Onesimos nesib biography

Onesimus Nesib was born around 1856 near Hurumu in today's Illu Abbaboora.
Onesimos Nesib was a native Oromo scholar who converted to Lutheran Christianity and translated the Christian Bible into Oromo.
Onesimos Nesib was a native Oromo scholar who converted to Lutheran Christianity and translated the Christian Bible into Oromo.

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Onesimos Nesib

Scholar

Onesimos Nesib

Born	1856 Hurumu, Ethiopia
Died	June 21, 1931(1931-06-21) (aged 74–75)
Occupation	Scholar
Known for	Translating the Bible into Oromo

Onesimos Nesib (Oromo: Onesimoos Nasiib; Amharic: ኦነሲሞስ ነሲብ; c 1856 – 21 June 1931) was a native Oromo scholar who converted to Lutheran Christianity and translated the Christian Bible into Oromo. His parents named him Hika as a baby, meaning "Translator"; he took the name "Onesimus", after the Biblical character, upon converting to Christianity.

Onesimos Nesib is included in the American Lutheran Book of Worship as a saint, who commemorate his life 21 June. The Mekane Yesus Church honored him by naming their seminary in Addis Ababa for him. He is also known to be the pioneer of modern Oromo literature.^[1]

Life

Born near Hurumu in modern Ethiopia, Onesimos lost his father when he was four years old. According to an account he later wrote for the Board of the Swedish Evangelical Mission, he was kidnapped by slavers in 1869, and passed throu

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Nesib, Onesimus

All articles created or submitted in the first twenty years of the project, from 1995 to 2015.

Alternate Names: Hika
1856-1931
Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus
Ethiopia

Onesimus Nesib was born around 1856 near Hurumu in today’s Illu Abbaboora. His original name was Hika, an Oromo name meaning “translator.” His father died when he was four years old. Raiding tribesmen stole Hika from his mother and sold him as a slave, giving him a new name, Nesib.

Nesib was again stolen again from his owners and sold four times before Werner Munzinger (1832-1875), the vice-consul of the French Consulate, liberated him at Massawa on the Red Sea coast, where missionaries from the Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM) had a boys’ school headed by Rev. Bengt Peter Lundahl (1840-1885). Here, Nesib was given to Mr. W. Ahlborg (SEM) as a servant in October 1870 and become one of the students of that school. Mr. P. E. Lager (SEM) became his first teacher but Lundahl took over in December of the same year. A bright student, Nesib was soon converted and, when he was

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Frumentius, Missionary (27 Oct 380)

(From the Lutheran Calendar)

Onesimos, was born in about 1855, in western Ethiopia. He was captured by slave traders and brought to the coast. There Swedish missionaries bought him, freed him, educated him, and converted him. He belonged to the Oromo people, the largest linguistic group in Ethiopia, and he proceeded to translate the Bible into Oromo, and returned to his homeland to minister to the Oromo people. He died there on 21 June 1931.

[NOTE: In earlier drafts of this BIO, I wrote "Galla" rather than "Oromo." However, I have been informed by a correspondent from the Oromo Liberation Front that the word "Galla" means "uncultured" in the Amhara language (that of the dominant minority in the country), and is rejected by the people in question. I have not the expertise to evaluate the political situation in Ethiopia, but report that both terms are used, so that a reader who encounters a reference somewhere to the Galla, and another to the Oromo, will understand that the references are to the same people and language.]

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