ETHIOPIC MANUSCRIPTS

Groups in Ethiopia officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century, long before Europeans. The Ethiopian manuscripts on display in Dead Sea Scrolls were copied in the 17th and 18th centuries (some include 19th century insertions and illustrations).

Ethiopic Psalms Book 19th Century
Courtesy of Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

These manuscripts serve both as a memory of Ethiopia's early Orthodox Christians and a testament to their on-going scribal tradition. Scribes in Ethiopia still make parchment from goatskin, cut and mark pages by hand, and copy the Bible using pen and ink balanced on their laps, a living demonstration remarkably similar to the scribal traditions probably practiced at Qumran.

Ethiopic Psalms Book 19th Century Courtesy of Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

The two Ethiopic manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition are examples of Psalm-books in codex form: hand-sewn and hand-copied books on parchment, bound by wooden covers. One is shown side-by-side with the great Psalms scroll from Qumran, along with a 16th century Bible in English and an exquisite 17th century illuminated Bible in Latin, demonstrating the remarkable fidelity of the Bible over centuries. The other is shown as part of an array exploring the change in book-making technology, from scroll to codex to block-printing to movable type, and finally to electronic files.

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