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About Jossef Salman
Jossef Salman is the author of Echoes of History: Ancient Wisdom, Sacred Scripture, and the One God Behind Them All. He is a Muslim, and in the book he says so before he says anything else about religion.
He reads Jewish and Christian sources as historical evidence of great value and tries to read them as carefully as he reads his own. His work moves between archaeology, Egyptology, Mesopotamian history, scripture, cosmology and theology — the fields that usually stay apart.
Why I wrote Echoes of History
The book began with a hill. In 1994 a German archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt, recognized what lay under a low mound near Şanlıurfa in Turkey. The site is Göbekli Tepe, and it holds enclosures raised by people who had not yet learned to farm. They spent an enormous effort on something that did not feed them, and the reason lay outside survival.
That raised the question I could not put down. Were our oldest ancestors already asking where existence came from, whether death is the end, and whether something stands behind the world? Those questions cannot be answered with a trowel, but they can be examined. This book is my examination.
I wrote it across the fields that usually stay apart: archaeology, Egyptology, Mesopotamian history, scripture, cosmology and theology. If a question lives between those subjects, I wanted to follow it there.
The first edition appeared in 2022. The fully revised Second Edition withdraws more than a dozen of the first edition’s claims, on the page and with reasons.
Where I stand
I should tell you where I stand before we begin, because you are entitled to know it.
I believe in God. I believe humanity did not invent the idea of a Creator but received it, and that a great deal of what we call ancient religion is the long record of that knowledge being carried, divided, altered, and partly forgotten. That is my position, and I will argue it.
I am also asking you not to accept it because I wrote it. When I make a historical claim, ask what the evidence is. When I read a verse, ask what the verse actually says. When I find a similarity between two ancient traditions, ask whether similarity is enough to establish a connection. If my reading of a site or a text is wrong, I want to know.
Faith should not need me to be afraid of evidence.
From the Preface of Echoes of History
Method
How I approach the evidence
Measurement, model or belief
I separate what has been measured, what is a model, what is philosophy, and what is my own belief — and I mark belief as belief.
The counter-evidence is cited
I include counter-arguments, including the ones a reader will meet within an hour of looking into a topic. Where Egyptologists, geologists or historians disagree, their case is set out fairly.
I correct my own claims
The second edition revises passages from the first, including how Egyptian hieroglyphs work and the date range for the Sphinx’s weathering.
One standard for every claim
I try to apply the same standard to every claim, whether it supports my view or not. That is also how I hope to be judged.
What I write about
The subjects of the book are also the subjects of this site — written, like the book, from an Islamic perspective on ancient history that respects Jewish and Christian sources:
- The earliest evidence of religion, including Göbekli Tepe and the origins of religion
- Ancient Egypt: religion, history, the Sphinx, the pyramids and the Serapeum
- Mesopotamia and the world of Abraham
- The Torah, the Gospel and the Qur’an, Kabbalah and the Emerald Tablet
- Science and creation, and the question of God
Books by Jossef Salman
Echoes of History: Ancient Wisdom, Sacred Scripture, and the One God Behind Them All
Second Edition (2026) · ISBN 9798325834240
The Oldest Thing in You: The Fitra You Already Know
Free ebook and PDF
Writing as Jossef S., he also publishes sapphic and general romance, including Matelda: In Silence We Forgive and Between Two Doors. Explore the fiction →
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