Expert: Griff Ruby - 8/25/2009

Question
QUESTION: Are there any known religion based texts prior to the bible?

ANSWER: Portions of the Bible appear to extend to the earliest days of Mankind as we know him today.  Genesis, the so-called first book of Moses, is actually a collection of earlier works written long before Moses, but (presumably) assembled and edited into a single cohesive account by him or under his guidance.  How far back any of these further texts go as actual written accounts (having possibly survived for some equally unknown period as oral tradition) there is no clear way of telling.  There really are however no compelling scholastic reasons why these earlier documents assembled could not have been written contemporaneously with the events portrayed therein, though somehow one doesn't picture Adam and Eve having pencils and paper in the Garden of Eden.  But since that time, who's to say that Enoch, Noah, and possibly even Cain and Abel could not have been written during their lifetimes?  Of course all that is speculation and all of these accounts could have existed in oral form only for generations or more, no one knows.
There is however one rather curious fact that I have come across.  Of all the various religions and "religions" in the world, there are really only four categories.  One category, plainly out of sync with all others, is the Judeo-Christian basis (and those things that sprung from it such as Talmudic Judaism, Samaritanism, gnosticism, Arianism, Islam, Bahaism, Mormonism and even many modern cults).  The least interesting category would have to be those which came about within the past couple centuries or so, and which will probably disappear in the next couple centuries or so.  The next category are those which are undatably ancient; they seem to have been the religion of their lands since long before people began writing (Hinduism, Shintoism, Chinese Ancestor worship), finally (and this is most intriguing of all) come those born within a 70 year period in about the sixth century BC, even in many different parts of the world and with apparently unrelated backgrounds (Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism).  Why so many should date from that particular period of time, regardless of being from altogether different parts of the world truly escapes me.  Theoretically, all of their founders could have met each other, all being contemporaries, and yet to my knowledge only Confucius and Lao-Tse (founder of Taoism) are known to have actually met.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: To be more specific with my question, I have heard talk of a book that dates before biblical times in which mother nature is presumed to be our "god". It was told to me that mother nature created a son.Then, he became lonely, so she created mankind. I would like to know if this text really exists, what it is called, and where to find it. Curiosity always gets the best of me.

Answer
I regret to inform you that I am not aware of any such book, certainly as anything "published."  I know there are those who claim that the Epic of Gilgamesh is older than the Bible, but that may only relate as to surviving copies and not actual original writing time for all I know, and at any rate that does not seem to be the sort of volume you describe.
It sounds like something some New Age channeler might come up with that has no basis in reality at all.