Which books are Scripture, for whom, and where they were cast out. The compliance map behind the series.
| Book | Tewahedo | E. Orthodox | Catholic | Protestant | Rabbinic | Beta Israel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Enochic & apocalyptic | ||||||
| 1 Enoch ሄኖክ | ● | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ◐ |
| Jubilees ኩፋሌ | ● | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ◐ |
| 4 Ezra · Ezra Sutuel | ● | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ | ○ | ◐ |
| Ascension of Isaiah | ◐ | ○ | ○ | ○ | – | – |
| The deuterocanon (the "Apocrypha") | ||||||
| Tobit · Judith | ● | ● | ● | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Wisdom · Sirach | ● | ● | ● | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Baruch | ● | ● | ● | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Maccabees (Greek 1–2) | ○ | ● | ● | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Ethiopia's broader canon · Old Testament | ||||||
| Meqabyan መቃብያን | ● | – | – | – | – | ◐ |
| Tegsats · Reproof | ● | – | – | – | – | – |
| Metsihafe Tibeb · Books of Wisdom | ● | ◐ | ◐ | ○ | ○ | – |
| Josephas son of Bengorion ዜና አይሁድ | ● | – | – | – | ○ | ◐ |
| Ethiopia's broader canon · the New Testament church order | ||||||
| Sinodos ሲኖዶስ | ● | – | – | – | – | – |
| Books of the Covenant መጽሐፈ ኪዳን | ● | – | – | – | – | – |
| Clement · Qälementos ቀሌምንጦስ | ● | – | – | – | – | – |
| Didascalia ዲድስቅልያ | ● | – | – | – | – | – |
| Beta Israel's own books | ||||||
| Te'ezaza Sanbat ተእዛዘ ሰንበት | – | – | – | – | – | ● |
| Death of Moses ሞተ ሙሴ | – | – | – | – | – | ● |
| Venerated, but not Scripture | ||||||
| Kebra Nagast ክብረ ነገሥት | ○ | – | – | – | – | – |
| Pseudepigrapha used in the series | ||||||
| Testament of Solomon | ○ | ○ | ✕ | ✕ | ○ | – |
| Alphabet of Ben Sira | – | – | – | – | ○ | – |
The Tewahedo canon is famously given as 81 books, but the church speaks of a narrower and a broader reckoning, and the list shifts with who is counting. Read the grid for shape, not for a frozen tally.
The Kebra Nagast is the most honoured book in Ethiopia after the Bible, the national epic of the Solomonic line and the Ark. It is not, and has never been, Scripture. A book can be cherished, authoritative for identity, and still outside the canon. The series keeps that line.
The two have been run together for so long that the difference is worth stating plainly. Non-canonical (○) means a book is not read from the lectern as Scripture — but it is not forbidden, and may be valued or even recommended. Enoch is the clearest case: the Latin West let it fall from the canon, yet it was never damned. It is quoted as prophecy in the Epistle of Jude, and the Catholic Church today raises no bar to reading it — only to numbering it among Scripture. Jubilees and the whole deuterocanon the Reformers set aside sit the same way: apocryphal, printed, read, not condemned.
Condemned (✕) is the stronger thing, and rarer. It is reserved here for books a tradition treats as harmful — occult or magical works like the Testament of Solomon, with its binding of demons, which the Western churches warned against not because it fell short of canon but because its content was judged dangerous. That is the real meaning of "banned": not left off a list, but named as evil.
The Rabbinic column is the mainstream Hebrew canon. The Ethiopian Jews, Beta Israel, developed apart from it and kept a broader set, with Enochic and Jubilean material, the mirror on the Jewish side of what Tewahedo kept on the Christian side.
Ethiopian canon: the "81 books," narrower and broader reckonings (Cowley; the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica). Deuterocanon status: Trent (1546) for Catholic; the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) and later practice for Eastern Orthodox; the Westminster Confession and the Thirty-Nine Articles for Protestant. Enoch and Jubilees as Ethiopian Scripture and apocryphal elsewhere: Charles; VanderKam. The grid is a map of reception, not a statement that any one tradition is right; the series argues its own case separately, and labels it as thesis where it does.