Talk:Zera Yacob (philosopher)

Forgery
Biographical information about Zera Yacob can be found in his Treatise (very interesting to read!!!). His philosophy is similar to the philosophy of enlightenment. Interesting to read since the philosophical thoughts are embedded into his life story, so one can almost watch the emergence of philosophical thinking. This man invented philosophy on his own. Unfortunately, the philosophical tradition started by him seems to have vanished after the death of his student Walda Heywat. What would have happened, had they had the printing press? A must read for any introductory course to philosophy. Nannus 19:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC) I am going to add some more of the biographical details.Nannus 19:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Er, I seem to remember that his work has recently been declared a later forgery. (I know that there is a writer of this period of whom this is the case, something that I feel is a disappointment, to be honest.) Can anyone confirm or deny this? My memory is often wrong. -- llywrch 19:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a forgery by a 19th century Roman Catholic missionary, vide Enrico Cerulli, La letteratura etiopica. 85.178.63.157 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

It was argued by Carlo Conti Rossini and Eugen Mittwoch that the work was a forgery by an Italian priest, Giusto d'Urbino. That was in the 1920s and 1930s, and my impression is that scholarly interest pretty much dried up at that point. More recently, though, Claude Sumner argued in the 1970s, on stylistic and other grounds, that it was not a forgery after all (or at least that the person alleged to have forged it could not have done so). But his stuff seems to be pretty obscure, and I'm not sure if there's been any back-and-forth since then. There are a few works out though operating on the assumption that Sumner is correct. Sumner's argument (and references to other stuff) is contained in Ethiopian Philosophy, vol. II: The Treatise of Zara Yaecob and Walda Hewat: Text and Authorship, Addis Ababa: Commercial Printing Press, 1976. I have not investigated it terribly closely, though I'm at present satisfied by it. Here is a brief summary from Classical Ethiopian Philosophy (1985). bhritchie (talk) 18:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems exceedingly irresponsible of this article to not even mention that it was considered a forgery for most of its known history.
 * I suggest restructuring the article: put the verifiable independently-known aspects of Yacob's life in the first section, and then put everything derived from the text in a separate section with a discussion of its physical history, why it was thought to be a forgery for so long, and Sumner's revisionist arguments for it being genuine. --Gwern  (contribs) 18:45 18 February 2022 (GMT)
 * Two 2013 publications by Anais Wion and collaborators refute Sumner's claims and argue in detail that Zera Yaqob was invented by Juste D'Urbin, a Catholic missionary, as a mouthpiece for his own views: and .  The more recent publication by Herbjornsrud cited in the wiki article is without value for the authenticity debate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.66.122.86 (talk) 13:04, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

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