In 1947, archaeologists made one of the most significant biblical discoveries in modern history near Qumran, close to the Dead Sea. Roughly 900 manuscripts, dating from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD, had survived for two thousand years in the dry desert caves. They remain the oldest biblical manuscripts ever recovered.
Among them were multiple copies of the Book of Enoch, written in Aramaic. That discovery settled a long-running scholarly question. Was Enoch a late, minor text, or something the earliest Jewish and Christian communities actually knew and used? The scrolls made the answer clear: it was in active circulation well before Christianity began. That’s why the apostle Jude could quote it as prophecy in the New Testament without pausing to explain it.
The modern Western biblical canon took shape gradually, not at a single fixed moment. Regional councils in the 4th century, translation choices made in later centuries, and printing decisions as recent as the 1800s all shaped which books ended up bound in the Bibles most people inherited today. Different Christian traditions kept different books along the way.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church stands apart here. Its 88-book canon has remained largely unchanged for over a thousand years, and it includes Enoch, Jubilees, and other texts confirmed by the Qumran find. The church never treated them as outside curiosities. They stayed part of scripture the whole time.
Whatever conclusions you draw from the canon debates, the historical record is clear: what was buried in that cave lines up closely with what one church never stopped reading.
The Complete Ethiopian Bible translates all 88 of those books into English, so you can read what the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed as ancient scripture instead of hearing about it secondhand. Get your copy here.