The chronology
Thirty-one traditions, and the earliest evidence for each.
A reference table, free to read and free to check. For every tradition in the series: the earliest date secure evidence survives, the period the volume narrates, and the thing that physically carried the belief from one generation to the next.
- Traditions
- 31
- Years covered
- 5,451
- Chapters
- 804
- Sources cited
- 2,096
- Stated limits
- 224
The rule
Sorted on evidence, not on founding dates.
The obvious rule — order the volumes by when each tradition began — cannot be used. Eleven of these thirty-one have no defensible single founding date, and for several of the rest the tradition’s date and the historians’ date are centuries apart. Ordering by founding date would print eleven fictions in the contents page.
So the key is earliest secure attestation: the earliest surviving dated evidence that the tradition existed. It is a claim about evidence, never about origin, and every volume prints the tradition’s own account of its beginning beside it. How the books are written.
The eleven with no defensible founding date
Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, The Vedic World, Greece and Rome, Zoroastrianism, Classical Hinduism, Pagan Europe, Shinto, Sufism, Ifá and the Yoruba World, The African Diaspora Religions
Each of these prints the attestation-versus-tradition distinction in its front matter. It is the series’ epistemology, visible on page two.
| # | Tradition | Attested from | Narrates | The machine that carried it | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Mesopotamia | c.3500 BCE | c.3500–539 BCE | the scribal school and the collated tablet | 134 |
| 02 | Ancient Egypt | c.3100 BCE | c.3100 BCE–394 CE | the fill-in-the-blank funerary scroll | 130 |
| 03 | The Vedic World | c.1500 BCE | c.1500–500 BCE | recitation with checksums — the pāṭha system | 126 |
| 04 | Greece and Rome | c.1400 BCE | c.1400 BCE–394 CE | a state-owned oracle behind a locked door | 132 |
| 05 | Judaism | 1208 BCE | 1208 BCE onward | scribes who count letters and log their own errors | 132 |
| 06 | Mesoamerica and the Andes | c.1200 BCE | c.1200 BCE–present | the screenfold codex, and the khipu | 132 |
| 07 | Zoroastrianism | c.1200 BCE | c.1200 BCE onward | an alphabet invented to freeze a dead language | 132 |
| 08 | Jainism | c.700 BCE | c.700 BCE onward | the temple manuscript library | 132 |
| 09 | Confucianism | 551 BCE | 551 BCE–1905 CE | the canon carved in stone, then the exam | 130 |
| 10 | Buddhism | c.480 BCE | c.480 BCE onward | reciter guilds, and group chant as error-correction | 126 |
| 11 | Daoism | 4th c. BCE | 4th c. BCE–present | the parish register | 130 |
| 12 | Classical Hinduism | c.400 BCE | c.400 BCE–1500 CE | the deed engraved in copper | 130 |
| 13 | Pagan Europe | c.50 BCE | c.500 BCE–1400 CE | none of its own — recorded by its conquerors | 128 |
| 14 | Early Christianity | 30 CE | 30–312 CE | the codex | 130 |
| 15 | Mahayana Buddhism | c.100 CE | c.100 BCE onward | merit as a print run | 124 |
| 16 | Imperial Christianity | 312 CE | 312–1453 | the imperial post | 130 |
| 17 | Islam | 610 CE | 610–661 | the standardised codex, and the memoriser | 134 |
| 18 | Sunni and Shia | 656 CE | 661 CE–present | the isnad — verification by named human chain | 126 |
| 19 | Shinto | 692 CE | 692 CE–present | transmission by demolition | 126 |
| 20 | Zen | c.700 CE | c.700–750 onward | the lineage certificate | 128 |
| 21 | Tibetan Buddhism | c.779 CE | c.779 onward | a printing house that never stopped | 128 |
| 22 | Sufism | 8th c. CE | 8th c.–present | the order as a franchise | 130 |
| 23 | Ifá and the Yoruba World | c.1000 CE | c.1000–1400 onward | a binary-indexed oral database | 126 |
| 24 | Sikhism | 1469 | 1469–present | a book that holds office | 122 |
| 25 | The Reformation | 1517 | 1517–1648 | the pamphlet | 134 |
| 26 | The African Diaspora Religions | 18th c. | c.1500–present | the mass-produced saint | 126 |
| 27 | Modern Hinduism | 1828 | 1828 onward | the reform society and the printing press | 124 |
| 28 | The Nineteenth-Century New Religions | 1830 | 1830–1889 | the print run and the mail | 128 |
| 29 | Pentecostalism | 1901 | 1901–present | a free newspaper, then a radio licence | 128 |
| 30 | Rastafari | 1930 | 1930 onward | the record | 132 |
| 31 | The Unaffiliated | 1951 | 1951 onward | the paperback that replaced the coven | 126 |
Rows marked with a dot have no defensible single founding date. The same table is machine-readable at data/catalog.json.
Repeats
Four traditions ignite more than once.
Not a filing convenience. The unit of the series is one tradition’s arc from ignition to first division, and a tradition that ignited more than once holds more than one slot — each with its own room, machine, canon, economy and split.
- Christianity Early Christianity · Imperial Christianity · The Reformation An illegal sect, a state religion, a print movement. Fifteen hundred years apart, and each one starts over.
- Buddhism Buddhism · Mahayana Buddhism · Zen · Tibetan Buddhism A north Indian forest, a sutra workshop, a lineage certificate, and a Tibetan printing house that never stopped.
- Islam Islam · Sunni and Shia · Sufism Mecca and the standardised codex, Karbala and the named chain, then the order as a franchise.
- Hinduism The Vedic World · Classical Hinduism · Modern Hinduism Recitation with checksums, the deed engraved in copper, and the reform society with a printing press.
Common questions
The questions this table gets asked.
What is the oldest religion?
As asked, it has no clean answer, because “oldest” means two different things. If it means the earliest tradition for which secure evidence survives, the first entry on this chronology is Mesopotamia, attested from about 3500 BCE. If it means the earliest tradition to have begun, nobody can say: several traditions that are still practised place their own beginnings earlier than any evidence reaches. This series prints both figures and does not choose between them.
What does “earliest secure attestation” mean?
The earliest surviving dated evidence that the tradition existed — an inscription, a tablet, a manuscript, a datable document — as opposed to the date the tradition itself gives for its beginning. It is a claim about evidence, not about origin, and the two are frequently centuries apart.
Why is this list not ordered by when each religion began?
Because eleven of these thirty-one traditions have no defensible single founding date, and for several of the rest the tradition’s date and the historians’ date are centuries apart. Ordering by founding date would print eleven fictions in the contents page. Ordering by earliest secure attestation prints only what can be shown.
Why do the two date columns disagree?
They are two different facts. “Attested from” is the earliest secure evidence and the key the shelf is sorted on. “Narrates” is the period the volume actually covers, taken from its own researched outline. Sunni and Shia is attested from the first fitna in 656, which falls inside the Islam volume’s 610–661, which is exactly why it opens at 661.
Why does one religion appear more than once?
Because the unit of the series is one tradition’s arc from ignition to first division, not one religion per book. Christianity ignites three times — as an illegal sect in the 30s, as a state religion in 312, and as a print movement in 1517 — and each has its own room, machine, canon, economy and split. Buddhism holds four slots, Islam three, Hinduism three.
Do these books say which religion is true?
No. Belief System does not adjudicate. Where a tradition’s account and the earliest evidence disagree, both are given, in their own vocabulary, attributed, and neither is given the last word. No miracle is reported as fact and none is denied, and no volume tells you what anybody was thinking.
Where does this table come from?
From the series’ own chronology, which is maintained against every volume’s researched outline: a script refuses to run while any volume is still a scaffold, checks that every ordering key falls inside its own coverage span, and checks that the series is in fact sorted by the column it says it is sorted by. The same data is machine-readable at data/catalog.json.