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Garima Gospels

Evangelist portrait of Mark from Garima 2, likely the earlier of the two Garima Gospels

The Garima Gospels are three ancient Ethiopic manuscripts containing all four canonical Gospel Books, as well as some supplementary material like lists of Gospel chapters.[1] Garima 2, the earliest, is believed to be the earliest surviving complete illuminated Christian manuscript.[2][3] Monastic tradition holds that the first two were composed close to the year 500,[2] a date supported by recent radiocarbon analysis; samples from Garima 2 proposed a date of c. 390–570, while counterpart dating of samples from Garima 1 proposed a date of c. 530–660.[4] The third manuscript is thought to date to a later period. The artwork in the manuscripts of the Garima Gospels also demonstrates their affinity to Christian artwork in late antique Coptic Egypt, Nubia, and Himyar (Yemen).[5]

Together, the manuscripts provide the major witness to the Ethiopic version of the Gospels and have been applied as proof texts for the creation of critical editions of the Ethiopic Gospels by Rochus Zuurmond (Gospel of Mark, 1989; Gospel of Matthew, 2001) and Michael G. Wechsler (Gospel of John, 2005). As such, they represent amongst the earliest versional witnesses to the early Byzantine text-type of the Gospels, and are the oldest surviving Ethiopian manuscripts of any kind known to modern scholars. Western scholarship had previously believed both gospels to date from c. 1100 or later on the basis of palaeographic analysis.[4][a]

The Gospels are housed in Ethiopia's Abba Garima Monastery. They are not known ever to have left the monastery;[3] although, as the surrounding area was occupied by Muslims from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, it is possible that they may have remained hidden in a cave for centuries, and then rediscovered.[6] The Gospels were included in the catalog of an American museum exhibition that toured from 1993 to 1996, African Zion: the Sacred Art of Ethiopia, but were never actually lent to the exhibition.[3]

  1. ^ Kim, Sergey (2022-11-08). "New Studies of the Structure and the Texts of Abba Garima Ethiopian Gospels". Afriques. Débats, méthodes et terrains d'histoire (13). doi:10.4000/afriques.3494. ISSN 2108-6796.
  2. ^ a b Taylor, Jerome (6 July 2010). "Unearthed, the ancient texts that tell story of Christianity". The Independent.
  3. ^ a b c Bailey, Martin (June 2010). "Discovery of earliest illustrated manuscript". The Art Newspaper.[permanent dead link‍]
  4. ^ a b Bausi, Alessandro (5 November 2013). "Ethiopia and the Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: The Garimā Gospels in Context". Ethiopian Heritage Fund. p. 2. Archived from the original (Summary of conference proceedings) on 3 May 2017. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  5. ^ McKenzie, Judith; Francis, Watson (2016). The Garima Gospels: early illuminated gospel books from Ethiopia. Manar al-Athar, University of Oxford. ISBN 978-0-9954946-0-2. OCLC 960710235.
  6. ^ "Research uncovers lost African school of painting" Archived 2014-03-06 at the Wayback Machine Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper, December 2013.


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