Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 February 7

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February 7

Edited book

Which is the world's first edited book based on contributions of many persons and selection of content based on some criterion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.0.35.180 (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

That's hard to say. It depends on how you define "book". Many stories, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Homeric Epics, were passed down via oral tradition, and as such, can be said to have had many hundreds of contributors. If you want very old collections of distinct texts, the Vedas would be a contender. --Jayron32 18:23, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

This sounds more like an anthology, according to which, "one of the earliest known anthologies [was] the Garland (Στέφανος, stéphanos) ... by Meléagros of Gadara" (fl. 1st century BCE). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:41, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I’ll chip in with the Bible, or another religion’s counterpart. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:01, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I mentioned the Vedas above; they are several centuries older than the Bible. --Jayron32 11:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article on the history of books.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:14, 8 February 2022 (UTC)