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On the Dating of the Ethiopian Dynastic Treatise Kǝbra nagaśt: New Evidence
In the present article the textual distortion of the Biblical verse Lev. 18.8 cited in
the Ethiopian dynastic treatise Kǝbrä nägäśt is considered as an intentional allusion to
the conflict between the king of Ethiopia ‘Amdä Ṣǝyon I (1314–1344) and the Däbrä
Libanos monastic congregation. The second half of that verse was changed in such a
way that the marriage to a wife of the father became equal with the mother–son incest.
At the same time it is generally known that some clergymen accused that king, who
married a concubine of his father for political reasons, of cohabiting his mother. That
conflict came into being in the 27th year of the reign of ‘Amdä Ṣǝyon I and on the
basis of the above-mentioned allusion to it in the text of the Kǝbrä nägäśt the treatise
should be dated rather precisely from the beginning of the 40ies of the 14th century
AD.