REGARDING RASTAFARIAN SCRIPTURES, Seth Sanders e-mails:

Compare these words of Reggae singer Max Romeo:

"Take back Maccabee Version that God gave the black man
Give back King James Version, it belongs to white man"

from "Maccabee Version", his statement of rasta theology vis a vis the Biblical text. Note that "version" here probably plays on another meaning of "version" within dub reggae, where songs are produced in multiple editorial "versions," with different elements stripped out, altered or added in. Interesting that this religious self-consciousness about textual versions occurs in a lyrical genre that is extremely self-conscious about musical versions!

For the political and religious significance of this, see Barry Chevannes, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (Syracuse, 1994).

For the song, see Max Romeo's "Holy Zion".