surviving book. It is assumed that the Celtic Psalter was created for a very important person. And the fact that some of the decorations of the book were made in english style"Winchester" may indicate the book's purpose for St. Margaret of Scotland, who descends from the Anglo-Saxon royal family.

Diamond Sutra – 1150 years

This Buddhist sacred text is the second oldest printed book in the world. The Diamond Sutra was discovered in the Mogao Caves in China in the early twentieth century. It contains the sayings of Buddha Shakyamuni, which should be rethought by those who strive to comprehend the path of bodhisattvas. Now one of the oldest books in the world is kept in the British Museum, but is not available to visitors. Light is destructive for her, so we can only look at the photographs posted on the Internet.

Siddur – 1178 years

Discovered in 2013, the ancient Jewish prayer book siddur dates back to approximately 840 AD. This parchment, containing 40 thousand sacred texts, is so old that it contains Babylonian vowels. This allowed experts to attribute the book to the times of the activities of the Gaons (spiritual leaders of the Jewish people) in Babylon.

Book of Kells – 1218 years

The Book of Kells, also known as the Book of Columba, is housed in the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland. It is believed to have been created by Celtic monks around 800 AD. The book is lavishly decorated with colored miniatures and ornaments, and contains the four Gospels in Latin. Due to numerous decorations, the text of the manuscript on some pages is difficult to discern. However, the Book of Kells was hardly intended for reading, but rather for use during worship. And the reader quoted the text itself from memory.

Ushnisha Vijaya Dharani Sutra – 1314 years

In 1966, the Ushnisha Vijaya Dharani sutra was found in the South Korean Buddhist temple of Bulguksa. It was created using woodcut printing and is the earliest example printed book in the world. This scroll was printed between 704 and 751 AD. on Japanese paperwood paper. Block letters The sutra found in Korea compares favorably with the Chinese Diamond Sutra, as does the thin paper.

Cuthbert's Gospel – 1320 years

The oldest book in Europe is the Gospel of St Cuthbert, bought by the British Library in 2012 for £9 million. The book was a gift placed in the tomb of St. Cuthbert, one of the early British Christian leaders. It dates back to around 698 AD. Subsequently, the book, along with the relics of the saint, was transferred to Durham Cathedral so that they would not be destroyed by one of the Viking raids.

Library from Nag Hammadi - 1693

This is one of the oldest libraries in the world. It contains 13 leather papyrus codices that were discovered in 1945 in the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi. Books containing Gnostic texts date from around the first half of the fourth century AD. They are written in Coptic, and presumably copied from a Greek original. The Nag Hammadi codices are currently housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.

Golden tables from Pyrgi - over 2500 years old

Three gold plates were found in 1964 during excavations of a sanctuary in the ancient Etruscan port of Pirgi, Italy. They have holes along the edges, and scientists believe the plates were once connected to each other. Two plates have inscriptions in Etruscan, and one contains text in Phoenician (Punic). The tablets from Pyrga tell that the ruler Tefarius Veliana from the city of Caere brought gifts to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, also known as Ishtar.

Golden Book of the Etruscans – 2678 years

In May 2003, the Bulgarian National Historical Museum in Sofia put on public display an ancient book consisting of six gold pages connected by two gold rings. The plates, measuring 5 by 4.5 cm, contain Orphic text written in Etruscan language, as well as an image of a horse, rider, siren, lyre and soldier. The contents of the book suggest that it was created for the funeral of a noble person who was a member of the cult of Orpheus, which arose in Ancient Greece. The oldest multi-page book in the world dates back approximately to 660 BC. It was donated to the museum by an 87-year-old Bulgarian from Macedonia, who wished to remain anonymous. He discovered the treasure in a grave excavated 60 years ago when he was a soldier working on a canal along the Struma River. According to museum director Bozhidar Dimitrov, the find was confirmed by experts in Sofia and London. The Etruscans were an ancient people who migrated from Lydia (located in modern-day Turkey) and settled in central Italy in the first millennium BC.

Most full version The poem about Gilgamesh was found in the mid-19th century during excavations of the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in ancient Nineveh. The excavations were carried out by the English archaeologist Austin Henry Layard. The epic was written in cuneiform on 12 clay six-column tablets in the Akkadian language and included about 3,000 verses. Scientists date the epic to the VIII - VII centuries BC. e. The tablets with the text of the epic are kept in the British Museum, where they were given by assistant archaeologist Ormuzd Rasam in 1852. Thanks to the legend, we have an idea about the religion of ancient people and their philosophy. The main characters of the epic were the demigod Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk and the clay man Enkidu. The epic's great popularity among modern readers explained by the story of the Flood, which is included in it.

This mystical collection of ancient Egyptian texts includes prayers, chants and spells that were supposed to ease the fate of the deceased in the afterlife. The name “Book of the Dead” was coined by Egyptologist Karl Lepsius, although the collection also has a more accurate title: “Chapters on the Exit to the Light of Day.” It was created from the 6th to the 1st centuries BC. e. Most of the texts were found in the burials of the city of Thebes, where they were written on papyri and decorated with excellent drawings depicting scenes of the burial of the dead and the afterlife judgment. The most significant papyri are kept in the British Museum.

The most ancient book format familiar to us - the Codex Sinaiticus dates back to the 4th century AD. e. The first 43 pages of the codex were found by the German scientist Constantin Tischendorff in 1844 in the library of the Monastery of St. Helena on the Sinai Peninsula. The scientist found them in a pile of waste paper prepared for destruction. He found another 86 pages as a result of targeted searches. Tischendorf took them to Europe and made them public. He wanted to return to the monastery to take out the rest, but the monks did not even let him look at the pages. The situation was saved by Russian Emperor Alexander II, who paid 9 thousand rubles, after which Tischendorf took the pages to Russia. On the thinnest white parchment in Greek was written the incomplete text of the Old Testament, the complete text of the New Testament and two works of early Christian authors: “The Epistle of Barnabas” and “The Shepherd” of Hermas. Until 1933, Codex Sinaiticus was kept in the Imperial National Library in Russia, but the Bolsheviks decided to get rid of it and “gave it” to the British Museum. The 347 pages of this book now have four owners: National Russian library, British Museum, University of Leipzig and St. Helena's Monastery.

Garima Gospels

The two Garima Gospels are kept in Ethiopia, in the monastery of St. Garima, which is located near the city of Adua. Created between 330 and 650. According to legend, Saint Garima copied them according to his vow in one day. The Gospels are written in the sacred written language of ancient Abyssinia, Ge'ez. The gospels were found by British art specialist Beatrice Plane in 1950. But the books ended up in the hands of a barbarian bookbinder, who wove 15th-century pages into one of them. It was only in 2006 that scientists were able to return the books to their original condition and date them. Unfortunately, it was not possible to restore the books, and they remained in the monastery. The Gospels are written in the same manner, but written in different handwritings. The first book has 348 pages and 11 illustrations, the binding is made of boards covered with gilded copper. The second book contains 322 pages, 17 miniatures, including portraits of the four evangelists. The binding is made of silver. Scientists have found that the artist and copyist worked simultaneously, and the illustrations were made by African artists.

Torah

In 2013, an ancient Torah manuscript was found in the university library of Bologna, Italy. It is a 36-meter scroll made of soft sheepskin. Nothing was known about the book due to an error in determining the age of the book, which occurred in 1889. Then the librarian dated book XVII century. The error was discovered by university teacher Mauro Perani. He examined the manuscript and saw that the narrative style belongs to the tradition of ancient Babylon, which means that the parchment may be older. In addition, the text contained details that had been prohibited from reproduction since the 12th century. The age of the Torah was determined using radiocarbon dating twice: in Italy and in. It became clear that the Torah was written more than 850 years ago.

The oldest accurately dated book of Rus'. Stored in the Russian National Library (St. Petersburg). Written in 1056-1057 by Deacon Gregory for the Novgorod mayor Ostromir, a relative of Prince Izyaslav Yaroslavovich. The book is unique in that, after the canonical text, the deacon wrote in detail about the circumstances of its production and indicated the date from the creation of the world. The Gospel was found among the property of the Resurrection Church of the Verkhospassky Cathedral in 1701. By order of Peter I she was sent to St. Petersburg. Rediscovered in the chambers of Empress Catherine after her death and presented to Alexander I. The Emperor handed over the Gospel to the Imperial public library. It was thanks to the Ostromir Gospel that the modern dictionaries and grammar of the Old Church Slavonic language.

If we consider the sheets bound in a notebook on which the text is printed to be a book, then the very first, and therefore ancient, edition can be called “Chikchi”. In 1377, the monks of the Korean monastery of Heungdoksa, using movable metal type, printed selected passages from the Buddha's sermons in two volumes. 80 years later, in 1450, Gutenberg published the Bible.

The Buddhist book of Chikchi is an ancient book. A group of Buddhist monks at the Korean monastery of Hyndoksa created the priceless book Jikchi in 1377, 80 years before Gutenberg printed the Bible. It is now recognized as the world's oldest book printed using movable metal type. This technique allowed Europeans to mass produce books on affordable prices and ended the monopolistic access to the Bible enjoyed by powerful priests in the Middle Ages until the 1450s.

“Gutenberg's invention of movable metal type was extremely important event in Europe, comparable in scale to today’s digital revolution,” said Heinz Dieter Kitsteiner, professor of Europe at the University of Frankfurt. “Many will say that it even contributed to the emergence of the Renaissance. While the Gutenberg Bible helped break down social barriers and led to great upsurge in Europe, "Chikchi" mainly focuses on the teachings of Zen (Korean: Song) Buddhism, which aims to overcome mental anguish and achieve inner freedom."

“The main message is simple: free your mind from social status and suffering and you will find your truth within yourself,” said Song-hae, the chief monk monastic order Joge of Korean Buddhism.

The book "Chikchi", the name of which means "to point in the right direction", was originally published in two volumes, but only the second volume, which is stored in the National Library of France, has survived to this day. It is believed to have been brought to Paris by French diplomat and publisher Colin de Plancy, who came to Korea in 1886 after the two countries entered into a trade agreement.

Bible- the oldest book in the world, Christians believe. They base their claims about the antiquity of the Bible on information from the Bible itself. After all, the first man Adam is recorded there.

The most ancient Russian handwritten books that have reached us date back to the beginning of the 11th century. Although scientists believe that such books could have appeared in Rus' as early as the 9th century. following the invention Slavic writing. According to rough estimates N.K. Nikolsky, who devoted his life to compiling a card index of ancient Russian written publications, the number of handwritten books from the 11th to the 18th centuries. in our storage facilities ranges from 80 to 100 thousand. According to Academician D.S. Likhachev, this calculation is more than modest. Old Russian literature is truly enormous, and today they speak of it as a separate branch of Old Russian art. But we know very little about him...

Ancient Indian Rig Veda. According to the most conservative estimates, it existed from the 2nd millennium BC. It says that the Earth used to have a two-layer atmosphere - the upper sky with water reserves "Svakh" and the air space "Bhuvah" located below it, below which was the Earth "Bhukh" (about the same thing - existence above the air shell, the "firmament of heaven" or “rakaya” of the second, water-steam shell or “water that is above the firmament” - it is also written in “Genesis” of the Old Testament), and it tells about the various inhabitants of the previous Earth, their repeated destruction, the settlement of our planet by space aliens - asuras (daityas and Danavas), as well as how they mapped the near-Earth orbit and the deserted Earth before their appearance (the ancestor of all Danavas, Vaisvanara, “measured the expanses [of the earth], Possessing wonderful fortitude, measured the bright spaces of the sky”).

Revelations in the Book of Enoch (IV-I centuries BC), which was based on the knowledge gained by the biblical patriarch Enoch during his journey to heaven. This book was considered very authoritative both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament era, although it was not canonical for most of the Christian era for the not entirely clear reason for the lack of evidence of its antiquity (more likely due to shockingly improbable information) - at present it is canonical only in the Ethiopian Church.

Chimalpopoco. Quite detailed information about the main stages of the development of the Earth, previous humanity, global disasters and descriptions of the disasters themselves are contained in the ancient Aztec codes of Chimalpopoco ("Legend of the Suns" and "Annals of Cuautitlan"), Florentine, Vatican, Telleriano-Remensis, Rios, Ixtlilxochitl and others, rewritten in Latin during the conquest.

Mesopotamian tablets

Scientists consider Mesopotamian clay tablets with cuneiform writing, on which ancient sages wrote, to be the first books. important information. Each such strong plate was placed in a special storage box - the first known type of binding, which dates back more than 5,000 years.

The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who ruled in the 7th century BC, was the first custodian of such a clay library. His collection included tens of thousands of books on different areas knowledge - mathematics, medicine, geography.

During his reign, there was a serious fire that completely destroyed the splendor of the royal palace, but all the clay books survived. The literary works of thinkers from Assyria and Babylon have survived to this day, whose works are included in the golden fund of world literature.

Thanks for your interest. Rate, comment, share, subscribe.