Religious Hybridization

According to Almeida, the author of our reading, the Christians in Ethiopia practice many Jewish traditions even though they believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. They still practice circumcision despite New Testament proclamations (by Paul in particular) that Christ came to save everyone regardless of whether or not they're circumcised. Interestingly, in this case not only the Jews and Christians are circumcised, but so are the Moors and "heathens" (62). Apparently, the Ethiopian Christians were oppressive toward non-Christians and indirectly pressured them into this behavior. Also, the Ethiopian emperors are polygamous, marrying many women of many different religions. Almeida compares this to King Solomon, who had a thousand wives and concubines and fell into sin by building pagan shrines for them to worship at (69). If the Ethiopian Christians really are descended from Jewish migrants (with or without the alleged son of Solomon and Sheba), this would make sense. Another aspect of Ethiopian culture that reminded me of the Israelite Jews of the Old Testament was their warfare. Apparently, "the life of all [in Ethiopia] who are not farmers is war" (76). In the Old Testament, the Israelites go to war many times against Gentile tribes, fighting against those who are not the Chosen People. Now that Ethiopia sees itself as the Promised Land, it is no surprise that they would be aggressive in warfare like Israel was. Aside what could be seen as Jewish customs, the Ethiopian Christians also have practices that the Catholic missionaries see as erroneous and sinful: they baptize their babies too late (so many of them can't get to heaven because they die before their baptism) and they are heavy wine drinkers (63, 65).

The Ethiopians' relative isolation and correspondingly unique religion shows that culture has a considerable impact on the direction of a religion--so much so that different cultures are able to have completely different customs and behaviors and profess the same belief. The Catholic missionaries from Portugal see many problems with the Ethiopian cultural practices of the Christians as well as the other religious groups. Yet both the Portugese missionaries and the Ethiopians call themselves Christians and read from the same Bible. Culture, therefore, has a very large influence on the form of interpretation used with religious texts.