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Fact check: How does the Ethiopian Bible's canon differ from the Catholic Bible's canon?
Executive Summary
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s biblical canon is substantially larger and differently composed than the Roman Catholic canon: the Ethiopian canon traditionally contains 81 books, including the Hebrew protocanon, the Catholic deuterocanonical books, and additional texts such as 1–3 Meqabyan, 1 Enoch, and Jubilees, which are absent from Catholic Bibles [1] [2]. The Roman Catholic canon, formalized in the 16th century Council of Trent, includes 46 Old Testament books (counting the deuterocanon) and 27 New Testament books; it does not accept Enoch, Jubilees, or Meqabyan [3] [4].
1. Why the Ethiopian Bible looks so different — a historical snapshot that matters
The Ethiopian canon’s breadth results from a distinctive historical process of adoption and local tradition that preserved texts circulating in Geʽez-speaking Christianity. Manuscript evidence and church practice show that Ethiopian communities retained works like Enoch and Jubilees, which were influential in Second Temple Jewish literature and early Christian milieus but did not enter the Latin West’s canonical consensus [1] [5]. This divergence reflects separate trajectories of scriptural reception: while the Catholic Church consolidated a western canon influenced by the Septuagint and later councils, Ethiopian Christianity developed a wider corpus tied to local liturgy and monastic scholarship [2] [4].
2. The headline differences in book lists — counts and unique titles
Counting varies by reckoning, but standard descriptions place the Ethiopian Orthodox canon at around 81 books, the Catholic canon at 73 books (46 OT including seven deuterocanonical, plus 27 NT), and most Protestant canons at 66 [1] [3]. The Ethiopian extra books include 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and three Meqabyan books — none of which appear in Catholic canons. The Catholic deuterocanonical books — Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, and 1–2 Maccabees — are shared with Eastern and some Oriental traditions but not uniformly with Ethiopia’s additional corpus [4] [3].
3. How Councils and chronology shaped the Catholic list — a brief timeline
The Catholic canon was ratified in formal terms by the Council of Trent [6] as a response to Reformation debates; it affirmed the deuterocanonical books long used in Western liturgy and theology [3]. Earlier church councils and the Latin Vulgate tradition influenced which Greek and Hebrew texts were accepted. By contrast, the Ethiopian canon’s formation was gradual and locally mediated; its final shape was less the product of a single ecumenical council and more the result of centuries of usage and manuscript transmission within the Ethiopian Church [5] [1].
4. The status of Enoch and Jubilees — why inclusion matters for theology and history
Books like 1 Enoch and Jubilees carry theological themes (angelology, judgment, calendrical law) that influenced some early Christian writers but were later excluded from Western canons. Ethiopia’s retention of these works preserved alternative strands of early Jewish-Christian thought that the Catholic Church did not adopt as canonical. Their presence in the Ethiopian canon therefore represents a different selection of ancient theological priorities and historical memory, not mere accidental preservation [2] [5].
5. Meqabyan — a uniquely Ethiopian set that confounds comparisons
The Meqabyan books (I–III) are titularly linked to the Maccabees but narratively and theologically distinct from the Jewish-Hellenistic 1–4 Maccabees known in other traditions. These texts are canonical in Ethiopia but absent from Catholic and most other Christian canons, complicating direct comparisons and demonstrating that canonical labels do not always map to shared content across traditions [1] [7].
6. Scholarly debates and modern projects — translation and publication efforts
Recent scholarship and translation projects aim to make the Ethiopian canon more accessible; projects published full collections and partial English translations in the 2020s, highlighting the canon’s textual richness and translation challenges [2] [7]. Academic timelines of canon formation emphasize that canons emerged through long processes involving community use, liturgy, and manuscript availability, and contemporary work has focused on editing and translating Ethiopian texts to facilitate comparative study [5] [7].
7. What these differences mean for readers and ecumenical conversations
For readers and interchurch dialogue, the differing canons reveal competing historical memories and theological emphases rather than simple right-or-wrong lists. Catholics and Ethiopians share significant common scripture but diverge on texts that shaped doctrine and practice for particular communities. Recognizing these canonical variances clarifies how Christian traditions constructed authoritative libraries and why ecumenical conversation must account for diverse textual legacies [4] [3].