British Academy Proceedings: Lectures and Memoirs

These Schweich Lectures tackle the origin, history, and character of the Ethiopic translation of the Old Testament. This version is of fundamental importance both in terms of the influence it has exerted on Ethiopian life and culture, and as one of the daughter versions of the Greek Old Testament yet much remains unknown or uncertain about it Professor Knibb argues that, notwithstanding the criticisms that have been made of it, the traditional view of the history of the Ethiopic version translation from the Septuagint in the fifth-sixth century, revision on the basis of the Syriac-based Arabic texts in the fourteenth century, and a further revision in the fifteenth or sixteenth century on the basis of the Hebrew is broadly correct, but that this view is in need of development and refinement in many details. The majority of the book is devoted to a study of the mode of translation, to translation technique. There is a discussion of general aspects of the translation and syntactical issues, and the question of consistency and diversity in the translation-equivalents that are used is also addressed. Many of these issues are of general relevance to other ancient Bible translations. This book is intended for scholars and students of literature and social sciences.