Michael A. Knibb FBA FKC was a world-leading scholar in two pioneering fields, the Ethiopic Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with messianic and apocalyptic expectations and thought across a wide range of ancient Jewish and Christian literature. Much of Knibb’s scholarship was based on meticulous primary research on a large number of manuscripts spanning two millennia from the late 3rd century BCE until the 19th century CE. The linguistic range of the primary sources that underpin his scholarship covers Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Syriac, Greek, Latin and Coptic. Knibb’s foundational research includes editions of two books of the Ethiopic Old Testament – the Books of Enoch and Ezekiel. Alongside his major contribution in the form of scholarly editions, Knibb also published a wide range of incisive and penetrating scholarly literature on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Studies including the Apocrypha, related authoritative texts commonly referred to as Pseudepigrapha, Prophecy, Apocalyptic, and Messianism. His beautiful and accessible translations of the Book of Enoch and a selection of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been widely used and appreciated.
Posted to Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, 23