[Work in progress]
(1) Manuscripts
Abba Abraham’s manuscripts served as the basis for most Amharic bible texts published between the 1820s and the early 1960s.
1.1 Selected manuscripts (sent in 1814)
Genesis and Exodus.
- Signed on November 2, 1814 and sent to “the President, Vice-Presidents, Committee and Members of the Honourable British and Foreign Bible Society”. The Book of Exodus is probably the manuscript sent to Rev. Renouard. Ref Code: GBR/0374/BFBS/BSMS 16; not yet digitized.
1.2 Entire Bible (sold in 1820)
Genesis ‒ Revelation.
- Abu Rumi’s translation. ff. 4, 383 (total); 171 x 120mm; text size 130 x 72mm; 18 lines. 29 unbound volumes containing the Bible, including deuterocanonical books but with Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations missing. Ref Code: GBR/0374/BFBS/BSMS 15.
Note
The books Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations were already missing in _ _ _ (BFBS Catalog _ _ _)
(2) Specimens
The Amharic Bible manuscripts have not yet been digitized. However, a facsimile of Matthew 1 and a specimen of Mark 9 were printed in:
- Platt, Thomas Pell. A Catalogue of the Ethiopic Biblical Manuscripts in the Royal Library of Paris, and in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society […] To Which Are Added Specimens of Versions of the New Testament into the Modern Languages of Abyssinia […]. London: Richard Watts, 1823.
Source: Platt’s copy for Ph. A. Stapfer, available at Digitale Sammlungen
(3) Purchase of the manuscripts
Quote from “Language and the Missionary World Map: Platt’s and Radley’s histories of the BFBS” by Floris Solleveld (2024)
(paragraph breaks have been added):
“A case in which Platt was personally involved as an editor, although he does not mention his own role, was Amharic. In 1820 there were painstaking negotiations (mediated through the French Orientalist mogul Sylvestre de Sacy and the British consul in Cairo [i.e., Henry Salt]) with the ex-priest and dragoman Jean-Louis Asselin de Cherville who wanted to sell a manuscript of a complete Amharic Bible translation for £ 1500.
The BFBS offered only £ 750, which was already more than its standard fee of £ 500, in spite of doubts about a translation made by one man and not directly from Greek and Hebrew. In fact it had not been made by Asselin but by the Ethiopian priest Abu Rumi who lived with him in Cairo; in Ethiopia, Amharic was traditionally the language of the court whereas Geez was the language of the Bible. Eventually, Asselin and the BFBS agreed upon £ 1250, and the 9539-page manuscript was inspected by its indefatigable philological factotum, Professor Samuel Lee.
- Apart from the details about the negotiations, the story can be read at greater length in William Jowett’s Christian Researches in the Mediterranean (1822), 197‒204.
But preparing the manuscript for print took the BFBS nearly a quarter of a century: Gospels in 1824, the New Testament in 1828 [correct: 1829], and the whole Bible in 1844 [revised edition].”
- Ed.: The 1st edition of the whole Bible was published in 1840.
Note
£1,250 in 1820 was worth about £157,000 in 2026 [OfficialData.org]