Before You Begin

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church keeps one of the oldest and broadest Bibles in the world.

Most Bibles in use today hold 66 or 73 books. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 81. Among them are writings most readers have only heard of, such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, which survive in full only in Ge’ez, the church’s ancient language.

This guide explains how the canon is counted, why it kept books other churches set aside, and what is in each Testament. It ends with a short reading you can do today, using the same Read, Notice and Respond method as our Daily Studies.

The five parts of this guide

Each part keeps its color wherever it appears. The colors are a navigation aid and carry no doctrinal meaning.

The church counts its Bible as 81 books, and it describes that 81 in two ways. Both lists arrive at the same total. They differ in how they group the books.

You may see the number 88 online. It comes from adding the two lists together, not from the church itself.

An early Christian kingdom

Christianity reached the kingdom of Axum early. King Ezana adopted the faith in the 4th century, and the Scriptures were translated into Ge’ez in the centuries that followed.

Its own path

The Ethiopian church shaped its canon through its own worship and teaching. Books that were widely read in early Christianity, and later dropped elsewhere, stayed in use here.

Ancient Jewish writings

Enoch and Jubilees were written by Jewish authors in the centuries before Jesus. Fragments of both were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which confirms how old they are. The complete texts of both survive only in Ge’ez.

The Ethiopian Old Testament holds the books found in other Bibles, the books Catholic and Orthodox readers know as deuterocanonical, and several books kept only in the Ethiopian tradition. Here is how they fall in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible from Echelon Nexus Press.

The Book of Enoch

Visions of heaven, the fall of the Watchers, and judgment and restoration. It is the book the Epistle of Jude quotes, which you will read for yourself in Part 5.

The Book of Jubilees

A retelling of Genesis and the first part of Exodus, set in a careful calendar of jubilees, with a strong focus on covenant and law.

The Books of Meqabyan

Three books on faithfulness under pressure. Despite the similar name, they are not the books of Maccabees found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles.

AT A GLANCE

READ

Both passages, complete

Jude 14 to 15

World English Bible Classic, eng-web, from the archived official eBible.org USFM. Public domain.

1 Enoch 1:9

R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, Clarendon Press, 1912, pages 7 to 8, with his marks. Public domain; Charles died in 1931.

Charles’s corner marks ⌜ ⌝ enclose words found in the Greek copy of Enoch discovered at Akhmim, Egypt, but not in the Ge’ez text.

NOTICE

Context and boundary

• Jude names his source: “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied.” He treats Enoch’s words as prophecy.
• The two passages share their order: the Lord coming with ten thousands of holy ones, judgment on all, and conviction for ungodly works and hard words.
• Enoch has a line Jude does not: “And to destroy all the ungodly.” Jude also narrows “all flesh” to “all the ungodly.”
• Jude says the Lord “came.” Charles’s Enoch says He “cometh.” In Jude, the coming is spoken of as already certain.
• Look at the words inside Charles’s corner marks: “of their ungodliness,” “And of all the hard things which,” “have spoken.” Jude has each of them in nearly the same words. His wording stands closest to the Greek copy of Enoch, not the Ge’ez.

The boundary: Jude quoting Enoch shows the book was known and valued in the first century. It does not, on its own, settle which books belong in a canon. Churches have answered that question differently, and the Ethiopian church kept Enoch.

RESPOND

Write it down

1. Why might Jude reach for Enoch’s words rather than a book his readers already counted as Scripture?
2. Jude leaves out “to destroy” and keeps “to convict.” What changes when judgment is described as exposing the truth?
3. Which of the “hard things” said against God do you hear most often today?

Where to Go Next

Read the canon in an order that builds understanding.

1. Begin with the foundations. Genesis, Exodus and Joshua give you the story the rest assumes.
2. Read a Gospel. Matthew or John, for the life and teaching of Jesus.
3. Read the Wisdom books. Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, a little each day.
4. Read Enoch and Jubilees. With Genesis fresh in mind, you will see what they add.

This guide accompanies the Ethiopian Canon Library from Echelon Nexus Press. Scripture is printed from the World English Bible Classic and from R. H. Charles’s translations of Enoch and Jubilees, all in the public domain.