Ezra Literature Among Jews and Christians in the Horn of Africa

Three books of Ezra originating in Jewish circles of the pre-Bar Kochba period were translated into Ethiopic in the mid-1st millennium, but their reception among Christians and Jews in the Horn of Africa is little studied. This state extends from the manuscript evidence for these books themselves, nearly unvisited since the production of textual editions more than a century ago, to their use in indigenous theological writings such as biblical commentaries and homilies. The significance of the figure of Ezra is not, however, limited to these spheres, as exemplified not only by the circulation of the so-called Ethiopic Apocalypse of Ezra in Beta Israel and Ethiopian Orthodox versions, but also a hitherto overlooked Ezra apocryphon transmitted in several manuscripts.