The Kebra Nagast

About this book

What did Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley and Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia have in common? A love for the Kebra Negast, holy book of Ethiopian Christians and Jamaican Rastafarians. Contemporary scholars date the Kebra Negast to the 14th century, but it retells the stories of much earlier Biblical times, one very important story in particular. According to the Kebra Negast, the Israelites' Ark of the Covenant was spirited away to the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia by wise King Solomon's own son, offspring of the union between Solomon and the exotic Queen Makeda of Ethiopia (a.k.a. the Queen of Sheba). Gerald Hausman, a consummate storyteller of native traditions, presents the core narrative of the Kebra Negast, from Adam to the rise of the Ethiopian Solomonid dynasty. On top of this, he injects his own encounters with Rastafarians during his travels in Jamaica--dreadlocked Rastas as modern-day Samsons, their unwavering faith in Jah, and a rare outsider's glimpse at the Nyabinghi ceremony. The Kebra Nagast, or the Book of the Glory of Kings, is an account written in Ge'ez of the origins of the Solomonic line of the Emperors of Ethiopia. The text, in its existing form, is at least seven hundred years old, and is considered by many Ethiopian Christians and Rastafarians to be an inspired and a reliable account. Not only does it contain an account of how the Queen of Sheba met Solomon, and about how the Ark of the Covenant came to Ethiopia with Menelik I, but contains an acco

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