The Ethiopic Version of the Lives of the Prophets: Ezekiel and Daniel

Abstract

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.