A Missed Opportunity

What if instead of religious books being the "book" all of these people go to for guidance in times of need, there had been a cultural expectation to pass down a sort of family diary that contained lessons learned/wisdom from your own ancestors that went back as far as the Bible. A rite of passage into adulthood could have been the adding of your father's page, the rebinding or copying of the book, and finally handing it off. Is this an original idea or is there examples of this in history?