The Holy Books of World Religions

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There are well over 4,000 different religions in the world today. They vary by geographical spread, number of adherents, language, hierarchy and, of course, beliefs. Some of these thousands of religions are commonly known while others have unfamiliar names despite the number of adherents. Atheism, for example, is a religion with which almost everyone alive has at least a passing familiarity. Cao Dai, Tenrikyo and Zoroastrianism, however, are not household names for most of the world despite these religions having a combined total of nearly 10 million adherents.

While the number of living religions is staggering, nearly 75 percent of the population belongs to one of five religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism. These five religions are considered to be the most influential in the world and are often referred to as the “world religions” due to their size and influence. The adherents of Islam and Christianity alone make up nearly half of the world’s total population.

Outsiders are often curious about the other world religions. More than one Buddhist has eyed a Christian church curiously, and plenty of Jews wonder what is going on inside a Hindu temple. One way that many people seek to understand other religions is by reading the doctrines, myths and teachings that form the foundation for daily practice. Such information is often considered to be stored in sacred or revered texts, so what are the holy books of the five major world religions?

Christianity

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Christianity is the largest religion in the world with over two billion adherents. This means that nearly a third of the human population identifies as Christian, and the Christian population has only continued to swell in recent years. It is by far the dominate religion in the Western World, but Christianity is growing rapidly in Africa, and Christians can be found in nearly every country in the world.

The holy book of Christianity is the Holy Bible. This sacred text is divided into two main sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament which are then further divided into various books. Books are then divided into chapters and verses. The Old Testament describes the creation of the world, God’s covenant with the Israelites and the many struggles of the Israelite people. The New Testament is dominated by the teachings of Jesus Christ who Christians believe was the Son of God and the savior of the world.

Islam

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Islam is the second largest religion in the world and the faith that is growing the fastest. Followers of Islam, called Muslims, believe in a single all-powerful god called Allah. Muslims believe that Allah sent numerous prophets to Earth over the centuries in order to teach humanity the correct way to live. The last of these prophets was Muhammad who Muslims refer to as “the Seal of the Prophets.” While Muhammad was alive, Allah spoke through him and recited a number of teachings. These teachings were preserved and recorded in what would come to be the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Muslims believe that the Quran is the complete and unaltered word of Allah. The text is free of human interpretations or mistakes and thus serves as the foundation for Muslim life.

The Quran, like the Christian Bible, is comprised of two main sections which are associated with the city in which they were written, Medina and Mecca. These two sections are then further broken down into chapters or surahs and verses or ayats.

Judaism

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Judaism is the smallest of the world religions with a little over 16 million adherents. These adherents, called Jews, belong to the same “family” of religions as Christianity and Islam, the Abrahamic religions. This religious family gets its name from the character of Abraham who is a central figure and model of good religious behavior in both Judaism and Islam. Abraham is less important in Christianity than the other two Abrahamic religions. He does still feature in one of the most important stories of the Old Testament, however, and Christians recognize Abraham as the father of the Jewish people and religion. Judaism, in turn, is recognized as the religious ancestor of Christianity.

The holy book of Judaism is the Torah. There is an oral tradition that is made up of practical applications and other traditions that have been passed down over the generations. There is also the Written Torah which is divided into three main parts: the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim. The Torah is composed of the five books of Moses. The Nevi’im refers to the writings of the Jewish prophets, and the Ketuvim contains other important writings such as the Book of Psalms and Proverbs. The Ketuvim is also called the Writings.

Hinduism

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Hinduism is the oldest of the major world religions. Early Hinduism was founded over 5,000 years ago in the Indus River Valley in India. The earliest texts from this region are extensive, but unfortunately, scholars have yet to find a way to translate the language of the texts. The earliest Hindu “texts” may have evolved out of these early Indus River Valley texts, but until a way to translate the language is found this theory will remain unproven.

The sacred texts that are definitively associated with Hinduism are all ancient. The Vedas, the best known Hindu sacred texts, are some of the earliest religious texts in existence. These sacred “books” began as an oral tradition that was passed down unaltered for thousands of years before it was written on paper. The other Hindu sacred texts include the Puranas, which detail Hindu cosmology, and the epic poems the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Buddhism

Buddhism is unique among the major world religions in that it is technically an atheistic religion. Buddhists do not believe in an all-powerful creator deity or group of all-powerful creator deities. “Gods” in Buddhism live long and happy lives, but they are bound to samsara, the cycle of birth-death-rebirth, just like an animal or human.

This lack of what adherents of the other world religions would deem to be a “God” also means that Buddhists do not have a text that is “sacred” in the same way as the other religions. The Abrahamic religions believe that their holy books were either divinely creator or divinely inspired. The Vedas are believed to be the literal sounds of creation. Buddhist “holy texts,” however, are not from a traditionally divine figure. Instead, they are the teachings of the Buddha and his enlightened disciples. These teachings have been compiled in many volumes, but it is perhaps more accurate to call these works “revered texts” rather than “holy books.” Among these books are the Tripitaka or Pali Canon, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Memorial Verses on the Middle Way, the Great Stages of Enlightenment and the various compiled volumes of the Buddha’s original sutras or teachings. Which books are revered, however, also varies by school. Mahayana Buddhists favor different teachings and interpretations than Theravada Buddhism while Zen Buddhists tend to reject texts entirely.