Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.

All the history, in all the books, History in the Bible podcast.

Last time I discussed the canons and textual traditions of the Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants.

In this episode I'll discuss the more obscure canons,

the more obscure textual traditions, and begin the story of the critical study of the Bible

and biblical history. The most relaxed attitude to the Bible is that of the Ethiopian Orthodox

Tewahedo Church, the mother church to almost 45 million people.

To give you some idea of the size of this community, it is twice as large as the entire

Baptist congregation in the United States and about half the size of the worldwide Anglican

Communion. The Ethiopians claim an ancient history in both Judaism and Christianity.

It is said that Ethiopia's ruling dynasty, only expelled in 1974, was descended from King

Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Ethiopian Jews, known as Baitar Israel, House of Israel, are accepted by the Israeli

rabbinate as fully Jews and account of the descendants of the ten lost tribes.

The DNA evidence is mute on the matter.

The best we can say is that Judaism was established in Ethiopia by Jewish migrants from Egypt.

This must have happened before the 2nd century BC, as the Bata Israel did not celebrate Hanukkah,

which commemorates the

restoration of the temple in 164 BC. Christianity became Ethiopia's state religion at about the same

time it did in the Roman Empire, although the history is murky. The Old Testament canon

of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the most expansive amongst all the

faiths, and it is only loosely defined. Some of its books have never been translated from the ancient

...