/lit/ - Literature

These books are in the Ethiopian Old Testament but you cannot find them anywhere, not even collected translations of other para-biblical writings which include obscure and late stuff. They're never mentioned in academic discussion of biblical pseudepigrapha and seem to have received basically no notice in academia (there are a handful of journal articles if you really dig). This is a self published translation by a random Ethiopian guy.

Their existence is really interesting, it seems the narrative portions were composed to fill a gap in the Ethiopian canon which didn't include the Greek books of the Maccabees. They remind me of Judith, the setting is a garbled Biblical past and the theme is standing up to tyrannical, idol-worshipping kings. That's only about 1/3rd of the material though, the rest is a load of preaching about how to be pious and is a bit tedious.