Reading the Ethiopian Bible Radically

Mythic Scripture, Monastic Consciousness, and Sacred Imagination

What if the Bible was never meant to be small?

For centuries, Ethiopian Christianity has preserved one of the world’s most expansive biblical canons and one of its most enduring monastic traditions. While much of Western Christianity narrowed Scripture to what could be explained, systematized, or defended, Ethiopian monks safeguarded a way of reading the Bible that remained mythic, cosmic, embodied, and spiritually demanding.

Reading the Ethiopian Bible Radically invites readers into this largely overlooked world of sacred imagination, where angels remain real, Scripture shapes consciousness, salvation unfolds through transformation, and holiness is formed through endurance rather than efficiency.

Drawing on the Ethiopian biblical canon, the Book of Enoch, monastic theology, liturgical practice, and African Christian continuity, this book explores how Ethiopian monks read Scripture not as information to be mastered, but as a world to be entered. Myth is not dismissed as falsehood, but honored as sacred language capable of carrying truths modern theology often struggles to name.

This volume examines:

• The Ethiopian biblical canon as a theological achievement rather than an anomaly
• Mythic consciousness as a legitimate hermeneutical framework
• Angels, cosmic order, and moral seriousness in Scripture
• Monastic discipline as embodied interpretation
• Christology, Marian theology, and salvation as lived transformation

Written in a contemplative yet scholarly voice, Reading the Ethiopian Bible Radically challenges modern readers to reconsider what has been lost in the pursuit of clarity without depth, relevance without reverence, and theology without formation.

This book is for scholars, preachers, spiritual seekers, and readers who suspect that the Bible once carried more sky than we now allow—and who are willing to listen again.