Many
religions and spiritual movements hold certain texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. Believing that their
sacred texts are wholly divine or partially inspired in origin, the faithful use titles like
Word of God to denote the holy writtings. Although ancient civilizations have produced handmade texts for many millenniums, the first printed scripture for wide distribution for the masses was the The
Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, printed in 868 AD.
Sacred texts for various religions and religious sects:
- Buddhism: The Tipitaka, and sutras[?]
- Christianity: The Christian Bible
- Church of Christ, Scientist: The Christian Bible, Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures[?]
- Confucianism: The Analects of Confucius[?]
- Finnish mythology: Kalevala
- Hawaiian mythology: Kumulipo
- Hinduism: Vedas (Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda Atharvaveda, Upanishads), Mahabharat (esp. Bhagavad Gita), Ramayana are common to most Hindus; other scripture varies by sect
- Islam: The Koran
- Judaism: The Jewish Bible (Tanach), the Talmud, the Torah
- Mormonism: The Christian Bible, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants
- Maori mythology: The Wharewananga[?]
- Neopaganism: The Charge of the Goddess
- Norse mythology: The Eddas
- Rastafarianism - Holy Piby[?] translation of the Christian Bible, Kebra Negast[?]
- Sikhism: The Guru Granth Sahib[?]
- Taoism: The Tao-te-ching
- Welsh mythology[?]: The Mabinogion
- Yoruba mythology: The itan[?]
- Zoroastrianism: The Zend-Avesta[?]
- Various New Age religions may consider any of the several texts to be sacred: