Field and river

20th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES20)
Mekelle University, Ethiopia

"Regional and Global Ethiopia - Interconnections and Identities"
1-5 October, 2018

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THE ETHIOPIC NEW TESTAMENT: CRITICAL EDITIONS OF THE GE'EZ TEXT - THE HISTORY OF REGIONAL AND GLOBAL EFFORTS [Abstract ID: 0805-02]

Timothy B. SAILORS, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen

The translations of the Bible or portions thereof into Classical Ethiopic have long been the subject of scholarly attention. Such investigations continue to this day, with, for example, a major project on the Ethiopic Old Testament. These studies, however, have not always been accompanied by the production of (critical) editions of Ge'ez biblical texts. Although the editio princeps of the New Testament was published 470 years ago—in 1548 by three Ethiopian monks in Rome—true, modern critical editions of New Testament books began to appear only in the latter part of the twentieth century. The editor of a book of the Ethiopic New Testament faces numerous challenges in assessing its text, including the influence of other linguistic traditions and the existence of multiple, distinct recensions that cannot and should not be collapsed into a single form of the book. This paper will survey past, present, and future editions of the Ge'ez text of books in the Ethiopic New Testament.