Life and ministry
Bengt Petter Lundahl was born in 1840 in the southern part of Sweden. He studied at the Theological Training Institute in Johannelund. After ordination Lundahl sailed to Massawa in 1868. Two years later, Lundahl taught at the new school established by the Swedish Evangelical Mission.
The school aimed at training missionaries for the interior of today’s Ethiopia. Some of the students were liberated slaves, e.g. Onesimos Nesib. The language of instruction and worship was Amharic. Lundahl translated Christian literature into Amharic and initiated a series of endeavors to reach the Oromo.
Lundahl published the first Amharic hymnal, Yägubaʼe mäzmurat [Congregational songs], in 1881. A revised and expanded edition was printed shortly after he died in 1885.
Songs in hymnbooks
Yägubaʼe mäzmurat (1881)
- All hymns were translated or written by Lundahl
Yägubaʼe mäzmurat (2nd ed., 1886/7)
- All hymns were translated or written by Lundahl
Picture
Further reading
(1) Sources
1.1 Amharic
Lundahl, Bengt Petter, ed. Yägubaʼe mäzmurat [የጉባኤ መዝሙራት, Congregational hymns]. St. Chrischona (Switzerland): Swedish Evangelical Mission, 1881. [View online]
- 2nd, revised edition. Imkullo: Swedish Evangelical Mission, 1887 [1886?]. [View online]
Lundahl, Bengt Petter, tr. Otto von Gerlach‘s Förklaring öfver Matthei Evangelium / _ _ _ [Gerlach’s Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew]. St. Chrischona: Mission Press, 1886.
- Copy available in the WBL Stuttgart, Ref. Code: 53/18475.
⸻. Otto von Gerlach‘s Förklaring öfver Johannes’ evangelium / ወንጌል ዮሐንስ እንደ ተርጉመች ኣቶ ፎን ግርላህ. Published by J.M. Flad. St. Chrischona: Mission Press, 1889. [Printed for EFS; view online]
1.2 Swedish
For letters, etc. by Lundahl,
check the SEM historical archives.
(2) Literature
Arén, Gustav. Evangelical Pioneers in Ethiopia: Origins of the Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. Stockholm: EFS förlaget; Addis Ababa: The Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, 1978. [See p. 164-67, 221-24, 292-93, 300-06; view online]
Kolmodin, Adolf. Bengt Petter Lundahl: Missionär i Ost-Afrika.
Stockholm: EFS-förlaget, 1897. [View online]
Lundahl, Emelie [née Cassel; married to Lundahl in 1875]. Från forna dagar och flydda år [From days gone by and years past]. Stockholm: EFS [SEM], 1922.
- Copy available in the EFS [SEM] historical archives. An English translation of the memoirs is also available there.
Lundström, Karl Johann (ed. by Ezra Gebremedhin). Kenisha: The Roots and Development of The Evangelical Church of Eritrea (ECE) 1866‒1935. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press; Uppsala: SEM, 2011. [See the index on p. 511]
Nilsson, Marianne. Chapter 1 in forthcoming book on Ethiopian Gospel Music.