Wikipedia calls the Kebra Nagast "clearly a composite work", a definition with which I wholeheartedly agree. While I was reading these passages, I noticed how all the citations were from many different sources, such as books of the bible, psalms and other holy texts. The citations also gave some enlightenment as to how the stories in the Kebra Nagast compared to those in the traditional bible, for example, pages 10 and 11 have citations that give comparison with the book of Genesis. This is also something I noticed, though I am not well versed enough in the actual text of the bible to make concise comparisons, I was able to identify that some of the stories in the Kebra Nagast were obviously variations on traditional stories in the bible.
To me, this indicates the versatility of religion. The Ethiopian Christians have a somewhat different representation of all the stories in the bible that are written in Western Christianity. And I am sure that there are differences between every variation of Christianity. I find it inspiring that religion can cross boundaries like that and become useful for different peoples and cultures. The Ethiopian Christians and Rastafarians have this book which explains their origin and how the Queen of Ethiopia gained wisdom from King Solomon and basically outlines their entire origin as a Christian culture. It is adapted to fit their societal history and their beliefs much as Western Christianity has the bible which fits their history and culture.
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