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The Ethiopic Version of the Lives of the Prophets: Ezekiel and Daniel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
The collection of legends about the prophets known as the Lives of the Prophets belongs amongst the Old Testament pseudepigrapha. It is a Jewish work in origin, perhaps dating from the first century A.D., and was composed in Greek or, less probably, Hebrew. It was subsequently taken over by the Church, and none of the extant witnesses to the text is entirely free of the signs of Christian editing. The wealth of textual evidence available is considerable. Thus the Greek version of the Lives, which is the most important, is found in numerous manuscripts belonging to several different recensions, but Syriac, Latin, Armenian and Arabic versions are also known. In addition an Ethiopic version is said to exist, but to my knowledge only the Life of Jeremiah has hitherto been published. Some years ago, however, I observed that the Lives of Ezekiel and Daniel are given in two Ethiopic manuscripts in the British Library—although they are not described as such in Wright's Catalogue. From the description in Dillmann's Catalogue it also seemed likely to me that the Life of Ezekiel was to be found in a Berlin manuscript, and I have now been able to confirm this. My purpose in this short study is to make available the text and a translation of these two Lives.
- Type
- Articles Notes and Communications
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 197 - 206
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1980
References
1 For discussions of the character and date of the Lives of the Prophets see Torrey, C. C., The apocryphal literature: a brief introduction, New Haven, 1945, 135—40Google Scholar; Pfeiffer, R. H., History of New Testament times with an introduction to the Apocrypha, London, 1949, 66–7Google Scholar; Schoeps, H. J., ‘Die jüdischen Prophetenmorde’, Aus frühchristlicher Zeit: religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Tübingen, 1950, 130–2Google Scholar; Stone, M. E., ‘The Lives of the Prophets’, Encyclopaedia Judaica 13Google Scholar, cols. 1149–50.—For the theory of composition in Hebrew see Torrey, C. C., The Lives of the Prophets: Greek text and translation (JBL Monograph Series, 1), Philadelphia, 1946, 1, 7, 16–17, 49–52Google Scholar; idem, The apocryphal literature, 139–40; but the evidence for this theory is inconclusive (cf.bSchermann, T., Propheten- und Apostellegenden nebst Jüngercatalogen des Dorotheus und verwandter Texte (Texte und Untersuchungen, 31. 3), Leipzig, 1907, 122)Google Scholar. Composition in Syriac was advocated by Hall, I. H. (‘Notes on the “Lives of the Prophets”’, JBL, 6/2 (12 1886), 97, 102Google Scholar; ‘The Lives of the Prophets’, JBL, 7/1 (06 1887), 38–9), but this seems quite unlikely. I would like to express my thanks to Professor Edward Ullendorff for helpful advice in the preparation of this article, and to Dr. Stefan Strelcyn for drawing my attention to the article by Professor Löfgren (note 2)Google Scholar.
2 For a survey of the textual evidence see Denis, A.-M., Introduction aux pseudépigraphes grecs d'Ancien Testament (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha, 1), Leiden, 1970, 85–9Google Scholar. Cf. also Graf, , Geschichte d,. christl. arab. Lit., I, 212–17Google Scholar; Löfgren, O., ‘An Arabic recension of the “Vitae Prophetarum”’, Orientalia Suecana 25–6 (1976/77), Uppsala, 1978, 77–105Google Scholar.
3 Cf. Nestle, E., ‘Die dem Epiphanius zugeschriebenen Vitae Prophetarum in doppelter griechischer Rezension’, Marginalien und Materialien, Tübingen, 1893, 15Google Scholar (second pagination); Torrey, , The apocryphal literature, 135Google Scholar; Pfeiffer, , History, 66Google Scholar.
4 See Bachmann, J., Aethiopische Lesestücke. Inedita Aethiopica für den Gebrauch in Universitats-Vorlesungen, Leipzig, 1893, 10–13, 47Google Scholar, ‘Legenden über Jeremia’. Bachmann's edition was based on two manuscripts: 1. Frankfurt, Rüppell II 3 (17th cent.), pp. 133–5; 2. Berlin, Peterm. II Nachtr. 42 (Dillmann's Catalogue, No. 2; 15th cent.), fol. 219–20. For a translation see Basset, R., Les apocryphes éthiopiens traduit en français. I. Le lime de Baruch et la légende de Jérémie, Paris, 1893, 4–5, 25–9Google Scholar.
5 See Wright, W., Catalogue of the Ethiopic manuscripts in the British Museum acquired since the year 1847, London, 1877, 19–20Google Scholar. The photographs of BL Orient. 501 and 496 (plates I–III) are reproduced by kind permission of the British Library.
6 See Dillmann, A., Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliotheh zu Berlin, Berlin, 1878, 2Google Scholar; I am grateful to the Library authorities for kindly supplying me with a copy of this manuscript. After I had identified the text as the Life of Ezekiel I observed that attention had already been drawn to this manuscript by Nestle (Marginalien und Materialien, 52 (second pagination)); Nestle took the reference from Cornill, C. H., Das Buch des Propheten Ezechiel, Leipzig, 1886, 38Google Scholar. The Berlin manuscript is, of course, one of the two manuscripts from which Bachmann took his edition of the Life of Jeremiah; see note 4.
7 See Wright, , Catalogue, 18Google Scholar. It is perhaps worth adding here that the accounts of Ezekiel and Daniel in the Synaxarium are quite different in content (I have consulted the text given in Br. Libr. Orient. 660–1; see 661, fol. 18va–19rc (Daniel) and 32rc-vb (Ezekiel)).
8 I use the recension printed in Nestle's Grammar; see below, note 16.
9 On the subject of Ethiopic Bible translations see Ullendorff, Edward, Ethiopia and the Bible (The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1967), London, 1968, 31–59Google Scholar.
10 For the text of these recensions see Schermann, T., Prophetarum Vitae Fabulosae, Indices Apostolorum Disdplorumque Domini (Teubner Series), Leipzig, 1907CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Schermann discussed the character of the recensions in his Propheten- und Apostellegenden, 1–133. See also Torrey, , The Lives of the Prophets, 12–14Google Scholar.
11 Propheten- und Apostellegenden, 127–8. —Schoeps (Aus frühchristlicher Zeit, 130) maintains that the Dorotheus recension is the most reliable, but does not go into any details.
12 The Lives of the Prophets, 4, 7–8, 12, 15–16. Cf. Nestle, , Marginalien und Materialien, 46Google Scholar (second pagination).
13 For the text see Schermann, , Prophetarum Vitae, 49Google Scholar.
14 The Lives of the Prophets.
15 For the text of the Lives of Exekiel and Daniel in this recension see Schermann, , Prophetarum Vitae, 11–17Google Scholar.
16 Nestle, E., Syriac grammar (English edition, 1889)Google Scholar.