The Ethiopian Bible, also known as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Bible, is the sacred scripture of one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world.
It is written primarily in Ge’ez, an ancient Semitic language no longer spoken but still used in liturgy.
The Ethiopian Bible is notable for its size and content-it contains more books than the Protestant Bible, and it includes texts that are not found in the canons of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.
The Holy Scriptures are one of the two great foundations of the faith and here is what our church holds and teaches concerning it. The word of God is not contained in the Bible alone, it is to be found in tradition as well.
Canon of the Ethiopian Bible
One of the most significant differences between the Ethiopian Bible and the Protestant Bible is the number of books.
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The Protestant Bible contains 66 books-39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. In contrast, the Ethiopian Bible includes 81 books (46 books in the Old Testament and 35 books in the New Testament).
The Sacred Scriptures are the written word of God who is the author of the Old and New Testaments containing nothing but perfect truth in faith and morals. But God’s word is not contained only in them, there is an unwritten word of God also, which we call apostolic tradition.
The canon of the Ethiopic Bible differs both in the Old and New Testament from that of any other churches.
An Ethiopian Bible in Ge'ez.
Books Included in the Ethiopian Bible
Among the additional writings are books such as 1 Enoch, Jubilees, 1-3 Meqabyan (which are different from the 1-2 Maccabees found in Catholic Bibles), and The Book of the Covenant.
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- Old Testament: 46 books
- New Testament: 35 books
- Total: 81 books
The Ethiopic version of the Old and New Testament was made from the Septuagint. It includes the book of Enoch, Baruch, and the third and fourth Esdras.
In the international Bible studies there are certain books belonging to the class usually designated pseudepigraphic. The whole Christendom and whole-learned world owes a debt of gratitude to the church of Ethiopia for the preservation of those documents.
Among these books is the book of Enoch which throws so much light on Jewish thought on various points during the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era.
The book of Jubilee (Kufale, i.e. Division) otherwise known as the Little Genesis has also been preserved entire only in the Ethiopic version.
The preservation of yet one more book in its entity, namely, the Ascension of Isaiah, is to be remembered to the credit of the Ethiopic Church.
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The Book of Enoch in Ethiopian Bible.
Ethiopian Bible Why So Different
Theological and Historical Context
The Protestant Bible is based on the principle of sola scriptura, emphasizing the authority of Scripture alone.
Reformers such as Martin Luther affirmed the 66-book canon based on the Hebrew Bible for the Old Testament and the universally accepted New Testament writings.
The Ethiopian canon, however, developed separately, influenced by early Jewish and Christian traditions in the region of Ethiopia.
From a theological standpoint, the Ethiopian Bible’s inclusion of books like 1 Enoch, with its sensationalistic themes and heavy angelology, is significant.
While 1 Enoch is quoted in Jude 1:14-15, it was not included in the Protestant canon because it was not recognized as inspired Scripture by the early church councils.
Another key difference between those who use the Ethiopian Bible and those who use the Protestant Bible lies in each group’s approach to Scripture.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church places a strong emphasis on tradition alongside Scripture, whereas Protestantism insists that Scripture alone is the final authority in matters of faith and practice.
Other Significant Texts and Canons
The canons, regulations of Christian instruction and worship of the Ethiopian Church, are contained in the Sinodos and Didascalia, two compilations of ancient church canons, dating from the second period of Ethiopic literature.
The Sinodos, classed as part of Ethiopic New Testament, is composed of various elements: Constitutions of Apostles, the Statutes of the Apostles, the Canons of the Apostles, the canons of Various councils-Nicaea, Gangra, Sardica, Antioch, New-Caesarca, Aneyra, Laodienea - and various theological and pastoml treatises.
Eight books make up the Sinodos. Sinodos is the Corpus juris Ecclesiastic of the Church.
The Didascalia a document well known in the Christian Church originally composed in Greek probably in the middle of the third century, a discourse on Church life and society. The whole work was afterwards, somewhere in the fourth century, incorporated in the Apostolic Constitutions.
It has Latin, Arabic and Syriac versions, which differ among themselves and from the Ethiopic version with regard to the subject matter.
Briefly the contents of the document are: Questions of morality, the duty of studying the Scriptures and observance of the Seventh Commandment, mutual duties of husband and wife, offices and duties of Christian ministers; the duties of widows; the method of baptism, laymen not to baptize; vows of virginity; the duties of the faithful towards the martyrs; observance of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy week and method of calculating the date of Easter; warning against heresy; respect to be shown to the faithful departed; prayers to be used on specified and unspecified occasions.
A Prophecy of Jeremiah
There is a short prophecy appended to the book of Jeremiah in Ethiopic Bible which August Dillmann translates: A Prophecy of Jeremiah.
And Jeremiah spake thus unto Pashur: But ye all your days fight against the truth, with your fathers and your sons that shall come after you. And they shall commit a sin more damnable than you: they shall sell him who hath no price, and shall hurt him who will heal pain, and shall condemn him who will forgive sin, and shall take thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom the children of Israel shall sell, and shall give that money for (into) the potter’s field. As the Lord commanded me, so I speak.
A possible reason that this particular passage was written is that in Matthew 27:9-10, the writer of Matthew says that what happened with Judas was a fulfillment of what is written in Jeremiah.
Now, it is true, that there is a prophecy in Jeremiah which is a possible reference to how Judas died, but the more clear passage, by far, is in Zechariah 11.
