Catalogue of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project

The Catalogue of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP), volume 7, provides a full catalog for the collection of fifty-four manuscripts in the Meseret Sebhat Le-Ab collection at Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These include one late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century manuscript of Jubilees and the Minor Prophets. Each catalog entry provides a full physical description, a listing of contents (with incipits), illuminations, varia (known works added later), notes on codicology and scribal practice, as well as a full quire map. Opening articles provide an introduction to the collection, a biography of Alaqa Meseret's life and work, an introduction to the Ethiopian musical tradition of Saint Yared, and a study on the textual character of the manuscript of Jubilees. Four indices (works, names, miniatures, and scribal practice) provide quick access for the researcher.
""We are indebted to the Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa for preserving the small, but interesting collection of 54 manuscripts here catalogued. Special thanks should go to its scholarly Librarian, Alaqa Meseret Sebhat Le-ab, who collected these works between 1977 and 1980.
We are all no less grateful to the dedication of Professor Stephen Delamarter, and to his Ethiopic Manusript Imaging Project team from George Fox University in Portland, Oregon, who have expertly digitized this collection, as well as the considerably larger one at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.""
--From the foreword by Richard Pankhurst
Kesis Melaku Terefe served the church in Ethiopia for several years in various positions in Awasa (southern Ethiopia) and Harar (eastern Ethiopia). For the last nine years he has served as priest in the Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Los Angeles, California. He is in frequent demand, speaking in various churches through North America. He served as cataloger of the Wolf Leslau collection of Ethiopian manuscripts at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA.
Steve Delamarter is Professor of Old Testament at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Director of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP), Chair of the Society of Biblical Literature's Consultation on the Ethiopic Bible and Literature, and Project Co-Director with Ato Demeke Berhane in the British Library Endangered Archives Programme project (#286) to digitize and catalogue 5,749 items in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Delamarter is also head of the steering committee for the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) Project.
Jeremy R. Brown works in the EMIP as director of digitization and technology. In December of 2008 and January of 2009, he served on a digitization team that worked in Ethiopia to digitize about 1,200 manuscripts. Between January and June 2010, he served as Director of Digitization and Conservation in the Endangered Archives Programme grant to digitize the collection at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.