A Historical List of Ancient Texts That Predate The Bible

It is widely believed by people of faith that the bible is the authentic word of God and that it’s the oldest book in the world. As a former believer, I myself used to share this perspective as well. But when I began to step away from my religious bias and to seek out the facts for myself, I discovered this not to be true.

During my hundreds of hours of research into world history, I learned that there were thousands of ancient writings and books that predated the bible and the history inside the bible. Not only that, but I discovered that many of the events and teachings within the bible actually come from the writings of ancient cultures that predated the bible. In other words, the bible is plagiarized.

I mentioned this before in my previous article, which led to many questions from readers. One of the main questions that I’ve been receiving is “What resources have I read or used to led me to come to this conclusion? Well, there are many books and documentaries that I used in my research, but my main sources have been reading the religious texts of ancient cultures. Since many folks may have not heard of these texts before, I decided to create a short list of them, so that you can look them up for yourself.

Below you will find a short timeline of the ancient cultural texts that historically predated the bible; most of which were used to create the bible.

Ancient Cultural & Spiritual Texts

• The Emerald Tablets of Tehuti, (36,000 B.C.)
  The oldest known writing in human history, written by the ancient Egyptian philosopher and scribe, Tehuti, known today as Thoth or Hermes. This book is known by scholars and thought leaders as the foundation of ancient wisdom; and many biblical themes come from this text.
• The Pyramid Texts, (3000 B.C.)
  A collection of ancient Egyptian spiritual texts from the walls and tombs in the pyramids of ancient Egypt, that formed the basis for many of the bible-based religions around the world today.
• The Sumerian Texts, (2500 B.C.)
  A collection of thousands of ancient Sumerian writings on stone tablets; depicting their culture and creation story of humanity and being ruled by the fallen Gods of Heaven. Their oldest known writings are the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh Temple Hymn; which both have themes that show up in biblical books such as Enoch and Daniel.
• The Coffin Texts, (2400 B.C.)
  A collection of ancient Egyptian spiritual texts found in the coffins of ancient Egypt; consisting of incantations and spiritual formulas to help the decease navigate through the afterlife; and to prepare for the judgement day of the dead. This is where the biblical concept of end-time judgement derives from.
• The Ebla Tablets, (2300 BC.)
  A collection of over 18,000 tablets of from the ancient city of Ebla, Syria. Written in Sumerian script, these tablets include the first know reference of the ancient Canaanites and their deity, Yah.
• The Hammurabi Code, (2250 BC)
  An 8-foot stone tablet featuring the a set of over 200 written laws for human conduct among the citizens of Ancient Babylon. Many of these laws run parallel to the laws for the Israelites in the torah.
• The Babylonian Ark Tablet, (2000 B.C.)
  A stone tablet from ancient Babylon, detailing a Great Flood that hit the earth, and a man on an ark who survived it. This is said to be oldest known story of the flood.
• The Sumerian tablets of Nippur, (1700. B.C.)
  A stone tablet from the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur, featuring the creation of humanity and their culture’s flood story.
• The Atra-Hasis, (1650 B.C.)
  An ancient account of Akadian/Babylonian culture, written in Akandian language on clay tablets; which includes a story about a Great Flood and a man who survives it on a coracle boat. According to an old Zondervan Study Bible book, the Atra-hasis was used as the basis for creating Genesis, chapters 1-9.
• The Book of Coming Forth By Day, (1500 B.C.)
  A collection of ancient Egyptian writings that guides the dead into the light for the next life, and includes previous Egyptian writings such as The Pyramid texts and the Coffin texts. This text also includes the 42 laws of Ma’at, which is where the biblical commandments derived from.
• The Amarna Letters, (1350 B.C.)
  A collection of hundreds of clay tablets written primarily by Canaanite scribes detailing the politics and social relations with the Egyptian rulers of Ancient Canaan. These writings mention the African Haburu people (the modern day Kiyuku tribe of Kenya) conquering the land of Canaan and provides the foundation for what became the book of Joshua.
• The Nubian Tablets of Kush, (1300 B.C.)
  A collection of Nubian tablets from the ancient Kingdom of Kush, that feature funerary writings similar to the ancient Egyptians; including the honor of the Goddess Ma’at.
• The Wisdom of Amenemope, (1075 B.C.)
  A series of wisdom texts from the Egyptian sage Amenemope that reveal the wisdom of Ancient Egypt and used as the basis for the book of Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon.
• The Babylonian Theodicy, (1000 BC)
  A poem written in Ancient Babylon on clay tablets, which is a from a collection of other Babylonian writings, and was allegedly reworked and used to create the book of Job.
• The Dead Sea Scrolls, (250 B.C.)
  A collection of over 800 Hebrew scrolls about the life, culture, and scriptures of the Essene Priesthood, which features the Old Testament scriptures and lost books such as Enoch.
• The Septuagint Old Testament, (132 B.C.)
  The first ever published collection of the Old Testament, occurring in Alexandria Egypt when both Egypt and the Hebrews were under the rule of the Greeks.
• The Gospel of The Nazarenes, (100 A.D.)
  An account of the testimony of Jesus from the Nazarene priesthood, and is the source from which the biblical gospels derived from. This gospel has a few different versions; but the original copies have been destroyed or hidden.
• The Gospel of The Egyptians, (150 A.D.)
  An account of the testimony of Jesus from the Hellenized Egyptian perspective, and one of the first known gospels to be mentioned by church writers during the 2nd century. This gospel no longer exists.
• The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, (200 A.D.)
  A collection of early christian writings found in Egypt that were circulating during the 2nd and 3rd centuries prior to the invention of Christianity. This collection is also known as the Gnosis Gospels.
• The Jerusalem Talmud, (300 A.D.)
  A collection of Jewish commentary and wisdom concerning the oral history and laws of the biblical Jews. This the first Talmud ever published and it’s the foundation for the religion of Judaism.
• The Codex Vaticanus, (367 A.D.)
  The first ever canonization of biblical manuscripts. It was written in Egypt using the Greek language and is the foundation for all subsequent translations, such as the Latin Vulgate.
• The Birmingham Quran, (645 A.D.)
  A collection of Muslim writings from the Arabian prophet Muhammad, detailing the oral history and culture of the Hebrews from an Arab perspective. This book is now called the Koran and the foundation of the Islam religion.
• The Wycliffe Bible, (1384 A.D.)
  The first complete bible to ever be published and made available to be read by the public. This bible was originally handwritten in Old English by John Wycliffe and had 80 books in it; and is the foundation of all modern bibles.

Conclusion

As you can see from the list above, the bible came about very late in the game. The dates mentioned above may not be 100% accurate, but they are the best estimate of dates that I could find for all of these texts. And the bible is no doubt, the newest religious book to hit the scene, not coming into existence until the 14th century.

Its also quite interesting how most of the biblical narratives and teachings can be found in many cultures’ texts that pre-date the bible. In fact, much of the bible was written in Egypt; and many of the ancient Egyptian concepts are found within the bible. Facts such as these are too revealing to be just a coincidence.

Despite it’s origins, the bible still provides some very good moral guidance. But if you’re going to read it or live by it; I think it’s at least good to know where the book comes from. And I hope the info above helps you in your research. Peace & Love!