This is fascinating, as is (to me) the whole history and modern practice of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
If you were raised in Protestant Christianity, as I was, it’s such a mind-blowing experience to learn how broad the tent of “Christianity” actually is.
Ethiopic orthodoxy, for example, gets 18 extra books that the Protestant Bible doesn’t have! And it’s treated so much differently than in Protestantism. Heck, you can’t even go out and buy an “Ethiopian Orthodox Bible” with all 81 books in it, since such a book doesn’t exist. Or at least hasn’t been published.
If you’re at all interested in illuminated manuscripts, check out the fascinating history of the Garima Gospels[1], a set of Ethiopic biblical illuminated manuscripts that have been radio carbon dated to 390-660.
Thank you very much for this post. I've got some new reading to do!
Interestingly, to me, is that Ethiopian history and religion has long been revered by Rastafarians. To the extent that Damian Marley added Amharic subtitles to some of his music videos [0].
If you are a scholar you may be interested in the documentary Bible Hunters [1] which I thoroughly enjoyed when it was first released.
Related, I highly recommend Orthodoxy by Chesterton, especially to protestants and atheists.
You miss out on the best parts of the philosophy when you occupy either of those two camps, though, they're really the same camp. Protestantism and atheism are effectively the same thing. I know a lot of people won't appreciate that line. Just Read Orthodoxy. It gives you a different perspective on Christianity that just may save you some years.
One of the theses of his book is that, despite much of the philosophy perhaps being already integrated into you, when you forego it in the name of protestantism or atheism, you'll find yourself coming full circle to the philosophy in the most inefficient way possible. He gives the example-metaphor of a yachstman who sets out on a sea voyage from England. This man eventually reaches the shore of a land which he believes to be some new island in the South Seas.
That land turns out to be England.
He'd just rediscovered the land he's always occupied, the one that's always been mapped out before him. Don't be the fool who rediscovers England. The map has been laid out before you, through much blood and toil, and centuries. Maybe just read it.
Orthodoxy by Chesterton and Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis is on my reading list (as a non-believer). It's hard to overlook Chesterton's racist views which he displays unconsciously in his Father Brown stories, against Indians, for instance. C. S. Lewis, as far as I know, was more tolerant.
As tolerant as Lewis was, he couldn't avoid revealing some of his early biases through his descriptions of brown girls as objects of temptation in The Pilgrim's Regress.
There is a mixed reception to the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council. The critics of it claim that there is a rich liturgical tradition that was lost when, among other things, chants were traded for Oregon Catholic Press hymns. There's something of a backlash now where the remainIng Catholics want older traditions back.
That wasn’t the Second Vatican Council per se. Both the new Mass and the use of the vernacular were introduced by Pope Paul VI after the Council concluded. The Council had called for the Mass to be “revised”, and for “increased” use of the vernacular, but those were rather open-ended requests, and Paul VI could have chosen a far more conservative approach (closer to the modest changes made by his predecessor) than what he actually did and still have fairly claimed to have been doing what the Council demanded. And then, when his reforms got to the diocesan and parish levels, a lot of people took them in directions that Pope Paul himself likely would not have approved.
Gnosticism was wild! But also kind of makes sense in the context of plenty of contemporary cults/religions/conspiracy theories that appeal to their adherents on the basis of “I have secret knowledge that you don’t.”
On the other hand, the more I learn about early Christian “heresies” like Marcionism (the supreme beings described in the old and new testaments were not the same) or Arianism (that when the New Testament described Jesus as being begotten by God the Father, it’s reasonable to hold a doctrine that Jesus was created at some point and didn’t always exist).
Which is all to say that the historical study of the development of early Christianity is a lot like other fields of historical study, where you find things they are both very familiar and strange to your modern worldview, with a special personal twist if you happened to be raised in a Christian tradition.
My favorite heresy is the view that many prophecies in Revelation and the Gospels already happened, and in fact happened within a few decades of Jesus' death. That is, the end times should be understood in the local context of the people of Roman Judea and their defeat in the siege of Jerusalem. The subsequent spread of Christianity was the second coming. This makes for a less mythological and more politically interesting view of scripture. I suppose the reason why this view never really took off is because the idea that some divine pay-off is just round the corner is a compelling hook. Not sure the religion would be as successful if it was just branded as the story of a guy on the other side of the world who was an inspiration to his people 2000 years ago.
I’d even say that the scholarly consensus on Revelation goes a bit further: that it was written as a type of political commentary on current events.
Also interesting to note that Revelation was nearly rejected for canonization because it depicts Christians in heaven continually feasting, while asceticism and a life of poverty were hallmarks of Christianity at the time. Wild to compare those values to the “prosperity” gospel of today.
If you’re interested in the history and development of Revelation, I’d recommend Bart Ehrman’s Great Courses lecture[1], or his Podcast episodes on the topic[2].
Such a great response! Currently I'm reading a book titled: "Fatal Discord". It's about the Reformation, which I've read a lot about, and the arguments that Martin Luther was having with Erasmus. (The history of Erasmus is fairly new to me.)
1500's Christianity was tragic and dangerous, to say the least. Another disturbing thing is we're still fighting the religious wars, just in a different way. As a former evangelical, but still a devoted Christian, there are some similarities between what went on then and what's happening now, tragically.
Lol. Unlikely to cause the world to end, but interesting to see that these scribes treat the actual work of transcribing scripture as a spiritual practice, in the tradition of thousands of years or scribes before them.
With the notable distinction that the vast majority of those past generations or scribes were working before the advent of the printing press.
If you were raised in Protestant Christianity, as I was, it’s such a mind-blowing experience to learn how broad the tent of “Christianity” actually is.
Ethiopic orthodoxy, for example, gets 18 extra books that the Protestant Bible doesn’t have! And it’s treated so much differently than in Protestantism. Heck, you can’t even go out and buy an “Ethiopian Orthodox Bible” with all 81 books in it, since such a book doesn’t exist. Or at least hasn’t been published.
If you’re at all interested in illuminated manuscripts, check out the fascinating history of the Garima Gospels[1], a set of Ethiopic biblical illuminated manuscripts that have been radio carbon dated to 390-660.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garima_Gospels