The Three Ethiopian Books of Maccabees (1, 2 and 3 Mäqabǝyan)

· Anonymous (Ethiopic Mäṣḥafä Mäqabǝyan; the three books are distinct compositions, not translations of Greek or Latin Maccabees) · date uncertain; composed in Ethiopic · other · LIT5841EthioMaccabBooks

Ethiopic · domain: bible · researched 2026-11-13

no English translation located. No published English translation of this text was located in the catalogues and series checked. Where only a non-English rendering or a translation of a daughter version exists, it is recorded below and does not close the gap. Treat this as a gap candidate, not as proof that no translation exists; the evidence names every source checked.

Why this is in the register

Beta maṣāḥǝft states explicitly that the three books are 'not one of those allegedly translated from Vulgata' (LIT5840SecondEthioMaccabees, LIT5839ThirdEthioMaccabees, LIT1819Maccab), and none of the four related records (LIT5841EthioMaccabBooks and its three parts) has any edition or translation in its bibliography div - only manuscript attestations (https://betamasaheft.eu/LIT5841EthioMaccabBooks). HOLLIS Primo 'Meqabyan' returns 0 records (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Meqabyan&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 'Ethiopic Maccabees' returns 18 records, the ones returned concerning the Ethiopic Alexander romance, Second-Temple studies and Septuagint volumes - none of them a translation (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Ethiopic%20Maccabees&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 K10plus 'Meqabyan' returns 1 record - the reference article 'Ethiopic Books of Maccabees (Mäqabǝyan)' (2019/2020), i.e. Yonatan Binyam's textual-history chapter in Textual History of the Bible (https://doi.org/10.1163/2452-4107_thb_com_0210050000) - and no translation (https://sru.k10plus.de/opac-de-627?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=pica.all%3DMeqabyan&maximumRecords=8&recordSchema=dc). The standard Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha collections translate the Greek and Latin Maccabees, not these books.

The clearest 'invisible' gap in the Ethiopic Bible: three whole books that belong to no other canon, read in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with no published English, French or German translation and no critical edition. Beta maṣāḥǝft's only cited witness for all three books is a single manuscript, Paris, BnF Éthiopien d'Abbadie 55 (https://betamasaheft.eu/BNFabb55); the record itself describes the books only in relation to the Vulgate-derived Maccabees. Digitized text not located.

Existing translations recorded

None recorded in English. Non-English versions, where they exist, are named in the evidence above.

Electronic text

No open electronic text was verified for this work. The Greek/Coptic/Geʿez may exist only in a print or subscription edition (Migne, CSCO, TLG, CMCL).

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: restricted scan — 2 candidate(s). Beta maṣāḥǝft LIT5841EthioMaccabBooks (https://betamasaheft.eu/works/LIT5841EthioMaccabBooks/main) has no bibliography div and no witnesses of its own; the single witness cited for the three books is BnF Éthiopien d'Abbadie 55 (above). A third, non-scholarly item exists on IA — 'three-books-of-meqabyan-cc0-translation' (2026, CC0, but explicitly translated from Amharic by an AI project, no Geʿez base) — recorded in the dossier, not a scan of the work. CSCO check: the IA item Corpus-Scriptorum-Christianorum-Orientalium (metadata HTTP 200) holds 187 PDFs including 26 Scriptores Aethiopici volumes (Aeth 1–30); their filenames cover Philosophi abessini, the royal annals, Vitae sanctorum, Acta martyrum, Liber Axumae, Chaîne's Apocrypha de Beata Maria Virgine (Aeth 22–23) and others — no volume of the Mäqabǝyan.

Scan / witness	Format	Pages	Rights	OCR	Evidence
Ethiopian biblical codex containing the Three Ethiopian Books of Maccabees bnf · BnF Éthiopien d'Abbadie 55 (Gallica ark:/12148/btv1b525112698)	iiif	203	restricted	none	Beta maṣāḥǝft manuscript page https://betamasaheft.eu/manuscripts/BNFabb55 (HTTP 200) indexes item ms_i13.1 'Ff. 178rc – 191rb 1 Ethiopian Book of Maccabees (CAe 1819)', ms_i13.2 'Ff. 191rb – 199rb 2 Ethiopian Book Macc…
Das äthiopische Maccabäerbuch, von Josef Horovitz (Separat-Abdruck, 1905) internet-archive · dedupmrg1016100231_IE146043324-5-47	pdf	43	public-domain	good	https://archive.org/metadata/dedupmrg1016100231_IE146043324-5-47 (HTTP 200): title 'Das äthiopische Maccabäerbuch', creator 'NLI' (attribution in the item description: 'von Josef Horovitz'), date 1905, language ger, ima…

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: The Three Ethiopian Books of Maccabees — 3 record(s); match basis author_title_unquoted.

Record	Citation
The Jewish annotated Apocrypha : New Revised Standard Version Bible translation · 2020 · eng	"The Jewish annotated Apocrypha : New Revised Standard Version Bible translation." New York : Oxford University Press USA, [2020]. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99155283415303941
Wisdom poured out like water : studies on Jewish and Christian antiquity in honor of Gabriele Boccaccini · 2018 · eng	"Wisdom poured out like water : studies on Jewish and Christian antiquity in honor of Gabriele Boccaccini." Berlin ; Boston : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, [2018]. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99153726501703941
The Alexiad Comnena, Anna, 1083- · 2009 · eng	Comnena, Anna, 1083-. "The Alexiad." London ; New York : Penguin, 2009. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990121072110203941

Sources checked

Cite: Tergwame, “The Three Ethiopian Books of Maccabees (1, 2 and 3 Mäqabǝyan)” (ethiopic gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/ethiopic-anonymous-maqabyan