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RECEPTION OF ETHIOPIC ENOCH IN GƎ‘ƎZ LITERATURE: ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF SELECTED ETHIOPIC PROSE AND POETIC TEXTS [Abstract ID: 0808-01]
Scholars of philology, ancient history, and Second Temple Judaism, and the Origins of Christianity are very interested in studying the book of Enoch, aiming to enhance their knowledge of Jewish folklore and to seek information on the religious ideas of Judaism, especially concerning the Messiah. However, most of the scholars do not pay attention to the reception of the Ethiopic book of Enoch in Ethiopic literature. This means that there is a huge gap, an untouched area of inquiries regarding the reception of this book in Ethiopic literatures. Very little is studied as for the Ethiopian socio-religious context in which the text has been transmitted and used for more than three millenniums. This hinders the possibility of appreciating the influence of the book of Enoch. It indirectly limits our study of 1 Enoch. Here, many questions can be raised concerning this problem. How can we interpret the lack of interest for Ethiopic prose and poetic literature by scholars who study the book of Enoch? How can we explain the ignorance of its influence in Ethiopic literature? Does that mean the influence of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch on Ethiopian literature is not relevant to the study of the Book of Enoch? After all, to affirm its relevance or to deny its importance, do we not first need to verify the existence or the absence of such prose and poetic material inspired by the book of Enoch? The objective of this panel, therefore, is to explore the reception of the Ethiopic Enoch in Gǝ‘ǝz Literatures and to make annotated translation and textual analysis on some selected Ethiopic prose and poetic texts dated from 14th -18th centuries. The result shows that the contents of 1 Enoch are repeatedly used as sources of prose and poetic genres of Gǝ‘ǝz literatures, and they are analyzed from different perspectives such as theological, philological, historical, cosmological, moral, and others.