I am very excited by my explorations of the Ethiopian Bible and its various versions, both with and without the Apocryphal books. Not having began my studies in Hebrew and Greek I will say from my limited knowledge that the translations rendered seem to have a faithfulness to the original Hebrew and Greek translations that is exciting and definitely merits much more intense research and scrutiny. Case in point, The 1915 British and Foreign Bible Society printing of the 1886 edition of the Holy Bible in Amharic starts Genesis 1:1 like this: :1 At first God created sky and earth,
:2 The Earth was empty, nothing was there, The dark was in front of the river, the spirit of God was floating above the water, :3 God said, Let there be light and there was light….

John 1:1 says “In the previous, it was the word and the word was with God, God was the word” The bible then gives references to Gen 1:1-3, Proverbs 17:5 and John 1:1-2. John 1:2 continues: In the previous it was with God (reference proverbs 20:22)….

This particular version of scripture dances between delivering the word and giving references to support the scripture just cited. To say I am excited is an understatement! I think it is amazing to see just how much we have to appreciate in regards to the theological perspectives and resources our brothers and sisters in East Africa have and the knowledge they have been exposed to.

To me it’s no wonder that other ideas like the “Gap Theory” and “Sacred Names” don’t exists amongst a lot of the Christians from the Eastern/Old World perspective. In my opinion if you deal with the scripture humbly and sincerely, without ulterior motives and let it interpret itself, you simply don’t have time, or room for distracting, attention altering theories. I would rather be excited and celebrating the many aspects of the creator God and the Father and the glorious aspects of his plan of salvation for his creation.