This Is Why The Ethiopian Bible Got Banned

The Ethiopian Bible: The World’s First Illustrated Bible

The Ethiopian Bible is one of the most mysterious and controversial books ever to have existed. Even the country itself is shrouded in mysteries that cannot be explained. But that’s a story for another day.

Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world and is the only country in Africa that was not colonized. And because of that, they can trace their lineage all the way back to Ham, one of the sons of Noah. This has even been corroborated by the Jews.

This article is not about the country itself but about why the world’s first illustrated Christian Bible, the Ethiopian Bible, was banned.

Ethiopia’s Ancient Biblical Manuscripts

Ethiopia has some of the oldest Bible scrolls that have ever existed, even older than the famous King James Bible.

Other than the 66 books that make up the King James Bible, the Ethiopic Bible has 88 books and includes some works that other churches simply do not have.

The book contains scrolls from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and scrolls that had never been seen before.

What makes this so interesting is that they had these scrolls long before Christianity first arrived in their society in the fourth century.

In other words, Christianity was not a religion given to them like most nations. Christianity was already present in Ethiopia. Since the fourth century, Ethiopia has been a Christian nation.

Christianity’s Deep Roots in Ethiopia

Egyptian traveller, monk, and historian, Cosmas Indicopleustes, wrote that Ethiopia was a Christian country when he visited there in the middle of the sixth century.

He observed how the rulers opened their borders to many Christian refugees who fled to Ethiopia to escape persecution from kingdoms and empires that opposed Christianity.

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Certain Ethiopian tribes have been worshipping the Christian God for over 3500 years. Therefore, the oldest organized Christian body in the world is not the Catholic Ministry, as mainstream media has often publicized. Can you believe it? The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is locally known as “Tewahdo” in Ethiopia.

The Rich Scriptural Tradition of the Ethiopian Bible

The country also has one of the earliest illustrated Christian books ever found, which is a part of the Gospels written in Geʽez. Geʽez is an old Ethiopian language. The Ethiopian Bible was found in 2010 in a monastery on top of a mountain in Ethiopia.

According to the Kebra Nagast, which is Ethiopia’s holy book, in the 10^th century BC, an Ethiopian ruler and the famous biblical Queen of Sheba went to Jerusalem to ask the famous King Solomon for advice. It’s even recorded in the accepted Bible canon.

But what the Bible didn’t tell us is that the two rulers had a son together, named Menelik. Queen Sheba took the boy back to Ethiopia and made him the first emperor.

In 2012, experts looked at the genetic makeup of many Ethiopians and found some evidence to support Sheba’s journey to Jerusalem and birth there.

In such, it is believed that Egyptian, Israeli, or Syrian people may have mixed with the Ethiopian natives around 3000 years ago. During that time, the queen is said to have ruled the kingdom of Sheba—further collaborating the story.

The Omission of the Ethiopian Bible from Canonical Texts

Despite having all these credentials and authenticity, the Ethiopian Bible is still discarded and not taken as part of the canon of the holy books.

In fact, most people, including believers of the same faith, have never heard of the Ethiopian Bible. That’s to show you the extent of what was done to discredit and hide the Ethiopian Bible.

This begs the question, why? Why was the Ethiopian Bible banned from the Holy Bible? Well, to understand that, let’s take a little history lesson.

The Bible as we know it today wasn’t actually how the Bible was in the past. There were many versions of different parts of the Bible, as well as many different interpretations and ideas of what the Bible was thought to be saying.

As we all know, the Bible texts were originally written in Hebrew before being translated into other languages. The first translation was done by a man known as St. Jerome, from Hebrew to Latin. He was responsible for putting together what is known as the Vulgate, around the year 400.

The Vulgate still remains the principal Latin version, or the translation of the Bible. It had 27 books called the New Testament and 39 books called the Old Testament. At that time, it was called the Hebrew Bible.

In the first century, many books were written about Jesus’ life and His teachings. However, many of them were not true. These were like fan-fiction novels of the account of Jesus’s life.

The problem was that when these books were written and released to the public, the public ended up believing those fan-fiction books were actually real.

There was no internet to quickly fact-check these books. As we know, fake news travels faster than real news. So you can only imagine the scores of fake books that were in society and the damage it did. This became a worry for leaders in the early Christian church.

They met at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and the first council of Constantinople in 381 AD to choose which books would be added to the New Testament.

They decided that a book was scripture if it was written by one of Jesus’ followers or someone who saw him teach. The book also had to have been written in the first century and make sense with the rest of the Bible.

King James’s Step That Took the Ethiopian Bible from the Holy Bible

There have been many changes to what we now call the Holy Bible. But the most important change may have happened during the reign of King James the first.

Despite the Vulgate existing for 500 years, there were still numerous versions and accounts of the Bible, so much that it bothered the reigning monarch at that time. He was worried about the different Bible versions that were popular in the 1600s.

The king wanted a version of the Bible that settled religious differences, as well as one that reinforced his power. Several priests also asked the king to make changes, saying that some of the translations that were going around were wrong.

To solve this pressing issue;

• The king got 47 experts to look over all the different translations of the Bible that were already out there. They were split into six groups and worked on different parts of the project on their own for seven years.
• These men had to follow strict rules so that they wouldn’t show any bias. They also used a number of different tools to help them make a scientific Bible that stayed true to the original languages.
• When the priests and the king looked at the works of these experts and saw that they had similarities in their work, despite being far from each other, they approved it, giving glory to God for guiding them to arrive at the same conclusion.

In 1611, the King James Bible was published, and because of advancements made in printing, it became one of the most accessible Bible versions to date.

These edits made in the King James Bible and the original Vulgate translation made by St. Jerome sought to ensure that some books were not included in the Bible most Christians have today. While the Ethiopian Bible still retains all scripture.

Why was the Ethiopian Bible Rejected?

Now that we’ve taken a short course on the history of the Bible, it’s time to answer the major question of why the Ethiopian Bible was rejected.

There are many diverse reasons why the Ethiopian Bible isn’t accepted. But the major reason is because the Ethiopian Bible includes additional books, known as “pseudo-epigraphs”.

Pseudo-epigraphs are falsely attributed works and texts whose claimed author is not the true author or whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past, like fan-fiction.

Pseudo-epigraphs are considered non-canonical by most other Christian traditions. The books that were removed or rejected were ones that scribes and theologians of the time already knew were not divinely inspired.

Many people before and after Jesus wrote these books with evil intentions, and I understand their reasons for removal.

Take for example;

• If someone today released a book and said Kobe Bryant isn’t a great athlete, the book would be a great failure, and the author would receive a lot of backlash because we know that’s false.
• But give that book 500 years, and when someone in that timeline sees that book, people in that era could start to think that Kobe Bryant actually does suck.
• So to prevent such lies from spreading into the future, we root it out now.

The Different Versions of the Ethiopian Bible Caused a Huge Leap in the Mouth of the People

Now, even the Ethiopian Bible has two canons; the Broader and Narrower Canon. But before we go into it, first, let me define what a canon is.

A canon is a generally accepted law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged. So with that in mind, it’s ‘canon’ for a phone to have one screen, a country to have one president, etc.

The Broader and Famous Canon has 81 books. In this popular version, we have:

• The Book of Enoch
• The Jubilees
• The three books by Maccabee
• Epistle to Clement
• Buruch
• Esdras, and a whole lot more.

This is the one the article is mostly about, and the one that is a bit famous.

The Narrow Canon, on the other hand, was overseen by Emperor Haile Selassie. He created the narrow version and publicly proclaimed that this was the official and completed version of the Ethiopian Bible.

The reason for this, unfortunately, I can’t say because it might cause a misunderstanding and a war.

• The Narrow Canon version doesn’t have some scriptures that are found in the broader version. It just has 72 books in it. While the broader canon has everything the narrower canon has and more.
• The Broader Canon has not been reprinted since the early 20^th century. So already, you can see that even within itself, there were already controversies, and having two different versions could also contribute to it not being accepted.

The Ethiopian Canon is a great way to see how the Bible has changed over time. Contrary to popular belief, the Bible isn’t just one book, it’s more of a collection of texts and experiences, written over many years. That’s where the problem kind of lies.

Effects of Religion & Politics on the Ethiopian Bible

Different religious groups, including the verified or accepted ones, have a long history of excluding or including different texts or copies based on different theological or personal grounds.

For example, the Bible we know today was mostly written in the fourth and fifth centuries AD.

By that time, Christianity in Ethiopia had already begun to differ from Christianity in Europe and the surrounding area of the Mediterranean. Till date, the difference keeps getting wider.

The Ethiopian Bible has a lot of similarities with the Catholic Bible and the Orthodox Bibles, although it does have a few extra Old Testament books. These were probably written in the last few 100 years BC, which is late in the time of the Old Testament books.

But before the New Testament began, additional books were added to the end of the New Testament after the rest of it was written. These books especially talked about the history and structure of the Ethiopian church.

• Another reason for the Ethiopian Bible being rejected could be because of the language in which it is written. The Ethiopian Bible was written in Geʽez, making it difficult for non-speakers to access.
• Plus, the lack of translations and unique practices of the Ethiopian Bible have contributed to its relative obscurity outside of Ethiopia.
• The third reason is more controversial and it’s because of politics. Power in politics was what the Roman Emperor cared about during the early days of Christianity, not spiritual growth. So any scrolls that didn’t fit with their preferred story were left out.

In fact, the Bishop of Rome told the Priests to destroy the scrolls that weren’t in the Bible. But the Priests were smart and hid many of them in vats that were found near the Dead Sea in the 1940s.

This would explain the differences between both Bibles as one version tend to have a ‘complete version of the Bible’ and the other version have what man ‘deemed to be alright.’

But in recent years, people have become more interested in the Ethiopian Bible, trying to find out what makes it special, and the truth it holds.

The Ethiopian churches have also worked to make it easier for more people to read by translating it into more languages and doing academic studies on it.

Personally, I think it is amazing that this Bible survived this long especially after the country was attacked by Muslims and Italy, and after a fire burned the Church of the monastery where the Bible was in the 1930s. It survived at all adding to the mystery of this book.

Final Thoughts

The Ethiopian Bible is not just an alternative scripture but rather the fundamental religious and cultural heritage of Ethiopia that can provide deep insight into the great tapestry of Ethiopian Christianity.

This compilation includes 88 books that are not found in the traditional canon of 66 books, which makes it a unique source on ancient tradition and theological concepts of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

The importance of the Ethiopian Bible is manifested through its survival for many centuries amid various geopolitical changes, religious debates, as well as cultural transitionsz thus making it valuable to scholars and students seeking to appreciate global Christianity.

Nevertheless, despite its controversial canonical status and historical obscurity, the Ethiopian Bible still appeals to theologians, historians and believers all over the world.

With more translations presently being done, this Ethiopic version will bring about major changes in Christian history.

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