The Kebra Nagast(var. Kebra Negast, Ge’ez , kəbrä nägäst), or...

The Kebra Nagast
(var. Kebra Negast, Ge’ez , kəbrä nägäst), or...:

The Kebra Nagast

(var. Kebra Negast, Ge’ez , kəbrä nägäst), 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. It retells the stories of much earlier Biblical times. 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 account of the conversion of the Ethiopians from the worship of the sun, moon, and stars to that of the “Lord God of Israel”. As Edward Ullendorff explained in the 1967 Schweich Lectures, “The Kebra Nagast is not merely a literary work, but — as the Old Testament to the Hebrews or the Qur’an to the Arabs — it is the repository of Ethiopian national and religious feelings.”

References: Wallis Budge,E, A. (2007) The Kebra Nagast: The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek. (Forgotten Books)