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The Kebra Nagast (var. Kebra Negast, Ge'ez ,ክብረ ነገሥት, ), or the Book of the Glory of Kings of Ethiopia, has existed for at least seven hundred years, and is considered by many Ethiopian Christians and Rastafarians to contain the true history of the origin of the Solomonic line of kings in Ethiopia. They regard it as the ultimate authority on the history of the conversion of the Ethiopians from the worship of the sun, moon, and stars to that of the "Lord God of Israel".
Origins
None of the manuscripts of the Kebra Nagast give any indication as to the identity of its compilers, the time when it was written, nor the circumstances under which it was compiled. Most scholars do believe, however, that it was compiled soon after the restoration of the "Solomonic line of kings" when the throne of Ethiopia was occupied by Yekuno Amlak (reigned 1270 - 1285).
Early Portuguese translations
One of the earliest collections of documents of Ethiopia came through the writings of Francisco Alvarez, official envoy which king Manuel I of Portugal, sent to Dawit II of Ethiopia, under Ambassador Don Rodrigo De Lima. In the papers concerning this mission, Alvarez included an account of the Emperor of Ethiopia, and a description in Portuguese of the habits of the Ethiopians, titled The Prester John of the Indies, which was printed in 1533.
In the first quarter of the 16th century, P.N. Godinho published some traditions about King Solomon and his son Menelek, derived from the Kebra Nagast. Further information about the contents of the Kebra Nagast was supplied by Baltazar Téllez (1595-1675), the author of the Historia General de Etiopía Alta (Coimbra, 1660). The sources of his work were the histories of Manoel Almeida, Alfonso Méndez and Jerónimo Lobo.
Among the most complete, and least known, translations of the Kebra Nagast, is the exhaustive work of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Historia de las cosas de Etiopía (Toledo, 1528) -- a greatly amplified account. Agrippa was an alchemist, a physician, and expert in magical sciences and Kabala; he resided in the courts of Maximilian I and Charles V; eventually he suffered imprisonment in Grenoble by order of King Francis I of France, where he died.
Additional information on Arabic additions to the original narratives of the Kebra Nagast was included by the Jesuit priest Manoel Almeida (1580-1646) in his Historia de Etiopía which does not appear to have been published in its entirety. Almeida was sent out as a missionary to Ethiopia, and had abundant opportunity to learn about the Kebra Nagast at first hand, owing to his excellent command of the language. His manuscript is a valuable work. His brother, Apollinare, also went out to the country as a missionary and was, along with his two companions, stoned to death in Tigray.
Beginnings of modern scholarship of the book
It was not until the close of the eighteenth century when James Bruce of Kinnaird, the famous Scottish explorer, published an account of his travels in search of the sources of the Nile, that some information as to the contents of the Kebra Nagast came to be generally known amongst scholars and theologians.
When Bruce was leaving Gondar, Ras Mikael Sehul, the powerful Wazir of Emperor Tekle Haymanot, gave him several most valuable Ethiopic manuscripts and among them was a copy of the Kebra Nagast. When the third edition of his Travels in Search of the Sources of the Nile was published, there appeared a description of the contents of the original manuscript. In due course these documents were given to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
External links
- A translation of this book to English is available at Sacred Texts.
"Kebra Nagast"