have any books/writings been written before or outside the history of mankind?

[cab21]

have any books/writings  been written before or outside the history of mankind?

 

[King David]

This is kind of a contradiction considering that as far as we know, it is only humans who actually possess the implements to write. still I might venture that the bible survived the time period from before when people started writing, along with some folklore, mythos, and scattered cultural elements

 

KD

[Michael McGuire]

Totally a contradiction.  If we discovered books which dated before known civilization we would have to expand our definition of "known civilization" to account for the writting of these books

[cab21]

i mean other from mankind?

a phrase i sometimes see is

"greatest book ever written in the history of mankind"

and am curius about that  as suppose to just "greatest book ever written"

[King David]

i mean other from mankind?a phrase i sometimes see is"greatest book ever written in the history of mankind"and am curius about that  as suppose to just "greatest book ever written"

 

You basically got three choices:

1>bible

2>epic of Gilgamesh

3>the odyssey

[ribuck]

There is another way to approach this.

 

During the 20th Century there were some civilizations which had no contact with the western world, and were living a stone age life. Westerners eventually reached these societies, and recorded (and published) the verbal history of those people.

 

One of the most fascinating books I have read is "Ongka: a self account by a New Guinea big-man". Reading it is like being transported directly back into the stone age, through the eyes and words of someone who was living that life before westerners discovered him.