Towards a complete Ethiopian Bible in English

The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible Project

We are dedicated to making the COMPLETE Ethiopian Orthodox Bible available in the English language. Although unknown to most of the world the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church contains books that are not to be found in any other Bible canon (with the exception of the Eritrean Orthodox Church which itself split off from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and with the exception in the case of some of the books of the EOTC Old Testament accepted by Ethiopian Jews known as Beta Israel who preserve an ancient pre-rabbinic form of Judaism.

Already some of these books have been translated into English. Enoch and Jubilees are well known among serious bible scholars. The book of Enoch is quoted in Jude and is also alluded to several times in the New Testament accepted by all Christian churches. Enoch is also quoted approvingly by the early Church Fathers who recognized the Book of Enoch as canonical. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls partial copies of Enoch along with Jubilees, Tobit and Sirach which are also in the EOTC canon were found. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest surviving scrolls of the Bible! The EOTC has 45 million members making it one of the largest churches in the entire world, thus a great number of people follow its Bible Canon.

Ideally we would prefer to translate the remaining as of yet untranslated books of the Bible from the oldest Ge’ez copies however we are also willing to translate from the somewhat later Amharic texts as well. We are currently looking for individuals who can read Ge’ez and Amharic fluently as well as English. We welcome priests, monks and scholars to contact us and volunteer their time and assistance. Full credit will be given and the individuals name and title and portion of Scripture translated will be included with the translations along with a dedication if they wish. The Translator may also choose to remain anonymous

We will assign books or portions of books to different individuals or accept translations of different books or portions by individuals who working in coordination will facilitate the completion of the entire project as quickly as possible. Given the monumental nature of this undertaking it may take many years, we therefore hope to release portions of the project incrementally.

If you are in a position to volunteer your time and assistance and you meet the above criteria please contact us using the form on this site. Our progress depends entirely upon the level of assistance and support that we receive.

Thank you,

Ethiopian Orthodox Bible Project Committee