The Conversation between Elijah and Mother Earth

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show the literary value of the Geʽez text of gadla ̓Eləyas or Elijah the Prophet, focusing on the conversation between the biblical prophet Elijah and Mother Earth. This article presents an English Translation of gadla ̓Eləyas for the first time. The text presents two characters in debate. In the debate, the two characters Prophet Elijah and mother Earth are symbolised in stylistic icons. The Prophet symbolised as merciless man and the Earth symbolised as kind hearted mother. Why does the text personify the Earth? Are there elements caries the reader can appreciate from the dialogue she carries with the prophet Elijah? Which points are underlined? Why does the Earth criticize this famous prophet? The article showed that the reader is invited to discover the clemency of the Earth before the apparent harshness of the prophet. However, the paper uses a qualitative research with a best text and a critical edition method to address the objective. Despite the researcher has collected five combat of Elijah written in Geʽez, he chose a manuscript (T) that recorded in fourteenth century for analysis in terms of its grammatical character, readability and precedence. In addition to this research work, this selected text has been translated by the researcher for the first time in this study. This work of translation is also used as a resource and resource for other researchers. Finally, the researcher concludes his thoughts by giving a hint of the ideas that he thinks are good to be studied and used in research.