Ancient writings

What do you know about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the hidden or lost books of Ancient Civilizations, the one civilization who stole knowlage from other civilizations, the Egyptain Book of the Dead, and other lost books?

Well, many of the ones you mention are not lost, and all civiilzations borrow from each other, and a lot of the texts are available online.

And there's a lot of woo-woos who reinterpret them to suit some sort of idea they have. There's also a lot of woo-woos who have this "set of tablets/books/scrolls" that only THEY can see and only THEY can translate (Holy Linguistics, Batman!).. .and coincidentally they all seem to be wanting to sell you books about the amazing discoveries.

[Edited on 24-12-2003 by Byrd]

Well, the Egyptian Book of the Dead was mainly used for burials and put in the deceased person's tomb. You didn't mention this one, but the Book of Thoth is supposedly hidden away in the tomb of a dead prince according to a myth. I don't know much about the Dead Sea scrolls or any of those types of books.

I know that all these "lost" books have an essential theme to all of them that human civilization today does not embrace.--That theme to them all is spirituality and reverence for the divine.

If our world today were to be destroyed, and our civilization was lost, our lost books would all be on commercialism and financialism.

I've read the Egyptian book of the dead, as well as an Asian version of it, and several of the Apocrypha that were left out of the KJV Bible. Very interesting stuff, beyond that, I don't know a lot.