In the highlands of northern Ethiopia, within the ancient rock-hewn church of Abba Garima, there lay a book that no one dared to touch after sunset. It wasn't because of a curse, but because the villagers believed the book breathed .
The book was the Garima Gospel, said to have been written in a single day by a monk named Abba Garima in the 6th century. Legend held that God had stopped the sun in the sky so the monk could finish copying the holy text before nightfall. The illustrations inside—stunning portraits of the Evangelists, their eyes wide and liquid—seemed to follow you around the dim chapel.
The elderly monk, Father Gebre, agreed to show her the ancient Ge'ez manuscript only if she could answer a riddle: "Why does our Bible have more books than any other?"
