Best-selling religious books of all time It is estimated that between 5 and 7 billion copies of the Bible have been sold. Over 800 million copies of The Holy Quran have been sold worldwide.
The Holy Bible
The texts include historical accounts, hymns, prayers, proverbs, parables, didactic letters, poetry, and prophecies. Believers consider the Bible to be a creation of divine inspiration. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed. Sales estimates for other printed religious texts include at least 800 million copies for the Qur'an and 190 million copies for the Book of Mormon.
'The Talmud is one of the most significant religious texts in the world, second only to the Bible in its importance to Judaism. As the Bible is the word of God, the Talmud applies that word to the lives of its followers.
One of the oldest known religious texts is the Kesh Temple Hymn of ancient Sumer, a set of inscribed clay tablets which scholars typically date around 2600 BCE.
Hinduism has been called the world's oldest religion still practised, though some debate remains.
Best-selling religious books of all time
As of 2015, the Guinness Book of World Records estimated that the Bible is the best-selling religious book of all time and the best-selling book overall. It is estimated that between 5 and 7 billion copies of the Bible have been sold.
The Bible. Easily the most read book in the world is the Bible for obvious reasons. It is estimated to have sold over 40 million copies in the last 60 years. You can even find it at most hotels.
The Bible was written and compiled by many people, whom many scholars say are mostly unknown, from a variety of disparate cultures and backgrounds.
Modern growth. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. In 1990, 1.1 billion people were Muslims, while in 2010, 1.6 billion people were Muslims.
Unlike Judaism, Islam, or Christianity, Buddhism has no single authoritative book; there are multiple Buddhist canons in multiple languages.
There is no single, authoritative text in Hinduism that functions like the Bible for Christians, or the Qur'an for Muslims. Instead, there are several different collections of texts. The Vedas are the oldest Hindu sacred texts, and have the most wide-ranging authority.
US: Harvard University quotes the Quran, with its divine words, which is the final revelation as believed by the Muslims. Allah has selected it as His last and final book. Without any doubt, it came from the Creator of this Universe and guides us on the right path of living.
Knowing that versions written in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament does predate the Quran, scholars recognize the borrowing from Persian, Jewish and Christian texts. Muslims believe the Quran to be direct knowledge from an omnipotent God.
Of course, Jesus was a Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues.
Christianity developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow it are called Christians. Islam developed in the 7th century CE.
The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh dates back nearly 5,000 years and is thought to be perhaps the oldest written tale on the planet. In it, there is an account of the great sage Utnapishtim, who is warned of an imminent flood to be unleashed by wrathful gods.
Judaism, the oldest Abrahamic religion, is based on a strict, exclusive monotheism, finding its origins in the sole veneration of Yahweh, the predecessor to the Abrahamic conception of God. The names of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton (Hebrew: יהוה, romanized: YHWH) and Elohim.
Christianity began in the 1st century after the birth of Jesus as a Judaic sect with Hellenistic influence, in the Roman province of Judea. The disciples of Jesus spread their faith around the Eastern Mediterranean area, despite significant persecution.
The Qur'an is the sacred scripture of Islam, and is believed by Muslims to be God's final revelation to humankind. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel over a period of 22 years, beginning in 610 CE and ending in 632 CE.
Muslims believe that the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, was revealed to Muhammad over a period of twenty-three years, starting with the initial revelation at Mount Hira.
Quranic Arabic is the form of Arabic in which the Quran (the holy book of Islam) is written. Quranic Arabic is also called classical Arabic. As the Quran was written as early as the 6th century A.D., the language will be slightly different from the Arabic of today.