Why Is the Ethiopian Bible Different? The 81-Book Canon and the Catholic Church

Open an Ethiopian Orthodox Bible and you will find 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and books called Meqabyan that no other Church reads as Scripture. Is the Ethiopian Bible the most complete Bible on earth, or does the difference prove something else?

Short answer: The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 81 canonical books, including 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and 1–3 Meqabyan, though its own lists reach that number in different ways. The Catholic Church holds a canon of 73 books, received from the early Church, first listed by the Council of Rome (382) under Pope St. Damasus I, then at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), professed at Florence (1442), and solemnly defined at Trent (1546). The very fact that ancient Churches disagree about the list proves the key point: the Bible does not come with its own table of contents. Christ gave His Church the authority to settle it, and that Church is the Catholic Church.

Key verses on Scripture and the Church

• "Enoch, of the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied also about them when he said" (Jude 14)
• "For 'In him we live and move and have our being,' as even some of your poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'" (Acts 17:28)
• "He replied, 'How can I, unless someone instructs me?'" (Acts 8:31)
• "And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18)
• "which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth." (1 Timothy 3:15)

Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

What the Ethiopian Orthodox Believe

Ethiopian Christianity is ancient and deserves deep respect. The first Ethiopian Christian on record appears in Scripture itself: "there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, that is, the queen of the Ethiopians," reading Isaiah on the road to Gaza, whom St. Philip baptized (Acts 8:26–39). In the fourth century, St. Frumentius, honored in Ethiopia as Abba Salama, was consecrated bishop by St. Athanasius of Alexandria (sources differ on the date, from the late 320s to the 340s), and he baptized King Ezana of Aksum, under whom Christianity became the kingdom's official religion (Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Saint Frumentius").

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church's official website states its canon this way: "The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has 46 books of the Old Testament and 35 books of the New Testament," "that will bring the total of canonized books of the Bible to 81." Its Old Testament list includes Jubilees, which it calls "otherwise known as the Little Genesis," and "the book of Enoch which throws so much light on Jewish thought" in the centuries before Christ. Beyond the 27 familiar books, it counts eight church-order books in the New Testament, among them two books of "Dominos," "The book of Clement," and the "Didascalia," and it says the Sinodos is "classed as part of Ethiopic New Testament." It adds that Jubilees "has also been preserved entire only in the Ethiopic version," and states: "The Ethiopic version of the Old and New Testament was made from the Septuagint" (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, "Canonical Books").

Scholars describe two ways of reaching 81:

• The narrower canon, which R. W. Cowley identifies as "the list of the books actually printed in the large Geez and Amharic diglot, and Amharic Bibles," adds to the 39 books all Christians share: Enoch, Jubilees, Wisdom, 1 Esdras, the Ezra Apocalypse (4 Ezra, "Ezra Sutu'el"), Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Baruch, "the rest of Jeremiah" (including 4 Baruch), Susanna, "the rest of Daniel," and books of Maccabees, with all 27 New Testament books. The Ethiopian books of Maccabees, called Meqabyan, need care: Cowley notes they "are not the same as any of the 4 LXX books of Maccabees," and sources differ on how Ethiopia's Maccabees books line up with the Greek 1–2 Maccabees in the Catholic Bible.
• The broader canon, based mainly on a traditional Amharic commentary on the Fetha Nägäst law code, counts 46 Old Testament and 35 New Testament books, the eight extra New Testament books being church-order texts, which Cowley lists as "Sinodos (4 sections)," "the Book of the Covenant (2 sections)," "Clement (1)," and "Didascalia (1)."

The leading English-language study, by R. W. Cowley (Ostkirchliche Studien, 1974), is candid about the complexity: "The number of canonical books is reckoned to be 81, but this total is reached in various ways." The Fetha Nägäst itself says 81 but its list does not add up to it, and Ethiopian authorities, Cowley reports, "have never said of an edition of the Geez or Amharic Bible that it was complete." He adds that the canonicity of the books in the large printed Bibles and the narrower canon "can be regarded as undisputed in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church today" (R. W. Cowley, "The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Today," Ostkirchliche Studien 23 (1974), 318–323; text reproduced online).

So the Ethiopian position, stated at its strongest, is this: the Church of Ethiopia received these books from antiquity in its Ge'ez Bible, translated from the Septuagint; 1 Enoch is quoted in the New Testament by St. Jude; and Ethiopia faithfully preserved books the rest of Christendom neglected. The only complete surviving text of 1 Enoch is the Ethiopic (Encyclopaedia Britannica, "First Book of Enoch").

What Catholics Actually Teach

"God is the author of Sacred Scripture" (CCC 105). The Church did not make any book inspired. Her task was to recognize which books God inspired: "It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one) and 27 for the New" (CCC 120). That is 73 books.

The list has a history:

• Rome (382): The first council list of the canon is traditionally attributed to the Council of Rome under Pope St. Damasus I, which named Tobit, Judith, two books of Maccabees, Wisdom, and Sirach. It is preserved in the Decretum Gelasianum, "the essential part of which is now generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope Damasus in the year 382" (Catholic Encyclopedia, "Canon of the Old Testament"), though scholars debate that date.
• Hippo (393) and Carthage (397): African councils then issued a list matching the Catholic canon, including Tobit, Judith, and two books of Maccabees. The Code of Canons of the African Church (Carthage, 419) repeats it: "Item, that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in church," and asks that it be sent to "our brother and fellow bishop, Boniface" (Pope St. Boniface I) and the other bishops "that they may confirm this canon" (Canon 24).
• Florence (1442): In Cantate Domino, the bull of union with the Copts, whose Church of Alexandria gave Ethiopia its first bishop, the Council declared that the Church "Unum atque eundem Deum veteris ac novi testamenti hoc est legis et prophetarum atque evangelii profitetur auctorem" (our translation: professes one and the same God as the author of the Old and New Testament, that is, of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel), "quoniam eodem Spiritu sancto inspirante utriusque testamenti sancti locuti sunt" (our translation: since the holy men of both Testaments spoke by the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit). It then listed the books of the Catholic canon, including "Tobia, Iudith, Hester," "Baruch," and "Duobus Machabeorum" (two of Maccabees), but not Enoch or Jubilees (Latin text, vatican.va).
• Trent (April 8, 1546): The Council "receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament," naming "Tobias, Judith, Esther" and "two books of the Machabees, the first and the second," and binding the faithful: "But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts," let him be anathema (Session IV, Waterworth trans.).

What Catholics do not teach:

• That 1 Enoch or Jubilees are worthless. They are valuable ancient Jewish writings that illuminate the world of the New Testament. They are not Scripture.
• That the Ethiopian Church is not a true Church with true sacraments. The Eastern Churches not in full communion with Rome "possess true sacraments, above all - by apostolic succession - the priesthood and the Eucharist" (CCC 1399). Yet "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816).

It all points to Christ. The canon matters because every inspired book speaks of Jesus. On the road to Emmaus, "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures" (Luke 24:27). The Church guards the list so that we receive Christ Himself, whole and undistorted.

The Biblical Case

1. Scripture does not list its own books

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). St. Paul tells us what Scripture is, but not which books are Scripture. No verse in any canon contains the list. It must come from someone with authority to give it.

2. Quoting a book does not make it Scripture

St. Jude writes: "Enoch, of the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied also about them when he said, 'Behold, the Lord has come with his countless holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict everyone for all the godless deeds that they committed and for all the harsh words godless sinners have uttered against him'" (Jude 14–15). The NABRE note is direct: "Cited from the apocryphal Book of Enoch 1:9."

That is a real citation, and Ethiopian Christians are right to notice it. But the New Testament quotes non-canonical sources more than once. St. Jude himself, five verses earlier, draws on another: the dispute between St. Michael the Archangel and the devil over Moses' body is, says the NABRE note, "a reference to an incident in the apocryphal Assumption of Moses" (Jude 9). No Church includes the Assumption of Moses in its Bible. St. Paul quotes pagan poets at Athens: "For 'In him we live and move and have our being,' as even some of your poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring'" (Acts 17:28); the NABRE note identifies the second line as from "Aratus of Soli, a third-century B.C. poet from Cilicia." And in Titus 1:12 he quotes a Cretan poet he calls a prophet, traditionally identified as Epimenides. Inspired authors can affirm a true saying without making its whole source Scripture.

3. Scripture needs a living interpreter, as the first Ethiopian Christian knew

St. Philip found the Ethiopian official reading Isaiah and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He answered: "How can I, unless someone instructs me?" (Acts 8:30–31). "Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with this scripture passage, he proclaimed Jesus to him" (Acts 8:35). The first Ethiopian Christian we know of received Scripture through the Church's apostolic preaching. The same is true of the canon: we receive it through the Church.

4. Christ gave His Church authority to settle questions

Jesus built His Church on St. Peter: "you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 16:18–19). When a dispute arose in the first generation, "The apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter," and decided: "It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us" (Acts 15:6, 28). Christ promised, "But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth" (John 16:13). St. Paul calls "the household of God" "the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). A canon needs an authority, and Christ provided one.

Objections Answered

(a) "Jude calls Enoch's words prophecy. If an apostle treats it as inspired, it belongs in the Bible."

At its strongest: St. Jude does not merely borrow a phrase; he says Enoch "prophesied." Tertullian argued the same way around AD 200: "Enoch possesses a testimony in the Apostle Jude."

Answer: St. Jude affirms that this particular saying is a true prophecy. That makes the saying true; it does not make the whole book canonical. Jude 9 uses the Assumption of Moses, and St. Paul uses Aratus (Acts 17:28) and a Cretan poet (Titus 1:12), yet no one canonizes those works. The early Church saw the difference. Tertullian himself admitted that "the Scripture of Enoch" was "not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either." St. Augustine accepted Jude's point without accepting the book: "We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle." But the writings that circulated under his name were not received, "for their antiquity brought them under suspicion," and they were not in "that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests" (City of God 15.23).

(b) "Rome, Hippo, Carthage, and Trent were Western councils. Ethiopia never accepted them."

At its strongest: The Oriental Orthodox accept only three ecumenical councils, and none of them issued a canon list. Ethiopia's canon grew from its own tradition.

Answer: True, the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus issued no list of books. But that proves the Catholic point: if the councils Ethiopia accepts never settled the canon, then what settled it in Ethiopia? By Cowley's account: a law code that names 81 but whose list does not clearly add up to it, and a commentary tradition that fills the gap. Ethiopia's own founding bishop was consecrated by St. Athanasius, whose canon contained no Enoch or Jubilees (see below). The Catholic canon, by contrast, is not a Western novelty: it goes back to the list traditionally attributed to the Council of Rome (382) under Pope St. Damasus I, matches the African lists of 393–419, which were sent to Rome to be confirmed, and was professed at Florence in the decree of union with the Copts. Christ gave that role to St. Peter (Matthew 16:18–19) and his successors in the Catholic Church.

(c) "Catholics added books too. Why is your 73 better than our 81 or the Protestants' 66?"

At its strongest: Protestants accuse Catholics of adding books, just as Catholics question Ethiopia's. Each Church defends its own tradition.

Answer: The Catholic books were not added. The Ethiopian Church itself, by its official statement, translated its Bible from the Septuagint, and its canon includes Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), as Cowley's list of the printed Bibles shows, books Protestants set aside. So on the deuterocanon, Ethiopia stands with Rome. The question is not who has more books, but who has the authority to recognize them. Only one Church claims, and shows from Scripture, that it is "the pillar and foundation of truth" built on St. Peter. (See Why Do Catholic Bibles Have 7 More Books?)

(d) "The Dead Sea Scrolls prove 1 Enoch was treasured before Christ."

At its strongest: Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch were found in Qumran Cave 4, some copied around 200–150 BC (Scrolls from the Dead Sea exhibit, "Enoch"), and parts of the book were written before the Maccabean revolt of 167 BC (Britannica).

Answer: Being ancient and being read do not make a book inspired. Qumran also preserved sectarian writings no Church calls Scripture. St. Augustine made the same distinction (City of God 15.23). The question is whether the Church received it as God's word.

(e) "The Ethiopian Bible is the oldest Bible in the world."

At its strongest: Ethiopia received the Gospel early. In the fourth century St. Frumentius baptized King Ezana of Aksum, and by tradition the Scriptures were translated into Ge'ez toward the end of the fifth century. At the monastery of Abba Garima, monks still keep the Garima Gospels. Radiocarbon testing at Oxford, arranged by the Ethiopian Heritage Fund, dated them to between 330 and 650 AD, and they are called perhaps the oldest surviving illustrated Christian works. On top of that, 1 Enoch survives complete only in Ethiopic. Doesn't that make Ethiopia's Bible the oldest and most complete?

Answer: The Garima Gospels are a genuine treasure, and Catholics should honor them. But they are Gospel books, not a whole Bible. Even the second-oldest known Ethiopic manuscript, identified in 2011, holds only Job and Daniel with two homilies. Whole Bibles of that age survive in Greek. The Vatican Library catalogues Codex Vaticanus as fourth-century, with both Testaments, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch. Codex Sinaiticus, from the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete New Testament. And a translation cannot be older than its source: the Ethiopian Church itself says its version was made from the Septuagint, the very Greek Old Testament these codices preserve. The same goes for Enoch. The Ethiopic is a translation of a Greek translation of an Aramaic original, and the Aramaic fragments from Qumran are far older (Nickelsburg, Biblical Archaeology Society). Finally, a manuscript's age does not settle the canon. The question is which books the Church received. The first council list, traditionally attributed to the Council of Rome (382) under Pope St. Damasus I, already names the books of the Catholic canon, and the Council of Florence listed the same books in 1442 in its union with the Copts, the Church whose patriarch for centuries appointed Ethiopia's archbishop. The oldest Bible is not the one with the oldest surviving page, but the one Christ's Church has received and handed on whole.

The Early Church Agrees

The Fathers show both things at once: some valued 1 Enoch, and the Church as a whole did not receive it as Scripture.

• Tertullian (On the Apparel of Women 1.3, c. AD 200), who favored the book, still conceded: "I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order (of action) to angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either" (newadvent.org).
• St. Athanasius of Alexandria (Festal Letter 39, AD 367), the patriarch who consecrated St. Frumentius for Ethiopia, listed the canonical books and named no Enoch or Jubilees. He placed Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit among books "not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read," and warned that apocryphal books "are an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose" (Letter 39.7). (His Old Testament list differs from the later Catholic one, which shows again why a final judgment was needed.)
• St. Augustine of Hippo (On Christian Doctrine 2.8, c. AD 397) told readers to "prefer those that are received by all the Catholic churches to those which some do not receive," named "Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees" among the Old Testament books, and concluded: "The authority of the Old Testament is contained within the limits of these forty-four books" (counting some books together; newadvent.org).
• Council of Carthage (AD 419, Canon 24) restated the African list and sent it to Pope St. Boniface I "that they may confirm this canon" (newadvent.org).
• St. Augustine (City of God 15.23, c. AD 420) on Enoch: "We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle," yet the books under his name were not received, "for their antiquity brought them under suspicion" (ccel.org).

The pattern is clear: Fathers debated, the Church gathered in council, and Rome was asked to confirm. That is how Christ meant His Church to settle hard questions.

Conclusion

The Ethiopian Bible is different because the Ethiopian Church, long isolated geographically and bound by no ecumenical council that defined a list, received and preserved more books than anyone else, and reached its count of 81 in more than one way. Catholics honor Ethiopia's extraordinary love for Scripture.

But love for Scripture cannot settle the list of Scripture. St. Jude quoting Enoch no more canonizes Enoch than St. Paul quoting Aratus canonizes Aratus. Only the Church Christ built on St. Peter, "the pillar and foundation of truth," can say with certainty which books God inspired, and she has said it: 73 books, received from the Fathers, listed at Rome (382), Hippo, and Carthage, professed at Florence and defined at Trent. (For the full history, see Who Decided Which Books Are in the Bible?)

Come home. The same authority that settled which books are Scripture still teaches with St. Peter's voice in the Catholic Church. You already possess true sacraments and much of the apostolic faith, in "a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (CCC 838). Those gifts draw their power "from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church" and "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819). The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Church's unity, yet your true Eucharist is celebrated apart from the successor of St. Peter, on whom Christ built His Church (Matthew 16:18). We invite you into full communion with St. Peter's successor, the bishop of Rome, in the Catholic Church.

Your next step: Come to Mass or Divine Liturgy at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. When you're ready, call the parish office and ask to speak with the priest about entering full communion with the Catholic Church. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.

FAQ

How many books are in the Ethiopian Bible? The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 81. Its official site gives 46 Old Testament and 35 New Testament books; scholars also describe a narrower canon that reaches 81 differently. As R. W. Cowley put it, the total "is reached in various ways."

Is the Ethiopian Bible the oldest Bible? No. Ethiopia's Garima Gospels, radiocarbon-dated to between 330 and 650 AD, are among the oldest illustrated Christian books, but they contain the Gospels, not a whole Bible. Complete Greek Bibles such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus come from the fourth century, and the Ethiopian Church says its own version was translated from the Greek Septuagint.

Is the Book of Enoch in the Catholic Bible? No. The Catholic Church honors St. Jude's citation of a prophecy attributed to Enoch (Jude 14–15) but does not receive 1 Enoch as Scripture. Florence (1442) and Trent (1546) list the canonical books without it.

Can Ethiopian Orthodox Christians be saved? The Ethiopian Church has true sacraments and much of the apostolic faith (CCC 838, 1399). Yet "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body," and those who know "that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ" and "refuse either to enter it or to remain in it" "could not be saved" (CCC 846). Those who through no fault of their own do not know this "may achieve eternal salvation" (CCC 847), a hope, not a promise, and membership alone saves no one who does not "persevere in charity" (CCC 837). Christ's gifts in your Church call you to full communion. See What Are the Oriental Orthodox Churches?

Sources

Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Matthew 16:18–19; Luke 24:27; John 16:13; Acts 8:26–39; Acts 15:6, 28; Acts 17:28 and note; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 3:16; Titus 1:12; Jude 9, 14–15 and notes.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 105; 120; 816, 819, 837, 838, 846, 847; 1399.

Church documents: Council of Florence, Cantate Domino, Bull of Union with the Copts (1442), Latin text; Council of Trent, Session IV, Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures (1546), trans. J. Waterworth.

Church Fathers and councils (newadvent.org; ccel.org): Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women 1.3; Athanasius, Festal Letter 39; Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 2.8; Augustine, City of God 15.23; Council of Carthage (419), Canon 24.

Historical background: Catholic Encyclopedia, "Canon of the Old Testament"; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Canon of the New Testament"; Decretum Gelasianum, English translation (von Dobschütz ed.).

Ethiopian Orthodox and scholarly sources: Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, "Canonical Books"; R. W. Cowley, "The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Today," Ostkirchliche Studien 23 (1974), 318–323 (text reproduced online); Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Saint Frumentius"; Encyclopaedia Britannica, "First Book of Enoch"; Scrolls from the Dead Sea exhibit, "Enoch"; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.gr.1209 (Codex Vaticanus), catalogue record; Codex Sinaiticus Project, "What is Codex Sinaiticus?"; Medievalists.net, "Garima Gospels found to be oldest surviving Christian illustrated manuscripts" (2010); Medievalists.net, "Scholar discovers 6th-century Ethiopian Old Testament" (2011); George W. E. Nickelsburg, "Dead Sea Scrolls Spotlight: The Book of Enoch," Biblical Archaeology Society; Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church".