The Library
1577 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
200–101 BC
2 works
c. 160–150 BC
Hebrew, surviving complete in Ge'ez
Anonymous
Genesis and half of Exodus dictated to Moses by an angel and dated throughout by jubilees of forty-nine years, on a solar calendar of exactly 364 days. The patriarchs keep feasts that have not been given yet, Abraham refuses to celebrate his father's idols, and the watchers' fall is retold with the demons petitioning to keep a tenth of their number.
c. 150–100 BC
Hebrew
11QT
Anonymous
The longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, rewriting the law with God speaking in the first person throughout — no Moses as intermediary. It specifies a temple with three concentric courts that was never built, a calendar of new festivals, and a law for the king limiting his army and forbidding him more than one wife.
501–600
1 work
525
Latin
Dionysius Exiguus · c. 470–c. 544
A continuation of the Alexandrian Easter cycle in which the compiler declined to number years from the persecuting emperor Diocletian and counted instead from the incarnation.
701–800
2 works
c. 703–728
Latin
Willibrord and his circle · c. 658–739
A working liturgical calendar from a missionary bishop's own book, with a marginal note in his hand recording the year of his consecration.
725
Latin
De Temporum Ratione
The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735
A complete treatment of time — the day, the moon, the tides, the Easter cycle — closing with a world chronicle and an account of the six ages.
801–900
1 work
c. 850–900
Old English
Anonymous
Short prose entries for saints through the year, each giving the day, the manner of death, and often a concrete detail found in no other source.
901–1000
1 work
c. 975–990
Greek
Symeon Metaphrastes · 10th century
The lives of the saints for every day of the year, rewritten in a uniform and polished Greek from older texts of uneven quality.
7 of 1577 works