The Ethiopian Bible in English: The Complete Canon in Modern Prose

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church kept a larger Bible than anyone else in Christianity, and most of it has never been easy to read in English.

This edition assembles the whole canon in modern prose, and names the source of every book so you can check the work. What you getThe complete canon in modern English. 81 canonical books, printed as 90 volumes, 704 pages, roughly 1.2 million words. Every archaic source has been rephrased into plain modern prose.All eight Books of Church Order. Sirate Tsion, Te'ezaz, Gitzew, Abtilis, the Didascalia, Qalementos, and both Books of the Covenant. These govern the liturgy, the sacraments, and church law. Many English editions leave them out entirely. Before you buy any Ethiopian Bible, check its contents for those titles.The books that make the canon Ethiopian. 1 Enoch and Jubilees as full scripture rather than apocrypha, all three books of Meqabyan, Ezra Sutuel, the Book of Correction, and the Josippon closing the Old Testament.Every source named. Brenton's Septuagint (1851) for the Old Testament, the World English Bible for the New, and named scholars for the rest: R.H. Charles, Horner, Harden, Schodde, Tattam, Guerrier, Grebaut. Translator, date, and original language are printed in the book. All of our book inclusions were thoroughly vetted and we consulted with experts to ensure accuracy. Type you can actually read. 9.5pt in three columns, the density of a standard study Bible. Please review our "look inside" to feel confident in our type setting and readability.No Padding - No digital vault. No public domain text file dump. No bonus audio library.

The canon is the product.

What to expect. This is a scholarly edition, built over hundreds of hours of research: the book order, the chapter divisions, the verse numbering, and which books belong in the canon and why. Every one of those decisions is documented, with the translator, date and original language named for each book. If you find something you believe is wrong, tell us. We correct errors and reissue.

Example of our Transparency Policy: The Josippon here is a reconstruction, not a translation from the Ge'ez, because no public domain Ge'ez to English translation exists. It was built from Munster's 1541 Latin, Breithaupt's 1710 Latin, and Budge's 1896 Ge'ez, following Binyam's 2017 comparative mapping. We say so on the page where it appears.

About the numbers. An 88-book edition is 66 plus 22. The 66 books of a Protestant Bible, counted one by one, plus 22 apocrypha that a Catholic or Orthodox Bible already carries.

This edition is 46 plus 35. Forty-six in the Old Testament, including 1 Enoch, Jubilees, 1-3 Meqabyan and the Josippon.

Thirty-five in the New: the 27 books you know, plus the 8 Books of Church Order.

That is the 81 the Feteha Negest sets. What is important for you to know is the Ethiopian Canon recognizes 81 books not 88.

Those totals use the Ethiopian church's own reckoning, which counts Samuel as one book, Kings as one, Chronicles as one. Print the same content as separate volumes and it fills 90.

So an 88-book edition has none of the 8 Church Order books and no Josippon. The bigger number is the smaller Bible. Count the titles in the contents rather than the total on the cover.

If you have bought an Ethiopian Bible before and found the books you wanted were not in it this is likely why.

We are always looking to improve and encourge your feedback so we can keep improving.