The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church share a unique version of the Christian Bible, known as the Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon. With 81 books it stands as the largest and most diverse biblical canon in traditional Christendom.
An Ethiopian Orthodox priest reading from a psalter.
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 Foundation of Faith
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. The word of God is not contained in the Bible alone, it is to be found in tradition as well. But God’s word is not contained only in them, there is an unwritten word of God also, which we call apostolic tradition.
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.
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The Canon of the Ethiopian Bible
The canon of the Ethiopic Bible differs both in the Old and New Testament from that of any other churches. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has 46 books of the Old Testament and 35 books of the New Testament that will bring the total of canonized books of the Bible to 81.
Western scholars have classified the books of the canon into two categories - the narrower canon, which consists mostly of books familiar to the West, and the broader canon, which includes nine additional books. It is not known to exist at this time as one published compilation.
The Orthodox Tewahedo narrower Old Testament canon contains the entire established Hebrew protocanon. Moreover, with the exception of the first two books of Maccabees, the Orthodox Tewahedo canon also contains the entire Catholic deuterocanon. In addition to this, the Orthodox Tewahedo Old Testament includes the Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Ezra, and 4 Ezra, which also appear in the canons of other Christian traditions.
The books of Lamentations, Jeremiah, and Baruch, as well as the Letter of Jeremiah and 4 Baruch, are all considered canonical by the Orthodox Tewahedo churches. Additionally, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Books of Ethiopian Maccabees are also part of the canon; while they share a common name they are completely different from the books of Maccabees that are known or have been canonized in other traditions.
Books of the Old Testament
- Genesis
- Exodus
- Leviticus
- Numbers
- Deuteronomy
- Joshua
- Judges
- Ruth
- 1 Samuel
- 2 Samuel
- 1 Kings
- 2 Kings
- 1 Chronicles
- 2 Chronicles
- Jubilees
- Enoch
- Psalms
- Proverbs
- Ecclesiastes
- Song of Solomon
- Isaiah
- Jeremiah
- Ezekiel
- Daniel
- Hosea
- Joel
- Amos
- Obadiah
- Jonah
- Micah
- Nahum
- Habakkuk
- Zephaniah
- Haggai
- Zechariah
- Malachi
- Tobit
- Judith
- Esther
- 1 Maccabees
- 2 Maccabees
- 3 Maccabees
- Esdras I
- Esdras II
- The Book of Joseph Ben Gorion (Yosippon)
- The Book of Wisdom
- Sirach
Books of the New Testament
- Matthew
- Mark
- Luke
- John
- Acts
- Romans
- 1 Corinthians
- 2 Corinthians
- Galatians
- Ephesians
- Philippians
- Colossians
- 1 Thessalonians
- 2 Thessalonians
- 1 Timothy
- 2 Timothy
- Titus
- Philemon
- Hebrews
- James
- 1 Peter
- 2 Peter
- 1 John
- 2 John
- 3 John
- Jude
- Revelation
- Peter I
- Peter II
- The Book of Covenant I
- The Book of Covenant II
- The Book of Clement
- Didache
- Didascalia
- Synodos
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.
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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.
The Ethiopic Didascalia, or Didesqelya, is a book of Church order in 43 chapters, distinct from the Didascalia Apostolorum, but similar to books I-VII of the Apostolic Constitutions, where it most likely originates.
The broader canon seems to have been created by Ethiopian scholars commenting on the Fetha Negest law code, which says that the canon contains 81 books, but only lists 73.
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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.
In summary, the Ethiopian Bible differs from the Protestant Bible in its canon, language, and theological framework.
Sinodos and Didascalia
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.
Table of Differences Between the Ethiopian Bible and the Protestant Bible
| Feature | Ethiopian Bible | Protestant Bible |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Books | 81 (46 Old Testament, 35 New Testament) | 66 (39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament) |
| Old Testament | Includes Enoch, Jubilees, 1-3 Meqabyan, Book of the Covenant | Based on the Hebrew Bible |
| Emphasis | Tradition alongside Scripture | Scripture alone (sola scriptura) |
| Language | Ge’ez | Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek |
