The manuscript tradition of the Betä Ǝsraʾel, the Jews of Ethiopia, has not been studied before. This article aims to provide a first tentative analysis of a number of features of the Betä Ǝsraʾel manuscript tradition, hoping to contribute to a new understanding of this phenomenon. The Betä Ǝsraʾel lived in close coexistence, albeit not always peaceful, with Christian Ethiopians. The Christian manuscripts must be seen as the starting point from which the Betä Ǝsraʾel developed their own tradition, by adopting and adapting scribal features. Previous scholarly works on the Betä Ǝsraʾel have focused mostly on their texts, leaving the carriers of these texts aside. When commenting on the manuscripts, scholars commonly made negative remarks about their quality: a misjudgment that this article hopes to overcome. Some 70 Betä Ǝsraʾel manuscripts have been examined for this study, resulting in new descriptions of their features and even discovering one genuinely new feature.