heir (chapter 117). Religious antisemitism The Kebra Nagast has a marked anti-Jewish attitude, describing the Jews as "wicked" and "iniquitous", arguing that they had become unworthy custodians of the Ark of the Covenant. Hubbard regards chapters 102 to 115 particularly as having been written as a polemic against the Jews. History Origins According to the colophon attached to most of the existing copies, the Kebra Nagast originally was written in Coptic, then translated into Arabic in the "year of mercy" 409 (dated to AD 1225), and then into Ge'ez by a team of clerics in Ethiopia—Yəsḥaq, Yəmḥarännä ˀAb, Ḥəzbä-Krəstos, Ǝndrəyas, Filəp̣p̣os, and Mäḥari ˀAb—during the office of Abuna Abba Giyorgis and at the command of the governor of Enderta Ya'ibika Igzi'. Based on the testimony of this colophon, "Conti Rossini, Littmann, and Cerulli, inter alios, have marked off the period 1314 to 1321–1322 for the composition of the book". During the time of the Zagwe dynasty, the chief of Enderta played a major role in supporting the Solomonids along with the chief priest of Aksum by the name of Tekeste Birhane; the two are listed among the most influential dignitires on the side of Yekuno Amlak. Other sources put it as a work of the fourteenth century Nebura’ed Yeshaq of Aksum. The central Solomonic narrative of the text is thought to derive from the Zagwe dynasty, who believed the Axumites were descended from Solomon. "Makeda" might have its origins in multiple terms. Sabaean inscriptions mention (, "queen"); furthermore, Sabaean tribes knew the title of (, "high official"). Alternatively Makueda, the personal name of the queen in Ethiopian legend might be interpreted as a popular rendering of the title of . Other historians consider parts of the Kebre Negast date to as late as the end of the sixteenth century, when Muslim incursions and contacts with the wider Christian world made the Ethiopian Church concerned with asserting its character and Jewish traditions. Careful study of the text has revealed traces of Arabic, possibly pointing to an Arabic Vorlage (prior version), but no clear evidence of a previous Coptic version. Many scholars doubt that a Coptic version ever existed, and that the history of the text goes back no further than the Arabic vorlage. The numerous quotations in the text from the Bible were not translated from this hypothetical Arabic vorlage, but were copied from the Ethiopian translation of the Bible, either