Ethiopian Bible: The 81 Books, History & English Editions

The Ethiopian Bible is the body of scripture used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, one of the Oriental Orthodox churches. Tewahedo is a Ge’ez word meaning “made one,” a reference to the church’s teaching on the united nature of Christ.^[3]

Christianity became the religion of the Aksumite kingdom in the 4th century, during the reign of King Ezana.^[7] The scriptures were translated into Ge’ez over the following centuries, and the church kept copying them by hand long after other churches had settled their lists of books.^[5] The result is a Bible that overlaps heavily with other Christian Bibles but preserves several ancient Jewish and early Christian writings that survive complete nowhere else.

“Ethiopian Bible” is also used loosely for English-language books sold under that name. Those are modern compilations by individual publishers, and they are not the same thing as the church’s canon. The rest of this page separates the two.

The Ethiopian Bible has 81 books. That number is traditional and stable; how the books are grouped to reach it is not.

The church’s own published list, drawn from a 1983 Holy Synod publication, gives 46 Old Testament books and 35 New Testament books.^[1] The 35 are the 27 New Testament books shared by all major churches plus eight books of church order. The 81 figure also appears in the Fetha Negest, the traditional Ethiopian law code.^[8]

Scholars also describe a “narrower canon” that reaches 81 differently: the New Testament stays at 27 books, and the Old Testament is counted as 54 by treating some books separately (for example, splitting Proverbs into two books). A “broader canon” adds further church-order books to the New Testament.^[2][4]

Why do some editions say 88 books?

Some English editions sold as the Ethiopian Bible advertise 88 books. That number does not appear in the church’s list.^[1] A publisher can reach a different total by splitting books that the church counts together, by adding texts that are not part of the canon, or both. A higher number is not evidence of a more complete or more authentic edition. Look at the table of contents and how the publisher explains its count.

This is the list the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church publishes, in its order, with common English names. Distinctive books are marked. Some entries group related texts: the church’s “Jeremiah,” for example, is the entry under which scholarly lists separately count Lamentations, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, and 4 Baruch.^[1][4]

These are the books readers usually mean when they ask what makes the Ethiopian Bible different. None of them is part of the Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox canon.^[2]

1 Enoch (Henok)

A Jewish apocalyptic work attributed to Enoch, the seventh patriarch in Genesis, written in stages before the Christian era. Its only complete surviving text is the Ge’ez translation, made from an earlier Greek version of a Hebrew or Aramaic original.^[9] Aramaic fragments were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the New Testament letter of Jude (verses 14–15) quotes it directly.^[10][11]

Jubilees (Kufale)

A retelling of Genesis and the first part of Exodus, organized into “jubilees” of 49 years. It is sometimes called the “Little Genesis.”^[12] As with Enoch, the Ge’ez text is the only complete version that survives; Hebrew fragments were also found at Qumran.^[13]

1, 2 and 3 Meqabyan

Three books whose name resembles “Maccabees,” and which the church’s English list labels that way, but which are different works from the books of Maccabees in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles.^[1][2] An edition that prints the Greek books of Maccabees in their place is not giving you the Ethiopian text.

4 Baruch (Paralipomena of Jeremiah)

A short narrative about Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch around the fall of Jerusalem. In the church’s list it belongs to the Jeremiah entry rather than standing as a separately numbered book.^[4]

Josippon

A history of the Jewish people in the Second Temple period, listed by the church as “the book of Josephas the son of Bengorion.”^[1] It is a version of a medieval Hebrew chronicle, not the works of the 1st-century historian Josephus.^[4]

The eight church-order books

The New Testament section adds eight books on church order, worship, and discipline: the four parts of the Sinodos (Sirate Tsion, Tizaz, Gitsew, Abtilis), two books of the Covenant (listed by the church as “Dominos”), an Ethiopic Book of Clement, and the Didascalia.^[1] These are the books most often missing from English editions.

Several works are closely associated with Ethiopian Christianity but are not among the 81 books.

• Kebra Nagast (“Glory of the Kings”). A 14th-century Ethiopian work about Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, their son Menelik, and the Ark of the Covenant. It is a national epic of great cultural importance, not a book of the Bible.^[14]
• 1 and 2 Maccabees (Greek). The books of Maccabees in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles are not part of the Ethiopian canon. The Ethiopian Meqabyan are separate works.^[2]
• The Ascension of Isaiah. An early Christian work whose only complete text survives in Ge’ez, but which is not on the church’s list of 81.^[1]
• The Fetha Negest. The traditional law code that records the count of 81. It is a legal and canonical reference, not scripture.^[8]

The Ethiopian Bible was translated into Ge’ez in late antiquity, copied by hand for more than a thousand years, and printed in full only in the modern era. Key dates:

1. 4th century

   Christianity in Aksum

   King Ezana of Aksum adopts Christianity. Frumentius becomes the first bishop of the Ethiopian church.^[3][7]

2. c. 5th–7th centuries

   Translation into Ge’ez

   The Bible is translated into Ge’ez from Greek, with the Old Testament based on the Septuagint.^[1][5]

3. Late antiquity

   The Garima Gospels

   Illustrated Gospel books preserved at the Abba Garima monastery are produced; radiocarbon analysis places them among the earliest surviving Ethiopian manuscripts.^[6]

4. 1548

   First printed Ge’ez New Testament

   The Ge’ez New Testament is printed in Rome, prepared by the Ethiopian monk Tasfa Seyon.^[15]

5. 1840

   First complete Amharic Bible

   A complete Bible in Amharic, the main spoken language of Ethiopia, is printed from a translation by Abu Rumi.^[16]

6. 1962

   Haile Selassie Amharic Bible

   A new Amharic Bible is published under Emperor Haile Selassie, with 66 books; the deuterocanonical books were issued separately.^[17]

7. 1986

   The 81-book Amharic Bible

   The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church publishes an Amharic Bible containing all 81 books.^[17]

Most of its books are available in English, but in pieces. We have not been able to verify any complete English translation of all 81 books authorized by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

In practice, English readers put the Ethiopian Bible together from three kinds of source:

• Standard English Bibles. These cover the books the Ethiopian canon shares with other churches. They are translated from Hebrew and Greek, not from Ge’ez.
• Scholarly translations of single books. 1 Enoch and Jubilees have careful, annotated English translations made from the Ge’ez, such as Nickelsburg and VanderKam’s 1 Enoch (2012), Knibb’s Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1978), and VanderKam’s Book of Jubilees (1989). R. H. Charles’s translations of Enoch (1912) and Jubilees (1902) are older and in the public domain.^{[10][11][13][18][19]}
• Commercial compilations. Single volumes sold as “the Ethiopian Bible in English” combine material from different sources. Their contents, book counts, and translation sources vary by publisher.

If you are choosing a printed edition, these checks matter more than the cover or the advertised book count. Work through them in order.

1. Compare the contents with the 81-book list

   Check which distinctive books are present: Enoch, Jubilees, 1–3 Meqabyan, 4 Baruch, Josippon, and the eight church-order books. The church-order books are the ones most often left out.

2. Find the source of each translation

   A trustworthy edition names its translators and says which text each book was translated from, in particular whether it came from Ge’ez or from Hebrew and Greek.

3. Check that Meqabyan is really Meqabyan

   If the edition prints the Greek books of Maccabees under that name, it does not contain the Ethiopian books.

4. Read the explanation of the book count

   An edition claiming 88 books, or any number other than 81, should explain how it counts and what it added. If it doesn’t, treat the number as marketing.

5. Treat “official” claims with care

   An edition is church-authorized only if it documents that authorization. “Ethiopian Orthodox” in a title describes the subject, not an endorsement.

6. Look for introductions and notes

   Good editions explain what each distinctive book is and where its text comes from. Bare text with no front matter makes the edition hard to assess.

7. Note the publisher and edition date

   Reprints of century-old translations are fine for reading, but they do not reflect manuscript discoveries made since.

8. Preview the pages before buying

   Use the retailer’s page preview to check type size, layout, and verse numbering, especially in large single-volume compilations.

This page is the starting point. We are preparing a dedicated guide to English translations of the Ethiopian Bible, a comparison of printed editions against the 81-book list, and a book-by-book guide to the distinctive texts. Each will be linked from this page when it is published, not before.

Spotted an error? Read our corrections policy.

1. ChurchEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, “The Bible,” official church website (English section). The page credits A Short History, Faith and Order of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (Holy Synod, Addis Ababa, 1983).
   www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html
2. ScholarlyRoger W. Cowley, “The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Today,” Ostkirchliche Studien 23 (1974): 318–323.
3. ReferenceEncyclopaedia Britannica, “Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.”
   www.britannica.com/topic/Ethiopian-Orthodox-Tewahedo-Church
4. TertiaryWikipedia, “Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon” (consulted November 2, 2026). Used as an overview of scholarly “narrower” and “broader” canon lists; see the article’s cited sources.
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Tewahedo_biblical_canon
5. ScholarlyG. A. Mikre-Sellassie, “The Early Translation of the Bible into Ethiopic/Geez,” The Bible Translator 51, no. 3 (2000): 302–316.
   doi.org/10.1177/026009350005100302
6. ScholarlyJudith S. McKenzie and Francis Watson, The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Gospel Books from Ethiopia (Oxford: Manar al-Athar, University of Oxford, 2016).
7. MuseumThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, “African Christianity in Ethiopia,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History essay.
   www.metmuseum.org/essays/african-christianity-in-ethiopia
8. ScholarlyG. A. Mikre-Sellassie, “The Bible and Its Canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church,” The Bible Translator 44, no. 1 (1993): 111–123.
   doi.org/10.1177/026009359304400102
9. ReferenceEncyclopaedia Britannica, “First Book of Enoch.”
   www.britannica.com/topic/First-Book-of-Enoch
10. ScholarlyGeorge W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012).
11. ScholarlyMichael A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).
12. ReferenceEncyclopaedia Britannica, “Book of Jubilees.”
    www.britannica.com/topic/Book-of-Jubilees
13. ScholarlyJames C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols., Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 510–511 (Leuven: Peeters, 1989).
14. ReferenceEncyclopaedia Britannica, “Kebra Negast.”
    www.britannica.com/topic/Kebra-Negast
15. ScholarlyRochus Zuurmond, “The Ethiopic Version of the New Testament,” in Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
    doi.org/10.1163/9789004236554
16. ScholarlyEdward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1967 (London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1968).
17. TertiaryWikipedia, “Bible translations into Amharic” (consulted November 2, 2026). Used only for the dates of modern Amharic printings; see the article’s cited sources.
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_into_Amharic
18. ScholarlyR. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912). Public domain.
19. ScholarlyR. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902). Public domain.