The Book of 1 Meqabyan

1 Meqabyan (also known as 1 Ethiopian Maccabees and 1 Ethiopic Maccabees) is canonical scripture for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. While “Meqabyan” is the Ge’ez equivalent of “Maccabees,” the content is completely different from 1 Maccabees. The only complete copies of 1 Meqabyan are available in Ge’ez (Classical Ethiopic), here used with permission by the Bible Society of Ethiopia.

The translation into English was provided by Haileyesus Woldemariam (UBS).

sinner

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The Greek and Ge’ez that is translated as “sinner” in English is translated in various ways:

  • “people with bad hearts” (“it is not enough to call them ‘people who do bad things,’ for though actions do reflect the heart, yet it is the hearts with which God is primarily concerned — see Matt. 15:19“) in Western Kanjobal
  • “people who are doing wrong things in their hearts” in San Blas Kuna (source for this and above: Nida 1952, p. 148)
  • “people with bad stomachs” in Q’anjob’al (source: Newberry and Kittie Cox in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. )
  • “those others who don’t fully obey our laws” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • “people with dirty hearts” or “people who are called ‘bad'” in Mairasi (source: Enggavoter 2004).
  • “those who owe sin” in Central Mazahua and Teutila Cuicatec (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • “those without (or: “who don’t know”) God” (Gottlose) in the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999)
  • “people of bad deeds” in Bariai (source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • “rejected/despised people” in Kupsabiny (source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)

law

The Greek, Hebrew, and Ge’ez that is translated in English as “Law” or “law” is translated in Mairasi as oro nasinggiei or “prohibited things” (source: Enggavoter 2004) and in Noongar with a capitalized form of the term for “words” (Warrinya) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

In Yucateco the phrase that is used for “law” is “ordered-word” (for “commandment,” it is “spoken-word”) (source: Nida 1947, p. 198) and in Central Tarahumara it is “writing-command.” (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

In a 1922 translation into Chagatai, a precursor language of both Uzbek and Uighur, it is translated with the Arabic loan word shari’at (شريعت), originally meaning “(Islamic) law (Shari’a).” (Source: F. Erbay and F.N. Küçükballı in Acta Theologica 2025 45/2, p. 133ff. )

See also teaching / law (of God) (Japanese honorifics).