what was the first recorded religion?

[kiwimac]

Zoroastrianism and Hinduism would be my pick. They are around about the same age as far as paleo-linguistics can tell. Scholars place Zarathushtra (Zoroaster in Greek) as living between 3300-1500 BCE.

It was during the time in Babylon that Judaism picked up concepts such as, life after death, heaven and hell, Satan and the coming of a Messiah, all from Zoroastrianism.

 

[Rusticus]

It depends on what is meant by "recorded".

If historical artifacts are included in "recorded", then Goddess Worship (an archaic form of paganism) probably is one of the oldest ones, dating back 20,000 ? or more years.

As far as religions still practiced today are concerned, Hinduism is the oldest one.

Judaism is old, but the "recordings" are probably no more than about 3500 or so years old.

We need to be careful not to dismiss anything just because it was not "recorded" (because writing may not have been invented then), and we need to remember that many "recordings" were of events and stories that were kept alive verbally for a very long time before they were written down.