My former colleague Michael Knibb, who has died aged 84, was a professor of theology at King’s College London. His research focused on ancient texts that tell of heavenly journeys and visions of the end times associated with the mysterious patriarch Enoch, known from the Book of Genesis in the Bible.
The Enoch literature only became known to European scholars in the 18th century, after travellers to Ethiopia encountered translations of the texts into classical Ethiopic. The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in the middle of the 20th century revealed ancient documents containing the Enoch literature in the original Aramaic, enabling Michael to produce a new edition of the Ethiopic Enoch literature that integrated ancient evidence from the scrolls.
He then went on to write a volume of translations of the scrolls, with commentary, entitled The Qumran Community (1987).
Michael was born in Leicester, one of the four children of Leslie, a wholesale fruit and vegetable merchant, and Christian (nee Hoggar), a housewife. He attended Wyggeston grammar school for boys before studying theology at King’s College and then at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Once his studies were finished, he was appointed as a lecturer in Old Testament studies back at King’s in 1964, remaining there for the rest of his career. In 1995 he delivered the Schweich lectures, subsequently published as Translating the Bible: The Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament, and in 1997 he took on the Samuel Davidson chair of Old Testament studies at King’s, a role in which I later followed him.
In retirement after 2001 Michael travelled to Ethiopia, where, with characteristic modesty, he did not draw attention to his expertise until his identity was recognised and he found himself giving impromptu lectures.
In 2015 he added to his extensive list of publications a critical edition of the Ethiopic text of the biblical book of the prophet Ezekiel.
The British Academy made him a fellow in 1989, and three decades later awarded him the Edward Ullendorff medal for his work in the field of Semitic languages and Ethiopian studies.
In 1972 he married Christine Burrell, and she survives him.
