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Book: Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes

Chapter: 75. What is the Popol Vuh (and why is it not a Maya Bible)?

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.43190

Blurb:

As the best-known colonial-period document from the Indigenous Americas, the Popol Vuh has been fundamental to our understandings of Indigenous Maya cosmology, religion, and history. But attempts to compare it with the Christian Bible or other Abrahamic scriptures deny its origins, intended purpose, and cultural significance—and ultimately say much more about those making the comparisons than about the Popol Vuh itself.

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