The André Tweed Collection of Ethiopic Manuscripts
of Howard University School of Divinity, Washington, DC
Introduction
André Tweed (1914 – 1993) graduated from Howard University Medical School in 1942 and practiced Psychiatry in Los Angeles for over 40 years. He was inducted into the United States Army where he served in World War II and during the Korean War.
He traveled many times to the West Indies and to Africa. Beginning in 1950, he traveled several times to Ethiopia and accumulated a collection of 151 Christian codices and 78 Ethiopian scrolls of spiritual healing. He donated the collection to Howard University School of Divinity in 1993, shortly before his death.
In 2012, Steve Delamarter and Jeremy Brown (of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project) and Dr. Alice Bellis (professor of Old Testament at HUSD), digitized the collection with the support of a Lilly Collaborative Research Grant, acquired by Bellis. Delamarter and Kesis Melaku Terefe catalogued the collection over the succeeding months.
Tweed 150 is a 15th century copy of the Acts of Paul and the Acts of Sarabamon. In the course of cataloguing, it became clear both to Professor Getatchew Haile and to Ted Erho of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) that it was the very manuscript microfilmed in 1976 by the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library at Dabra Libanos Monastery as EMML Project Number 6533. Finding no good explanation of how the manuscript could have left the country legally, HUSD determined to return the manuscript to Dabra Libanos. With the assistance of Washington DC cleric and HUSD alumnus, Memher Zebene Lemma, the manuscript was returned in January 2016.
At the following link you can reach directly the Howard University Schoool of Divinity Repository page with all the manuscripts of the Tweed collection.
Dedication
The André Tweed Collection is Presented to the Public
in Loving Memory of
The Reverend Doctor Cain Hope Felder, 1943 – 2019
Professor of New Testament Language and Literature
At Howard University School of Divinity, 1981 – 2016
Trailblazing Scholar, Esteemed Teacher, Dear Colleague, and Friend