WEBVTT - Short Stuff: What's the oldest book? 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:06.320 Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:10.120 there's Chuck and there's Jerry again sitting in for producer 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.680 Dave ce. Uh. And this is short stuff. As I've 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.119 already said, that's right, and we're talking about books. What 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.079 is a book? What isn't a book? That book in 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.880 the window, the one with the waggony tail, That's right. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.920 Do we get going? I thought we already had, but yes, 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.720 let's keep going. So there's this book in in the 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.360 National Museum of History in Bulgaria, and uh, it is 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.440 what some people consider the oldest book in the world. 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.280 Have you seen pictures of it. It's six pages of 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.879 gold sheet, like the pages are gold and not like 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.960 they took paper and put gold around it or the 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.960 edges are gilded. It is like a sheet of gold 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.600 metal and there's six pages like that and they're bound together. Um. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:04.000 And it's written in a Truscan and uh. The Etruscans 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.720 were the direct predecessors to the Romans. They kind of 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.640 ran the area. I think that hey days around five 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.720 b C. And they're kind of this mysterious group because 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.160 we haven't deciphered their their writing yet, but we know 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.920 that this is a is in a Truscan book, and 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.679 so a lot of people say, there you have it, everybody. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.240 The oldest book in the world is called the gold 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:31.240 Orphism Book, and this is it. Yes, it is actual, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.399 multiple pages, like you said, it is bound. There are illustrations. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.240 There's a mermaid and a harp and some soldiers and 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.840 a horse rider. And you know that. They say this 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.360 thing is years old. They found it along a river, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:50.040 the Strauma River in southwestern Bulgaria and a tomb. It 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.240 was donated. This is all kind of mysterious. It was 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.280 donated by an anonymous person and then authenticated by two 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:01.600 anonymous scientists. Yeah, little sketchy. It sounds like aliens to me. 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.880 But the debate then started, well, that's not true. There's 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.839 always been debates about what is the oldest this, what's 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.920 the oldest that, what's the oldest book? And if you 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.640 think about oldest book, it becomes a little bit of 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.440 an esoteric question because you have to ask yourself what 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.320 is a book? Could it be a clay tablet or 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.920 a scroll, or you know, can it be something that 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.400 is an exit like doesn't tell a story, it's just 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.960 like accounting records. So you really have to sort of 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.840 define what a book is first. Yeah, So I mean 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.600 a lot of people would define a book by its 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.519 physical attributes, right, Like it's a certain shape, Um, it's 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.160 bound together. That's a big one for a lot of people. Um. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.040 Some people say it has to be on paper, which 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:52.280 would um discount the gold Orphism book. Um. And then 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.360 other people say, well, no, no, no, it's just got 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:57.360 to like tell a story, say, and it can be 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.480 on anything and it doesn't have to be bound together. 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.480 And this is when everybody goes, oh boy, here we go. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.680 Becomes another debate on what constitutes a book. Yeah, but 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:11.600 it's not an angry debate, is it. No, it's not angry. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.560 But yet I'm angered by it because I think it's 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.920 largely unnecessary. And there is a person cited in this 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:23.839 House to Works article who I suspect purposefully obfuskates this 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.079 and initiates this debate because they don't want this question 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:33.360 ever to be answered. Are you talking about Laurent Ferry m. Yeah. 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.680 This is a curator of rare books and manuscripts at 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.960 Cornell and Cornell and they were actually interviewed for this 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.600 House stuff Works article about eleven years ago and Cornell 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.920 is in possession of these clay tablets that they maintain 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.040 the largest in the world. And uh, they're pretty old. 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:53.880 And some people might say, well, those are books, but 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.800 most of those, like I said about like tax records, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:02.120 their financial records, legal proceedings. Uh, they don't espouse any worldview, 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:07.119 so I think they're in that means they are not books. Yeah, 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.640 Lauren Ferry says, a book would be something that has 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.800 a binding and that espouses a worldview, right, So yeah, 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.520 you can discount those um clay tablets there there. They 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.800 just don't They don't count as a book, but to 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.480 other people they would count as a book. So so 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.120 they said, well, okay, Lauren Ferry, what what is the 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.240 oldest book then? And Fairy said, either Homer's Iliad or 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.520 the Epic of Gilgamesh. The problem is, and this is 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.000 where I think Lauren Ferry is purposefully doing this just 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.560 to keep this debate going because they like to talk 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.280 about this kind of stuff. So the Epic of Gilgamesh 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.440 the oldest is a very old book. Um, the British 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.040 Museum has one, but it's written on clay tablets from 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:53.360 the seventh century b C. And yeah, it's not bound. 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.800 So the very example that this curator gave as the 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.599 oldest book doesn't even fall within their own parameter. And 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.480 here's where I started getting angry. All right, Well, let's 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.800 take a break then for you hulk out and hulk smash, 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:09.560 and we'll be right back to Well, we're not gonna 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.240 settle any debate, but we'll just talk about it more 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:36.160 and make you more mad. All right, let's let's get 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.880 back to me getting mad. Well, it depends on who 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.080 you talk to. If you start bringing religion into it 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:43.560 and all this stuff, then of course you're going to 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.800 have people that say you might have Christians that say, well, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.760 the Bible is clearly the oldest book because the world is, 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.599 you know, only a few thousand years old, and the 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.480 Bible was written right after that, so what's older than that? 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.479 Bub and boobal scholars will say in scientists will say, actually, 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.240 the Bible has written over many, many hundreds of years, 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.880 and a lot of these stories that were written were 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.240 hundreds of years after the events that they're talking about, even, right, 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:12.839 But they don't say that to the people who say 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.520 the world's a few thousand years old and the Bible 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.719 was written right after they the scholars turned to the 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.520 rest of us and say, well, obviously these things were 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.839 written over centuries after these events. So um, here's the thing. 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.640 That's another thing that Lauren Ferry does is what about religion? 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.159 Why would you bring that part into it? That's not fair. 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:36.200 They're just trying to do this. And then there was 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.000 another one too that they said too, is well, you know, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.080 some books are not It's not like the stories were 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.040 created out of whole cloth right when the books are written, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.719 a lot of them are based on oral traditions. And 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:52.680 these oral traditions far predate any of the books that 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.440 are these oldest books that are written. And it does 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.400 not matter. It does not matter if the book is 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.000 a brand new story, but it's still older than any 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.719 other book than a book that was published in the 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.840 fifties based on an oral tradition from five thousand years ago. 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.600 That older book is going to be the older book. 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:14.200 This Lauren Ferry person is really getting under my skin. Yeah, 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.239 it can't be a book. Isn't a story. A book 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.320 is a story that has been bound and written, And 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.080 I'm you know what, I'm in my definition, it doesn't 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:24.960 have to be bound. If you'd give me a scroll 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:27.720 that's got a that's got a good beginning, middle, and 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.720 end to it, then that's a book. So there's papyri 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.920 that are years old that would that would qualify them, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:36.680 because I mean, it's a book, but it's just one 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:41.560 long page, all right, that's a book. Okay, alright to me. 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:43.920 So we're hot on the trail here, at least as 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.680 far as what you consider a book. I mean, Caroac 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.920 wrote on rolls of toilet paper, right, he wrote on 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:51.760 was the roles of toilet paper. I know it was 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.240 a very long roll of paper over like forty eight 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.520 or seventy two hours or something like that, and like 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.239 that was the story in the book. But you can't 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.120 sell stuff like that, so you have to bind them 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.840 in the traditional form so you can put them on 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.160 yourself exactly. But yet, was it not a book before 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.200 when it was just on one long scroll. It's a 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.960 really great point. Now I'm just getting mad at us, No, 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.960 not us, fairy Fairy Lauren Faery, be mad at them. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.520 All right. There's another question is what constitutes a book? 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.040 What kind of book are you talking about if you're 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.080 talking about a printed book in the in the understanding 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.720 of printing that we have here in the modern world. Well, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.120 then that's easy to settle the Gutenberg Bible or the 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.280 book printed right before the Gutenberg Bible. Man, I wish 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.160 I would have looked it up. I just I forgot 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.280 about it the whole episode on I know, but whatever 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:49.200 book Guttenberg put out first, that would that would qualify. 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.200 But then you remember in that episode we talked about 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.680 China had printers that they didn't use um movable type. 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:01.320 They used woodblock printing, but they were still printing book books, 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.440 so you know, okay, but then other people say, well 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:09.400 before printing, before automatic printing, there was handwriting, but they 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.679 were still writing books. Okay. Well then now you're talking 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.520 about manuscripts. So so actually you come back to the 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.719 Biblical people and say, well what you got and they say, well, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.560 we have manuscripts that were written in the fourth century. 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.560 That's pretty old, isn't it. And you say, yeah, that's 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.640 pretty old. But is it is is it any more 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.160 of a book than the gold Orphism Book? Right? I 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.360 don't even know where we are now in this debate, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.680 to be honest, because I I think I'm becking myself 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.520 into a corner that I painted myself into. You can 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.200 just walk right out of it, just say this is 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.160 what I now think. I think it can be handwritten, okay, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.640 because Jack Carowack was writing with his hand. I think 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.800 it can be on a scroll. I can't be an 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.600 oral story. Okay. Agree, I'm gonna say it doesn't have 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.000 to be bound. If you want to out, it might 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.199 have to be bound. But then you're getting into consumerism 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.800 and like, you know that whole argument. But I think 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.240 it has to be connected in some way. So like 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:15.160 if it's one long scroll, those pages are still connected. Yeah, 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.600 so what are you are you saying? If they slice 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.240 that scroll up into a hundred sheets and just stacked them, 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.040 that's not a book because there's a truscan um gold 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:28.240 sheets that are not connected, that that would not really 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.360 qualify as a book like the gold Orphism book that 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.120 are actually older than the gold Orphism book. But they 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.200 wouldn't count their just pages. You got pages, not a book. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.000 Pages are part of a book, all right. I guess 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.920 it's here point I should reveal to the world that 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.439 I am Laurence Ferry. Oh my gosh, he just ripped 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.000 off his mask and first he was bob Yucker and 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:56.559 then he was Laurence Ferry. Bob, what is that from? 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.800 I think that was where those Budlight or the Miller commercials, right, 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.079 I thought it was like a cricket gun or something. 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.480 Go back and watch some of this sometime on YouTube. 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.880 Those are fantastic. Yeah they really It was Millard, wasn't it. Yeah? 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:13.480 Miller had great bits of nostalgia. Wow, we were raised 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.440 on TV, weren't we? Dang straight? Well, I'll tell you 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.920 who was raised on books, Laurence Ferry, and you know 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.560 who was raised on radio? Journey And how could you 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:31.320 get any better as far as endings go than that chunk? Agreed? Well, everybody, short, 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:37.079 stuff is apt. Stuff you should know is a production 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.040 of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.360 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:44.720 listen to your favorite shows.