The research visit Diliana Atanassova and myself made to the BnF last week proved fruitful both in terms of autopsying original manuscripts and in terms of using different settings to decipher heavily damaged portions of texts. Diliana examined Sahidic liturgical fragments (ca. 10-11^th c.) and Sahidic Old Testament leaves (from the 7^th, 7^th–8^th and 11^th c.). For my part, I examined Sahidic liturgical fragments and leaves (from the 10^th to the 14^th c.), an Arabic Holy Week lectionary (1312 AD) and the Latin Codex Colbertinus (12^th c.).

   

In this brief blog post, I shall restrict my account to our experience with the UV light.

In recent times, the use of colour photography with enhanced resolution has often rendered the autopsy of the original material superfluous. However, this was not the case with the BnF images of the leaves and fragments under consideration, where parts of the texts were illegible. Our experience at the BnF last week showed that there are at least four different methods that can be employed in such cases.

The first is to work with the source material in the BnF's large dedicated reading room, which is lit by natural and artificial light. This can prove effective in enabling the deciphering of letters that have not undergone significant deterioration.

The second method is to examine the original in the above-mentioned reading room, while using UV light. One hand is used to cast a shadow on the text, while the other hand points the UV light at the text. This method proved effective in rendering some of the more challenging letters legible; however, there were places in which the ink was washed out and nothing could be seen while we were in the reading room.

It was evident that the only viable solution was to utilise a darkroom. We were very fortunate that Dr Vanessa Desclaux, the Curator of the manuscripts of Ancient Egypt and the Christian Near East, had reserved the Salon Rothschild for us and freed up time in her schedule to allow us to use this dimmable environment in her presence. There, we used the third method, which involved focusing on the illegible letters under UV light in total darkness. This proved an effective approach in many instances and enabled us to recognise the traces of the letters.

The fourth method was discovered by chance. A column of text had been so severely washed out that the ultraviolet light in the darkroom, shining on the missing text from above, had no effect. However, in an attempt to resolve this issue, Diliana discovered that the invisible text could be made visible by holding the ultraviolet light at a certain angle behind the page.

Our stay was evidently too short and we will definitely need to visit the BnF again. To conclude, we would like to express our sincere thanks to Dr Desclaux and to the competent and helpful staff of the Department of Manuscripts of the BnF.*

* The photos are published with the kind permission of the BnF. 

 

 

 

On 17 October 2024, I had the pleasure and privilege of delivering the opening lecture of the monthly seminar “Manuscrits et textes coptes”, held in Paris (but accessible via Zoom) and co-organized by the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (a research unit of the French CNRS), the Association Francophone de Coptologie, and the Institut Protestant de Théologie. Being at the end of my postdoctoral project at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, I found it fit to present an overview of the said project. My lecture was titled: “Les manuscrits coptes des épîtres pauliniennes”.

Most conferences limit the speaking time from 20 to 30 minutes per speaker, questions included (excluding plenary lectures). By contrast, the session at which I spoke could last up to 2 hours all included. Thus, I was able to delve into many issues including digital tools (including the renowned Virtual Manuscript Room), codicology, palaeography, and provenance. Additionally, I regularly asked the participants to intervene and share their insights.

The lecture comprised five parts. To begin with, I introduced the GALaCSy project, the team members, the project’s goals, and the digital tools we used — tools whose possibilities are not always known to Coptologists. Thereafter, I gave an overview of Sahidic manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles. Then, I did likewise with manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles in other dialects, more precisely, in Lycopolitan and Mesokemic. Nathalie Bosson kindly intervened to present the findings of her doctoral dissertation on the Mesokemic manuscript mae 4. After that, I addressed the Sahidic manuscript sa 491, a fragmentary but potentially very ancient witness of the Pauline epistles. Since sa 491 has no known provenance, this was an opportunity to discuss whether, more generally, scholars should study and publish manuscripts of uncertain provenance and/or archaeological provenience. In the last minutes of the allotted time, I provided a brief assessment of the project’s results.

I warmly thank Anne Boud’hors, Korshi Dosoo, Catherine Louis, Laurent Pinchard, and Anna van der Kerchove for making this event possible. The next session (on 28 November 2024) will be conducted by Loreleï Vanderheyden and will focus on the theme “Textes en copte d’Aphrodité à Heidelberg? Identification et édition de nouveaux fragments”.

It was with deep sadness and sorrow that we received the terrible news that Peter Nagel, the doyen of Coptic Septuagint Studies and most important supporter of our project, passed away last Thursday, August 1, 2024. As Professor of Christian Near Eastern Studies in Halle (Saale) and Bonn he taught and influenced several generations of scholars not only in Coptic Studies. It is difficult to list the many achievements and merits of Peter Nagel as an outstanding scholar of the 'old school'. Since this will be done in many places, we will concentrate here on his significant contributions to the study and edition of the Coptic Old Testament. It was Peter Nagel who launched and directed the first systematic attempt at a complete reconstruction and edition of the Coptic Old Testament, or the 'Coptic Septuagint', at the Seminar Christlicher Orient and Byzanz of the Martin–Luther–University Halle-Wittenberg in the late 1970s. After his move to the University of Bonn the project Koptische Septuaginta continued its work in Halle from 1994–2000 under his advice and direction. When it was already confirmed that our project would be funded at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities as apart of the long-term research funding program of the German Academies we celebrated Peter Nagel's 75th birthday and thanked him for his support and guidance with an international symposium at the Coptic Monastery in Höxter-Brenkhausen in April 2013. We were also able to honor Peter Nagel with a Festschrift celebrating his 80th birthday. This volume very fittingly was the first to appear in our new monograph series Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible. It is difficult to describe in a few lines how much our digital edition has profited from the numerous and diverse analogue materials he has made available to us. It is, therefore, only appropriate that we have dedicated a special section in our digital resources menu to Peter Nagel's contributions to the study of the Coptic Bible, including his most recent editions.

Like Coptic Studies in general, the field of Coptic Biblical Studies in particular will for ever be connected with the name of Peter Nagel: ⲡⲉϥⲣⲁⲛ ⲛⲁⲱⲛϩ ϣⲁ ϩⲉⲛϫⲱⲙ ⲛ̄ϫⲱⲙ

The Coptic Old Testament Project has an open position for a Student Assistent. See the advertisement on the website of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony here.

The time has come to provide a progress report with the highlights of the second year that the project has been in operation. 

1. New dedicated Partner Project web page 

The website of the Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament now hosts a dedicated Holy Week Lectionary (=HWL) web space under the Partner Projects tab. The new space is fully functional and features blogposts and publications along with the three dedicated sections for the Holy Week Lectionaries: Sahidic Holy Week Lectionary, Bohairic Holy Week Lectionary, and Arabic Holy Week Lectionary. A synopsis of the entire Holy Week lectionary index, prepared on the basis of all manuscripts examined in the framework of the project, can be consulted in each of the three sections.

1.1 Sahidic Holy Week Lectionary section

The five lectionaries (270 leaves) displayed in the Sahidic HWL section are by now fully indexed, liturgically tagged, and transcribed. Meanwhile, the Manuscript Speculation Tool (=MST), created by Diliana Atanassova, Troy A. Griffitts and Ulrich B. Schmid for the reconstruction of pages in fragmentary manuscripts,[1] was further developed and adapted for the reconstruction of lectionaries. Besides, Diliana Atanassova and myself used the MST extensively for the reconstruction of the codex structure of another liturgical manuscript from the White Monastery library, namely the Sahidic Euchologion MONB.VE.[2] Thanks to the development of the MST and to our experience with the reconstruction of liturgical manuscripts, we are now able to reconstruct the codex structure of the individual Sahidic lectionaries despite their fragmentary state, see for example the codex structure of sa 299L.

1.2 Bohairic Holy Week Lectionary section

The list in the Bohairic HWL Lectionary section now includes nine Holy Week lectionaries (2710 leaves) along with the four Ṭuruḥat (272 leaves) for the Holy Week codices. All nine Bohairic HWL were indexed by Peter Missael and liturgically tagged by myself. In cooperation with the British Library, the Bohairic Holy Week lectionary bo 3000L will soon be the subject of a show case. I have already liturgically tagged and transcribed the bilingual Bohairic–Arabic texts of the 313 leaves. Its codex structure is also already retrievable. As for the other eight Bohairic HWL in the list, more than 1100 leaves have already been transcribed. The transcription was achieved with the support of our student assistants Peter Missael and Sophie-Charlotte Gissat.

1.3 Arabic Holy Week Lectionary section

As already mentioned in the project’s first year report, the list in the Arabic HWL section includes all bilingual Sahidic–Arabic (3 manuscripts, 238 leaves) and Bohairic–Arabic HWL (5 manuscripts, 1300 leaves) already included in the other two dedicated sections as well as the monolingual Holy Week lectionary ar 1L (185 leaves). All Arabic texts of the Sahidic–Arabic HWL, more than 280 leaves of the Arabic texts of the Bohairic–Arabic HWL, and 50 leaves of the monolingual ar 1L have already been transcribed by myself.

2. 14-day visit of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome

Diliana Atanassova and myself visited the BAV in Rome from June 5 to June 16, 2023 to carry out an autopsy of the manuscripts preserved in Rome and included in the project’s main sources. Besides, Diliana Atanassova consulted all Sahidic liturgical typika kept in the BAV and pertaining to her research in the framework of her DFG project AT 193/1-1 “The Hymns in the Coptic Liturgy of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt”. A detailed account of the Sahidic and Bohairic HWL autopsy results can be found in two dedicated blogposts (part I and part II).

3. Blogposts in the second year

- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, The Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary: 2022 progress report. In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 21 March 2023.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, A Visit to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 5-16 June 2023: Autopsying Coptic Holy Week Lectionaries (Part I). In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 5 July 2023.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, A Visit to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 5-16 June 2023: Autopsying Coptic Holy Week Lectionaries (Part II). In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 4 August 2023.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, Remarks on the translation of John 2:15 into Coptic and Arabic. In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 20 February 2024.
- Missael, Peter, Sahidic influences in two Bohairic Holy Week Lectionaries. In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 29 November 2023.

4. Publications in the second year

- Atanassova, Diliana / Elhage-Mensching, Lina (2023). Die sahidischen Euchologia des Weißen Klosters – eine kodikologische Bilanz. In: Diliana Atanassova, Frank Feder, Heike Sternberg el-Hotabi (eds), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte. Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel / Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible 4, 61–78.
- Atanassova, Diliana / Griffitts, Troy A. / Schmid, Ulrich B. (2023). Manuscript Speculation Tool 2.0: Digital Support for the Reconstruction of Biblical and Liturgical Coptic Manuscripts. In: Diliana Atanassova, Frank Feder, Heike Sternberg el-Hotabi (eds), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte. Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel / Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible, 79–94.
- Feder, Frank (2023). Old Testament, Coptic Versions of the: Update. In: Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia (CCE), https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/2188/.

5. Forthcoming publications

- Atanassova, Diliana / Feder, Frank (forthcoming). Die Bedeutung der biblischen Lesungen und der sahidischen Lektionare für die Edition der sahidischen Bibelübersetzung – Eine Zwischenbilanz. In: Felix Albrecht, Frank Feder, Martin Karrer (eds), Liturgische Traditionen: Ihr Nutzen und Stellenwert für die biblische Editionswissenschaft / Liturgical Traditions: Their Use and Value for Critical Editions of the Bible, Antike Schriftauslegung / Ancient Scriptural Interpretation.
- Atanassova, Diliana / Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). The Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary. Outline of a New Project in Coptic Studies. In: Chrysostom Nassis, Arsenius Mikhail, Daniel Galadza (eds), ΛΟΓΙΚΗ ΛΑΤΡΕΙΑ. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Thessaloniki, 13–18 June 2022, Studies in Eastern Christian Liturgies.
- Atanassova, Diliana / Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). The Anaphora of Saint James in a Sahidic Euchologion of the late 10th century. In: Proceedings of The Liturgy of St James Conference, Regensburg, 6–10 June 2022.
- Atanassova, Diliana (forthcoming). New Research on Coptic Liturgy 2012–2022. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Congress for Coptic Studies, Brussels, 11–16 July 2022.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). The Owner Family of a Sahidic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary: Arabic and Bohairic marginalia in the 14th century codex sa 16L. Ιn: Proceedings of the 12th International Congress for Coptic Studies, Brussels, 11–16 July 2022.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). Eusebian Tituli Psalmorum in the Coptic Psalter Codex sa 2033. In: Felix Albrecht, Reinhard Kratz (eds), Editing the Greek Psalter, De Septuaginta Investigationes, 511–521.

 

It is with pleasure that I have joined Diliana Atanassova and Lina Elhage-Mensching in the Sahidic Euchologia project in the Göttingen VMR. Looking through the transcriptions on MONB.VE, on one of the newly assigned leaves of the codex, Paris, BnF, Copte 132.3 fol. 221 recto, I have been able to identify six fragmentary lines from the prooimion of the fraction of the liturgy of St Gregory. Here is the transcribed page. The text was known so far in a Greek[1] and in a Bohairic[2] recension, which differ from each other in the address of Christ. It cannot be known which recension (if any) the Sahidic text agreed with, as the legible text only begins with the clauses that describe Jesus’ action at the Lord’s Supper and ask for their actualization in the present rite. These clauses probably go back to very ancient formulas accompanying fraction, as they are already attested in a fourth-century papyrus (the ‘Milan euchologion’, see the Trismegistos Database TM 64589). The Sahidic recension of the prooimion contains one additional clause compared to the Greek and the Bohairic, “who once signed (ⲥⲫⲣⲁⲅⲓⲍⲉ), sign also now,” see lines 29-30 of the recto.
Since the other side of the fragment cannot contain the end of the anaphora of St Gregory, it has to follow the prooimion and is thus the verso. The preserved words indeed agree with a fraction prayer or an inclination before communion prayer, though it cannot be identified yet. As my colleagues Lina Elhage-Mensching and Diliana Atanassova pointed out, the recto proves to be the flesh side, and the content positions the fragment after page 30 of the euchologion, which preserves the institution narrative of the anaphora of St Gregory, and before page 39, which preserves the anaphora of St Cyril. Between page 30 (last leaf of the second quire) and page 39 (the fifth leaf of the third quire) only two leaves can have the order hair/flesh, i.e. the second and the forth leaves in the third quire). As we know[3], codex MONB.VE began with a flyleaf, so the second leaf of the third quire corresponds to the pages 33/34 and the fourth leaf to the pages 37/38. However, since page 39 contains a continuation of the anaphora of St Cyril from page 38, this allowed Atanassova and Elhage-Mensching to position the Paris fragment as the second leaf of the third quire.
Thus, our combined efforts have made it possible to reconstruct the page numbers of the Paris fragment as [33]/[34]. The new placement of the Paris fragment in the codex structure of MONB.VE can be seen here.

 

[1] E. Renaudot, Liturgiarum orientalium collectio, Frankfurt, 1847 vol. 1:114.

[2] E. Hammerschmidt, Die koptische Gregoriosanaphora, Berlin, 1957, 64.

[3] D. Atanassova and L. Elhage-Mensching, “Die sahidischen Euchologia des Weißen Klosters – eine kodikologische Bilanz”, in: D. Atanassova, F. Feder, H. Sternberg-el Hotabi (eds.), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte. Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, unter Mitarbeit von Theresa Kohl (Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel 4), Wiesbaden 2023, 61–78.

 

In 2013 Hans-Gebhard Bethge published an article in Early Christianity entitled "Ein neu bekannt gewordener Papyrus-Codex mit Texten aus Paulus-Briefen. Ein Werkstattbericht." An English version of this article is also available. Brent Nongbri blogged about this manuscript in 2019. In the SMR database in Münster, the manuscript has received the number sa 491.

Along with other information, Bethge mentions the dimensions of the pages (24.5x15.5 cm), the average amount of lines (30-35) to a page, and the average number of letters per line (25). In addition, the page numbers for the final two pages of Hebrews can be read as 139 (ⲣⲗⲑ) and 140 (ⲣⲙ), following which, the numbers 141 (ⲣⲙⲁ), 142 (ⲣⲙⲃ), and 144 (ⲣⲙⲇ) are visible on the first pages of Galatians. Hence, Gal must have followed Heb, and Heb 13 was preceded by text on about 138 pages!  Bethge is worth quoting in full (p. 6):  

"If Heb is somewhere around page 130 and – as one may assume – 1 and 2 Cor as well as Rom, or at least Rom, had preceded them, then space would remain for something additional. It is unclear, though, what texts or writings these could have been, and it can therefore only be speculated upon. Surprisingly enough, one page in this codex, at a rough estimate, is nearly equivalent to one page in Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece. Taking into account the aforementioned long epistles, the pages occurring at the beginning may therefore have been preceded by approximately 100 pages of Pauline texts. It still remains a mystery as to what else could have been there. Earlier on, Gregor Wurst and I had considered a theory that had supposed the Acts to be the codex’s opening script. However, this can hardly be the case as it is far too long. Careful thought could now be given to an idea that the so called Catholic epistles may have been positioned right at the beginning. The space available would probably have been sufficient. Given the state of current knowledge, however, this exciting question still awaits an answer."

This is a perfect challenge for our Manuscript Speculation Tool. This tool allows us to enter manuscript parameters into an input form for the computer to create a manuscript based on these parameters and the text that we think it must have contained. I have started with Bethge's suggestion that 1 and 2 Cor and Rom could have preceded Heb in a manuscript that has 25 letters per line and 32.5 lines to the page. (It is a nice thing that we can enter decimals; in this case, 32.5 is the midpoint between 30 and 35). In addition, I have added three extra lines for a header (superscription) above Rom and two lines in front of every new writing to allow for subscription and/or superscriptions. The string of books and "headers" that will do all that is LB1;Rom;LB2;1Cor;LB2;2Cor;LB2;Heb;LB2;Gal. Finally, I told the computer to start with page 1 (α) and create 140 pages. This is the result: Heb ends on page 137!

Allowing for the possibility that the first leaf (pages 1-2*) could have been part of the manuscript cover and was thus not numbered, this is a perfect match! In fact, the match is so good that I have not even looked for an alternative scenario. As a result, we can safely put aside any speculation as to what other books let alone from outside of the Corpus Paulinum might have been included before Heb. Instead, this very old papyrus codex (4th c.?) seems to have followed the "normal" arrangement of the Pauline Epistles in the Coptic (Sahidic) tradition: Rom 1-2 Cor Heb Gal sq. 

When I was transcribing the bilingual version of John 2:15, which is read during the sixth Hour of the Day on Holy Monday,[2] I came upon the Arabic word فرقله (frqlh), which I was not familiar with, and which seemed to me as an imperfect transliteration of the word ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ used in the Bohairic text. The word in Greek means ‘whip’ or ‘scourge’[3]  and refers to a kind of whip made of ropes that Jesus used to drive away cattle dealers, money changers, and animals from the temple, a description that is unique to the Johannine account.[4] A quick look at John 2:15 in the Nestle-Aland 28th edition shows that by using ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ, the Coptic translator literally follows the Greek version. Also note that the Latin translation uses the similarly sounding word flagellum:

καὶ ποιήσας φραγέλλιον ἐκ σχοινίων πάντας ἐξέβαλεν ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, τά τε πρόβατα καὶ τοὺς βόας, καὶ τῶν κολλυβιστῶν ἐξέχεεν τὸ κέρμα καὶ τὰς τραπέζας ἀνέτρεψεν.

et cum fecisset quasi flagellum de funiculis, omnes eiecit de templo, oves quoque, et boves, et nummulariorum effudit aes, et mensas subvertit.

Next, I went through other Arabic, Bohairic, and Sahidic versions of John 2:15 and here is a summary of what I found:

Table 1[5] Table of languages and witnesses

As one can see, while Bohairic always uses the word ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ in two orthographic variants, Sahidic translates the Greek word φραγέλλιον by ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ, as already briefly discussed by Christian Askeland,[6] and, in Arabic, the manuscripts I have considered feature four different translations.[7] In fact, only one of those manuscripts has the Greek word rendered as فرقله, and that is the specific bilingual Bohairic-Arabic HWL bo 3000L described above. As we will see later, the Arabic word, which appears without vowel signs in the manuscript, is read فَرْقِلَّه farqillah. 

But how are the similar Latin flagellum, Greek φραγέλλιον, Bohairic ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ, and Arabic فَرْقِلَّه farqillah connected? And who borrowed from whom?[8]

The Latin word flagellum is the diminutive of the word flagrum. Although φραγέλλον is usually considered to be a Greek adaptation of Latin flagellum via the dissimilation of the l…l into r…l, I actually think that it can have been borrowed directly from the Vulgar Latin variant fragellum that was already dissimilated.[9] According to all consulted dictionaries, the Greek word φραγέλλον or φραγέλλιον is the source of both the Arabic فَرْقِلَّه  farqillah[10] and the word appearing in the Bohairic translations, as you can see in this tentative sketch:

Figure 1 Sketch of loanwords originating from Latin flagellum

We have already seen that all Bohairic text witnesses consistently use the Greek word as is, and what is more, we encounter ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ already in an early Bohairic manuscript, namely in papyrus Bodmer III dated to the 4th c. AD.[11]

Let us now look in more detail at each of the words in Table 1, beginning with the words related to Greek φραγέλλιον.

Bohairic ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ/ ⲫⲣⲁⲕⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ

The word is missing from the traditional Coptic dictionaries[12] even as a loanword. It is however mentioned in Cherix’s Lexique grec-copte,[13] and in his Lexique copte (dialecte sahidique!) as a Greek loanword with the French meaning ‘fouet’, which is ‘whip’. The original Greek word is documented, e.g. in Trapp’s Lexikon[14] and in LSJ online,[15] where it is interpreted as a loanword from Latin. In the whole Bible, the Greek word only appears in John 2:15, and hence this is also the only occurrence of the loanword in the Bohairic Bible. The variant with ⲕ might be an adaptation of the Greek loanword to the early Late Bohairic pronunciation in which ⲕ could also stand for /g/.[16] I will return to some more details of ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ in the section on ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ below.

Arabic فَرْقِلَّه  farqillah

Documented in several dictionaries, the word is always classified as an Arabic word used in Egypt, from Greek φραγέλλιον according to Dozy.[17] Another non-liturgical textual witness is no less than an Arabic manuscript of the “Thousand and One Nights” of the 14th c. preserved in Paris at the BnF under shelf mark Arabe 3609 and commented upon by the orientalist Fleischer,[18] who refers to the occurrence of farqillah, on f. 7r. This would be the second textual witness in Arabic of a word that seems to have been fairly common in Egypt at the time. It is therefore not surprising that the translator or scribe of our Bohairic–Arabic HWL chose a word he was familiar with.

But how do we reach farqillah from φραγέλλιον? In Arabic, consonant clusters never occur syllable initially. Therefore, in loanwords beginning with such clusters, a vowel is inserted in between the consonants. Also, words that contain inflectional markings that are foreign to Arabic show greater adaptation. This means that in most words of Greek origin, the endings -is, -os, -on, and -ion, are dropped in order to integrate them into the Arabic morphology. The word was furthermore partially adapted to the Arabic feminine pattern for tools or instruments by adding the feminine ending -ah.[19] Examples for this pattern are مطرقه miṭraqah ‘hammer’, مكنسه miknasah ‘broom’, and more interestingly, the two Arabic synonyms مخصره miḫṣarah and مقرعه miqraʿah, used to translate φραγέλλιον in the other Bohairic-Arabic HWL manuscripts (see Table 1). Finally, loanwords undergo different alterations from one Arabic dialect to another. Some varieties alter the /g/ into an Arabic /q/ such as in our example.

Figure 2 Adaptation of Greek φραγέλλ(ι)ον to Arabic

Let us now discuss the remaining translation solutions from Table 1, which use words that are not related to Greek φραγέλλιον.

Sahidic ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ

As can be seen in Table 1, all considered Sahidic textual witnesses use ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ[20] to translate φραγέλλιον in John 2:15. When we look at the entries of μάστιξ in the dictionaries of Greek,[21] we encounter ‘whip’ or ‘scourge’ as the first meaning. In the entry of Latin Flagrum/Flagellum in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities,[22] one can see μάστιξ in brackets (and not φραγέλλιον!), as well as a reference to John 2:15. The translators or scribes of the Sahidic version of the Bible were well acquainted with the word μάστιξ and its derivatives and usually used it to render in Sahidic the corresponding occurrences in the Septuagint (such as Job 21:9) or in the Greek New Testament (such as Acts 22:24). By contrast, the noun φραγέλλιον appears nowhere in the Sahidic Bible. However, even if they used ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ to translate φραγέλλιον in John 2:15, the verb derived from φραγέλλιον was known to the Sahidic translators or scribes (Cf. Sahidic version of Matthew 27:26 and Mark 15:15). These are however the only occurrences of this word family in the Sahidic Bible.

To comfort the above observations and introduce the next Arabic word used to render φραγέλλιον, let us look at another textual witness, i.e. the Coptic–Arabic manuscript Copte 44, preserved in Paris and known as Scala 44.[23] The word scala is Latin for sullām ‘ladder’, which is the Arabic term for a Coptic–Arabic glossary[24] because the words are arranged to the left (Coptic) and right (Arabic) in a way that resembles a ladder.[25] Among the various Coptic scalae, this is the most complete and best preserved. The 190 folios of the codex are divided into seven parts. Two parts that are relevant here are a Sahidic–Arabic “ecclesiastical vocabulary”, and a Bohairic-Arabic “ecclesiastical vocabulary”. They follow the order of the biblical and liturgical books and use the terms in the order in which they appear in the texts.[26] In the Sahidic–Arabic part of the vocabularies based on John, we see the loanword ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ translated in Arabic as farqillah and miqra3a. In contrast, in the Bohairic–Arabic part, ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ is also translated as miqra3a and farqillah, confirming what I found in our bilingual HWL bo 3000L.

Arabic مقرعه miqraʿah and مخصره miḫṣarah

The first of these two words, miqraʿah, another Arabic word for ‘whip’[27] is mentioned in the Scala 44 beside farqillah, as we have just seen, and used in two of our bilingual Bohairic-Arabic HWL. The second Arabic rendering of ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ is miḫṣarah. The entry in Lane’s Lexicon includes ‘whip’ but also anything one can hold in their hands to beat somebody.[28] This word does not appear in the Scala and is used in another two bilingual Bohairic–Arabic HWL as well as in our main monolingual Arabic HWL.

Both words are instrument nouns that follow the Arabic tools and instruments pattern mifʿalah[29] from the root qrʿ, which means to strike, and ḫṣr which has several meanings including waist and a verb meaning to hit on the waist.

Conclusions

After the scrutiny of the material that I have presented above, I will now try to answer some questions that are important for the research in the framework of our project:

1. Is the Coptic word ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ in John 2:15 a transcription of the Greek word φραγέλλιον? It seems so. In any case, it is scarcely documented elsewhere so the early Bohairic text in the 4th century Bodmer papyrus is possibly the origin of the use of this loanword in John 2:15 in the Bohairic linguistic space without becoming a well-established Coptic word.
2. Is the Arabic word farqillah an adaptation of the Coptic word made by the Arabic translator of our HWL? Certainly not, for several reasons: a.- a transcription would have given the word as is with its ending, b.- the shape of the Arabic word indicates that it was already integrated in Egyptian Arabic before the 13th century and appears in non-biblical manuscripts, such as in the “Thousand and One Nights” and is well-known as an Egyptian Arabic word in the dictionaries.
3. Can there be an explanation of the fact that the Sahidic text translates this word as ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ? ⲙⲁⲥⲧⲓⲅⲝ was an established loanword in Sahidic and appears across the Old Testament. The Sahidic translator, who, unlike the Bohairic translator, wrote for a readership with lesser knowledge of Greek,[30] may have preferred to use a well-known word with a well-known meaning. The Bohairic translator seems to have “possessed a thorough knowledge of the Greek language”,[31] and translated the Greek word literally.
4. Why do all other bilingual or Arabic manuscripts use other words to render ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲗⲓⲟⲛ in Arabic? This question is difficult to answer and would need more research. What we can say for now is that the three translation solutions present three degrees of literality. The word farqillah may be considered the most literal translation as the word is derived from the Greek word in the source text, although one might object that its semantics has changed: most dictionaries state that it is a whip used only for animals. The word miqraʿah is a quite literal translation using a genuinely Arabic word whereas miḫṣarah is also a genuinely Arabic word but with a broad sense, which includes whips but also anything one can hold in their hands to beat somebody and hence also the instrument that Jesus made from ropes and used. What is most interesting is the fact that only the first, literal translation uses a word that is specifically Egyptian Arabic!

We're happy to announce the fourth issue of our project's official newsletter.

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It is with special joy and affection that we announce the publication of a new volume in our project's book series Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel (TSKB). TSKB 4 is a Festschrift dedicated to Heike Behlmer's 65th birthday. 57 authors from all over the world contributed 52 articles to an outstanding volume of 1076 pages. The topics of the volume cover – in an anthological variety – Egyptology, Coptic Studies, History of Scholarship, Gender Studies, and much more.

Heike Behlmer, Professor of Egyptology and Coptic Studies at the University of Göttingen, was responsible for the successful inauguration and installation of the Coptic Old Testament project at the Göttingen Academy and she supervises the project work as chair of the steering board for the project. The CoptOT team members are especially grateful to Heike for her commitment and devotion to the project.

May this book find many readers and enlighten them. The book (or e-book), or any other book of the series can be ordered with the publisher Harrassowitz. Here you can see an overview of the content of Festschrift Behlmer. 

As it is well known, the Coptic Old Testament is a daughter translation of the Greek Septuagint.[1] Unlike the Sahidic Old Testament, which was completely translated (unfortunately it did not survive in its entirety), the Old Testament was only partially translated into Bohairic (only the Pentateuch, Job, Psalms, and the Prophets are complete). Other books are only attested as excerpts, mostly in liturgical books as pericopae.[2]

The Sahidic influence was already observed by Burmester in some excerpts of Bohairic Old Testament books,[3] which are not widely copied, or of minor liturgical importance, as for example the Wisdom of Solomon, or Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), which are attested only as pericopae in the Holy Week Lectionary.[4]

Working on Bohairic manuscripts of the Holy Week Lectionary in the framework of the DFG project Project AT 193/2–1 “Digitale Edition und wissenschaftliche Erschließung des koptischen Paschalektionars,” I came across many Old Testament pericopae – in addition to the ones from Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus – in which a Sahidic source is undeniably present. The following tables show a comparison between some words and sentences from these pericopae from the Sahidic Holy Week Lectionary sa 16L (before 1443 AD) and their parallels from the Bohairic Holy Week Lectionaries using two manuscripts which show Sahidic influences:

• bo 3005L = Vat. copt. 98 dated 1385 AD;
• bo 3014L = ICP Copte-Arabe (part I) 6 & bo 3015L = ICP Copte-Arabe 7 (part II) dated 1777 AD.[5]

In addition to the forms found in the manuscripts, the expected standard Bohairic forms are given. For the Bohairic forms in the Minor Prophets, I consulted Henry Tattam’s 1836 edition, but did not always follow it.

 

1. Phonological and orthographical peculiarities:

1.1. Aspiration

Aspiration is one of the main phonological phenomena that distinguish Bohairic from other Coptic dialects. Voiceless plosives (ⲡ, ⲕ, ⲧ, ϫ) become aspirated (ⲫ, ⲭ, ⲑ, ϭ) before sonorants and stressed syllables. The following table shows some examples, in which the scribe or the translator rendered the Sahidic words into Bohairic without considering the aspiration:

Table 1.1.1.	sa 16L, fol. 19r–19v	bo 3005L, fol. 115r–116r	bo 3014L, fol. 81r–81v	Standard Bohairic form
1Kgs 19:9	ⲁϥⲡⲱϩ	ⲁϥⲡⲓⲙϩⲧ (sic!)[6]	ⲁϥⲡ̀ⲱϩⲧ	ⲁϥⲫⲟϩ [7]
	ⲛⲧⲟⲕ	ⲛ̇ⲧⲱⲕ	ⲛ̀ⲧⲟⲕ	ⲛ̀ⲑⲟⲕ
1Kgs 19:10	ⲟⲩⲕⲱϩ ⲁⲓ̈ⲕⲱϩ	ⲟⲩⲕⲟϩ ⲁⲓⲕⲟϩ	ⲟⲩⲕⲱϩ ⲁⲓⲕⲱϩ	ⲟⲩⲭⲟϩ ⲁⲓⲭⲟϩ
	ⲁⲩⲕⲁⲁⲕ	ⲁⲩⲕⲁⲕ	ⲁⲩⲕⲁⲕ	ⲁⲩⲭⲁⲕ
1Kgs 19:12	ⲧⲏⲩ	ⲧⲏⲩ	ⲧⲏⲟⲩ	ⲑⲏⲟⲩ

 

1.2. Hypercorrection

The following examples show unnecessary correction of some words: aspiration of ⲧ before the sonorant ⲣ in ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲁ and replacing ϩ with ϧ (very common).

Table 1.2.1.	sa 16L,  fol. 19r–19v	bo 3005L,  fol. 115v	bo 3014L,  fol. 81v	Standard Bohairic form
1Kgs 19:11	ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲁ	ⲡⲉⲑⲣⲁ	ⲡⲉⲑⲣⲁ	ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲁ

 

Table 1.2.2.	sa 16L, fol. 135r	bo 3005L, fol. 336v	bo 3015L, fol. 256r	Standard Bohairic form
Mic 2:1	ⲉ̇ϩ︤ⲛ︥ϩⲓ̈ⲥⲉ	ⲉϧⲟⲩⲛϩⲓⲥⲓ (sic!)	ⲉ̀ϧⲉⲛϩⲓⲥⲓ	ⲉ̀ϩⲁⲛϧⲓⲥⲓ
	ϩ︤ⲛ︥ⲡⲉⲑⲟⲟⲩ	ϧⲉⲛⲡⲉⲧϩⲱⲟⲩ	ϧⲉⲛⲡⲉⲧϩⲱⲟⲩ	ϩⲁⲛⲡⲉⲧϩⲱⲟⲩ

 

1.3. Other Sahidic influences on the orthography

In the following examples, the scribe did not write the words in their standard Bohairic form:

Table 1.3.1.	sa 16L,  fol. 19r–19v	bo 3005L,  fol. 115r–116r	bo 3014L,  fol. 81r–81v	Standard Bohairic form
1Kgs 19:9	ⲉⲕⲣⲟⲩ	ⲉⲕⲣⲟⲩ	ⲉⲕⲣⲟ	ⲉⲕⲉⲣⲟⲩ
1Kgs 19:11	ⲉϥⲧⲁϫⲣⲏⲩ	ⲉϥⲧⲁϫⲣⲏⲟⲩ	ⲉϥⲧⲁϫⲣⲏⲟⲩ	ⲉϥⲧⲁϫⲣⲏⲟⲩⲧ
1Kgs 19:13	ⲁϩⲣⲟⲕ	ⲁϩⲣⲟⲕ	ⲁ̀ϩⲁⲣⲟⲕ	ⲁϧⲣⲟⲕ

 

Table 1.3.2.	sa 16L,  fol. 135r	bo 3005L, fol. 336r	bo 3015L,  fol. 255v	Standard Bohairic form
Mic 1:15	ϩⲉⲉⲕⲉϫⲱ	ϩⲉⲕϫⲱ[8]	ϩⲉⲕⲉϫⲱ	ϧⲉⲕϫⲱ

 

2. Morphological and syntactical misinterpretation and misunderstanding:

Another indication of Sahidic influence is misanalysing Sahidic phrases. The Bohairic scribe or translator either copied them as they are or misinterpreted them resulting in ungrammatical phrases.

For example, the Sahidic definite article for plural ⲛ- is analyzed as the particle ⲛ- (1Kgs 19:10, Table 2.1.) and the genitive particle with the definite article for plural ⲛ- is analyzed as the possessive prefix (ⲛ︤ⲛ︥ϭⲟⲙ > ⲛⲉⲛϫⲟⲙ) (1Kgs 19:10, Table 2.1.). We can also find forms copied from Sahidic, for example, the Sahidic ⲛⲉⲣⲉ- instead of the Bohairic ⲛⲁⲣⲉ- (1Kgs 19:11, Table 2.1.), Greek Verbs without the auxiliary ⲉⲣ- (Mic 2:2 Table 2.2.), the use of the Sahidic Temporal ⲛ̄ⲧⲉⲣⲉ- instead of its Bohairic counterpart ⲉⲧⲁ- (1Kgs 19:13, Table 2.1.) and the Sahidic forms of some words, for instance, ⲛ̄ⲛ̄ⲧⲟⲩⲉⲓ̈ⲏ̇ (1Kgs 19:11, Table 2.1.) and ⲛⲁⲩ “to them” (Hos 7:13, Table 2.3.).

The most interesting, and maybe the most common phenomenon, is misinterpreting almost every consonant cluster ⲙⲛ as the conjunction/preposition ⲛⲉⲙ, for instance, ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ⲛ̄ⲥⲁ > ⲛⲉⲙ ⲛ̇ⲥⲁ (1Kgs 19:12, Table 2.1.); ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ⲧⲭⲏⲣⲁ > ⲛⲉⲙ ⲧ̀ⲭⲏⲣⲁ (Mic 1:16, Table 2.2.).

Table 2.1.	sa 16L, fol. 19r–19v	bo 3005L,  fol. 115r–116r	bo 3014L, fol. 81r–81v	Standard Bohairic form
1Kgs 19:10	ⲡ̄ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲛ︤ⲛ︥ϭⲟⲙ	ⲫϯ ⲛⲉⲛϫⲟⲙ̇	ⲫϯ ⲛⲉⲛϫⲟⲙ	ⲫϯ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ⲛⲓϫⲟⲙ
	ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϫⲉ ⲛ̄ϣⲏⲣⲉ	ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϫⲉ ⲛ̇ϣⲏⲣⲓ	ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϫⲉ ⲛ̀ϣⲏⲣⲓ	ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϫⲉ ⲛⲓϣⲏⲣⲓ
1Kgs 19:11	ⲛ︤ⲅ︥ⲁ̇ϩⲉ ⲣⲁⲧ︤ⲕ︥	ⲛⲉⲅⲁϩⲉⲣⲁⲧⲕ	ⲛⲉⲅⲁϩⲉ̀ⲣⲁⲧⲕ	ⲛ̀ⲧⲉⲕⲟ̀ϩⲓ ⲉ̀ⲣⲁⲧⲕ
	ⲛ̄ⲛ̄ⲧⲟⲩⲉⲓ̈ⲏ̇	ⲛⲉⲛⲧⲟⲩⲉ̇ⲓⲏ̇	ⲛⲉⲛⲧⲟⲩⲉ̀ⲓ̀ⲏ̀	ⲛ̀ⲛⲓⲧⲱⲟⲩ
	ⲛⲉⲣⲉⲡϫⲟⲉⲓ̈ⲥ	ⲛⲉⲣⲉⲡ⳪︦	ⲛⲉⲣⲉⲡ⳪︦	ⲛⲁⲣⲉⲡ⳪︦
1Kgs 19:12	ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ⲛ̄ⲥⲁ	ⲛⲉⲙ ⲛ̇ⲥⲁ	ⲛⲉⲙ ⲛ̀ⲥⲁ	ⲙⲉⲛⲉⲛⲥⲁ
1Kgs 19:13	ⲛ̄ⲧⲉⲣⲉϩⲏⲗⲓ̈ⲁⲥ	ⲛ̇ⲧⲉⲣⲉⲏ̇ⲗⲓⲁⲥ	ⲛ̀ⲧⲉⲣⲉⲏ̀ⲗⲓⲁⲥ	ⲉⲧⲁⲏⲗⲓⲁⲥ

 

Table 2.2.	sa 16L, fol. 135r	bo 3005L, fol. 336r–336v	bo 3015L, fol. 255v–256r	Standard Bohairic form
Mic 1:16	ⲧⲁϣⲟ  ⲛ̄ⲧⲟⲩⲙ︤ⲛ︥ⲧⲭⲏⲣⲁ	ⲧⲁϣⲟ ⲛ̀ⲧⲟⲩ ⲛⲉⲙ   ⲉⲧⲭⲏⲣⲁ (sic!)	ⲧⲁϣⲟ ⲛ̀ⲧⲟⲩ ⲛⲉⲙ   ⲧ̀ⲭⲏⲣⲁ (sic!)	ⲟⲩⲱϣⲥ ⲉ̀ⲃⲟⲗ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉⲙⲉⲧⲭⲏⲣⲁ
Mic 2:2	ⲁⲩⲉ̇ⲡⲉⲑⲩⲙⲉⲓ̈	ⲁⲩⲉ̀ⲡⲓⲑⲩⲙⲓ	ⲁⲩⲉ̀ⲡⲓⲑⲩⲙⲓ	ⲁⲩⲉⲣⲉ̀ⲡⲓⲑⲩⲙⲓⲛ

 

Table 2.3.	sa 16L, fol. 160v–161r	bo 3005L, fol. 371v–372r	bo 3015L, fol. 283v	Standard Bohairic form
Hos 7:13	ⲛⲁⲩ	ⲛⲁⲩ	ⲛⲁ	ⲛⲱⲟⲩ
	ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲙ︤ⲛ︦ⲧ︥ⲉⲃⲓ̈ⲏⲛ	ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲧⲉⲃⲓⲏⲛ	ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲧⲏⲃⲛⲏⲓ	ϩⲁⲛⲉ̀ⲃⲓⲏⲛ[9]
	ⲟⲩⲙ︤ⲛ︥ⲧⲛⲟⲩϫ	ϩⲁⲛⲛⲉⲙⲉⲧⲛⲟⲩϫ	ϩⲁⲛⲛⲉⲙⲉⲧⲛⲟϫ	ϩⲁⲛⲙⲉⲑⲛⲟⲩϫ
Hos 7:16	ⲙ̄ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ⲧⲁⲧⲥ̄ⲃⲱ	ⲙ̀ⲙⲉⲛⲧⲁϯⲥⲃⲱ	ⲙ̀ⲙⲉⲛⲧⲁϯⲥⲃⲱ	ϯⲙⲉⲧⲁⲧⲥⲃⲱ

 

Table 2.4.	sa 16L, fol. 171v	bo 3005L, fol. 387r	bo 3015L, fol. 296r	Standard Bohairic form
Josh 5:10	ϩ︤ⲛ︥ ⲥⲟⲩⲙⲛⲧⲁϥⲧⲉ ⲙ̄ⲡⲉⲃⲟⲧ	ϧⲉⲛ ⲥⲟⲩⲛⲉⲙⲓ︤ⲇ︥ϯ ⲙ̀ⲡⲓⲁ̀ⲃⲟⲧ	ϧⲉⲛ ⲥⲟⲩⲛⲉⲙⲓ︤ⲇ︥ ⲙ̀ⲡⲓⲁ̀ⲃⲟⲧ	ϧⲉⲛ ⲥⲟⲩⲓ︤ⲇ︥ ⲙ̀ⲡⲓⲁ̀ⲃⲟⲧ

 

3. Lexical influences:

The Sahidic Vorlage influenced the Bohairic translation, not only on the morphophonological or syntactic level, but also on the lexical one.

3.1. Using Sahidic lexemes in the Bohairic translation that are usually not common in Bohairic:

Table 3.1.1.	sa 16L,  fol. 19r–19v	bo 3005L,  fol. 115v–116r	bo 3014L,  fol. 81r–81v	Standard Bohairic form
1Kgs 19:10	ⲁⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩⲧⲟⲩ	ⲁⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩⲧⲟⲩ	ⲁⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩⲧⲟⲩ	ⲁⲩϧⲟⲑⲃⲟⲩ
1Kgs 19:12	ⲡⲕⲱϩⲧ	ⲡⲓⲕⲱϩⲧ	ⲡⲓⲕⲱϩⲧ	ⲡⲓⲭⲣⲱⲙ

 

Table 3.1.2.	sa 16L,  fol. 135r–135v	bo 3005L,  fol. 336r–337r	bo 3015L,  fol. 256r–256v	Standard Bohairic form
Mic 1:16	ⲛ̄ⲑⲉ	ⲛ̀ⲑⲉ	ⲛ̀ⲑⲉ	ⲙ̀ⲫⲣⲏϯ
Amos 2:7	ⲁⲩⲃⲱⲕ	ⲟⲩⲃⲱⲕ[10]	ⲁⲩⲃⲱⲕ	ⲛⲁⲩⲛⲁ

 

3.2. In some cases, the Bohairic text shows Greek words, where standard Bohairic texts (as the Bohairic NT) would use a word of Egyptian origin:

Table 3.2.1.	sa 16L, fol. 19r	bo 3005L, fol. 115v	bo 3014L, fol. 81r–81v	Standard Bohairic form
1Kgs 19:10	ⲛⲉⲕⲑⲩⲥⲓ̈ⲁⲥⲧⲏⲣⲓ̈ⲟⲛ	ⲛⲉⲕⲑⲩⲥⲓⲁ̀ⲥⲧⲏⲣⲓⲟⲛ	ⲛⲉⲕⲑⲩⲥⲓⲁ̀ⲥ̀ⲧⲏⲣⲓⲟⲛ	ⲛⲉⲕⲙⲁ ⲛⲉⲣϣⲱⲟⲩϣⲓ[11]
1Kgs 19:11	ⲛⲁⲡⲁⲣⲁⲅⲉ	ⲛⲁⲡⲁⲣⲁⲅⲉ	ⲛⲁⲡⲁⲣⲁⲅⲉ	ⲛⲁⲥⲓⲛⲓ

 

Table 3.2.2.	sa 16L,  fol. 135r	bo 3005L,  fol. 336v	bo 3015L,  fol. 256r	Standard Bohairic form
Mic 1:16	ⲁⲓ̈ⲧⲟⲥ	ⲁⲓⲧⲟⲥ	ⲁⲓⲧⲟⲥ	ⲁ̀ϧⲱⲙ[12]

 

These pericopae and many others that show influences from Sahidic are not attested in other Bohairic Holy Week Lectionaries.[13] The two parts of the Bohairic Holy Week Lectionary bo 3014L & bo 3015L were used in the White Monastery[14] in Upper Egypt where the Sahidic Holy Week Lectionaries were most probably kept.

The following observations can be made from the previous examples:

• The scribe (and/or the translator) did indeed have some basic background knowledge about the differences between Sahidic and Bohairic; for instance, S ⲙⲛ > B ⲛⲉⲙ, some Sahidic words with ϩ have ϧ in Bohairic, the atonic ⲉ at the end of a word in Sahidic is written ⲓ in Bohairic, and aspiration (cf. Table 1.1.1.).
• Nevertheless, the scribe (and/or the translator) was unable to understand some parts of the Sahidic texts. This is evident from his copying Sahidic words with/without a slight modification (according to the Bohairic orthographical and phonological rules) and incorrectly analyzing the texts (cf. Table 2.1.–2.4.).
• For these passages with Sahidic influences, the scribe seems most probably to have translated them directly from a Sahidic Vorlage and not to have used a copy of the Bohairic Bible, even if a Bohairic translation of the biblical book existed. Evidence for this is the pericope of Amos 3:1–10, which is read twice during the Holy Week according to bo 3005L and the second part of the 18th-century lectionary bo 3015L (once on Good Friday morning and once at the sixth hour of Maundy Thursday evening), and once according to the other witnesses (only at the sixth hour of Maundy Thursday evening). The one read on Maundy Thursday and witnessed in all manuscripts identified in the DFG project AT 193/2–1 shows no Sahidic influence, unlike the one read on Good Friday. What is the reason for such differences in the two versions of Amos 3:1–10? When did this difference emerge? Maybe the Amos pericope with the Sahidic influences emerged later and the scribe did not have access to a copy of the Bohairic Bible? We cannot be sure.

These observations raise questions concerning the linguistic situation at least in the White Monastery in the second millennium. It appears that Sahidic and Bohairic were not completely and mutually intelligible, and the knowledge of Coptic was in full decline. Even if Coptic was no longer understood, we can assume that these biblical passages were read aloud in Coptic; a habit that is still practiced today in the liturgy of the Coptic Church.

 

Bibliography

Böhlig, Alexander. 1954a. Die griechischen Lehnwörter im sahidischen und im bohairischen Neuen Testament, Studien zur Erforschung des christlichen Aegyptens, Heft 2, München.

________. 1954b. Register und Vergleichstabellen zu Heft 2, Studien zur Erforschung des christlichen Aegyptens, Heft 2A, München.

Burmester, Oswald Hugh Edward. 1934. “The Bohairic Pericopae of Wisdom and Sirach,” in: Biblica 15, 451–465.

________. 1935. “The Bohairic Pericopae of Wisdom and Sirach,” in: Biblica 16, 25–57, 141–174.

Feder, Frank. 2008. “The Coptic Version(s) of the Book of Jesus Sirach,” in: Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér (eds.), Studies in the Book of Ben Sira, Papers of the Third International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Shime'on Centre, Pápa, Hungary, 18–20 May, 2006, Leiden and Boston, 11–20.

________. 2020. “1.1.6 The Coptic Canon,” in: Frank Feder and Matthias Henze (eds.), Textual History of the Bible. The Deuterocanonical Scriptures, Vol. 2A: 1 Overview Articles, 1.1 The Canonicle Histories of the Deuterocanonical Texts, Leiden and Boston, 213a–239.

Lagarde, Paul de. 1879. Orientalia. Teil I: Die koptischen Handschriften der Göttinger Bibliothek. Bruchstücke der koptischen Übersetzung des Alten Testaments, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse 24, Göttingen.

Lefort, Louis Théophile. 1925. S. Pachomii vita: Bohairice scripta, CSCO 89, Scriptores Coptici 7, Paris.

Tattam, Henry. 1836. ⲛⲓϫⲱⲙ ⲛⲧⲉ ⲛⲓⲓ︤ⲃ︥ ⲛⲛⲓⲡⲣⲟⲫⲏⲧⲏⲥ ⲛⲕⲟⲩϫⲓ ϧⲉⲛ ϯⲁⲥⲡⲓ ⲛⲧⲉ ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ Duodecim prophetarum minorum libros in lingua Aegyptiaca vulgo Coptica seu Memphitica, Oxford.

The services of our project website have been enhanced with a new entry under "Digital Resources": Peter Nagel – Collected Biblica. Anyone who is interested in the history and transmission of the Coptic Bible has inevitably come accross the name of Peter Nagel. As Professor of Christian Near Eastern Studies in Halle (Saale) and Bonn he has influenced several generations of scholars. Peter Nagel is undoubtedly one of the most renowned scholars in the field of Coptic Studies. He has been honored with Festschriften on occasion of his 65th and his 80th birthday. The latter was also the first volume in our project's book series Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible.

Since the 1980s he has been worked intensively on the edition of the Sahidic version of the Old Testament in particular. He was aware from the outset that only a systematic and comprehensive collection and documentation of the mostly dispersed and fragmented manuscript witnesses would make a complete edition a feasible project. Peter Nagel supported the planning of our project from the beginning. Thus, still during the process of applying for funding for the Complete Digital Edition and Translation of the Coptic–Sahidic Old Testament, an inaugural colloquium was held at the Coptic monastery in Brenkhausen to mark his 75th birthday in 2013. Two books that have appeared in our print publication series, Das Deuteronomium sahidisch and Der sahidische Psalter Editio Minor, are important preliminary text editions on the path towards the future complete digital edition of the Sahidic Old Testament.

The Collected Biblica make all the important articles and monographs on the Coptic Old Testament by Peter Nagel visible and, if the copyright has returned to the author, also accessible for download. With this online collection, we would like to thank Peter Nagel for his commitment to the study of the Coptic Bible and to our project. And, we hope to draw the attention of a public beyond the scholarly community to the seminal works that Peter Nagel has contributed to our field.

 

Further to our visit to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in June and as announced in the first blog entry in July, here follow some on-site autopsy results of a few manuscripts I had the opportunity to consult during the visit. The information pertaining to the first manuscript described below can be found as Metadata in the Göttingen Virtual Manuscript Room. The information pertaining to the other manuscripts can be considered as draft entries of a catalogue of Coptic liturgical manuscripts, which is under construction.

sa 349L, 14–15th century[1]
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Borg. Copt. 109, cass. XXIII, fasc. 98

Four extant folios originally belonging to a bilingual Sahidic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary of which another two folios are preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Written on unwatermarked Egyptian glossy ‘two-layered’ paper,[2] with apparent laid lines and non-distinguishable chain marks. Page dimensions 36.5x22.5 cm, text coverage 31x19 cm, lines per page 25 for the Sahidic text and 25 for the Arabic text, line width 11–13 cm for the Sahidic text and ca. 5 cm for the Arabic text, intercolumn ca.1 cm. 10 lines of text: 12 cm. Ornamented hanging capital letters in black, red, yellow, and green up to 7 cm in height at the beginning of pericopes. Hanging capital letters in black, red, and yellow at the beginning of paragraphs. The last two extant folios, which preserve the readings for the Synaxis on Holy Thursday with a pericope from the book of Isaiah, namely Isaiah 32,1–16, are the only known example with this reading at that hour, whereas all other Holy  Week lectionaries I have examined have another Isaiah reading at that same hour, usually from Isaiah 52–53.

Borg.copt.52, 18th century[3]

Bilingual Bohairic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary written on European paper with the tre lune watermark (in transmitted light, the paper reveals the distinctive originally Italian watermark tre lune,[4] (see fig. 1 below) three moon crescents in decreasing size, specifically created for the Levant),[5] 460 folios. Page dimensions 315x215 mm, written text dimensions 240x155 mm, lines per page 22–23, 10 lines height 10 cm, line width 10–11 cm for the Bohairic text, 4–4.5 cm for the Arabic text, intercolumn ca. 1 cm. The Bohairic columns end with catchwords. All alphas (ⲁ) at the beginning of a pericope are ornamented as birds, some surmounted by a cross (more than 70 occurrences). Begins with Palm Sunday Eve and ends with the Synaxis on Easter Sunday, includes the whole text of the Apocalypse. Colophon on folio 459v dated 2 of Tout 1492 A.M., 1189 A.H., corresponding to 1775 A.D. Scribe Dāwūd Mīnā Aljīzāwī (داوود مينا الجيزاوي), surnamed al-Muwaqaʿ (الموقع), deacon of the Coptic Catholic Church.

Fig. 1: Three crescents, watermark in Isl. Ms. 589 (Yemen 1660)[6]

Vat.copt.34, 16th–17th century[7]

Bohairic manuscript with Bohairic–Arabic rubrics, 299 folios, page dimensions 295x205 mm, 21 lines per page. Begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter Sunday. This manuscript was written by two different hands. The first hand wrote the first 90 pages (up unto folio 45v, line 7) and the second hand undertook the writing from folio 45v, line 8 up unto the end of the manuscript. Anonymous invocations to pray for the soul of the ‘unworthy scribe’ are written in Arabic at the bottom of the page on folios 21v, 62r, 66v, 158v and 219r.[8]

Vat.copt.90, 18th century[9]

Bohairic manuscript with Bohairic–Arabic rubrics, 298 folios, page dimensions 330x225 mm, 22–25 lines per page. Begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter Sunday. Arabic colophon on f. 297 written by the scribe Maqarios ibn ishm Allah, monk at the Baramous Monastery in the Nitrian Desert and dated 1440 A.M., 1724 A.D.

Vat.ar.15, 14th century

We wrongly assumed that this non-digitized Arabic codex was a Holy Week lectionary. It turned out to be a Gospel lectionary with an index of all the lections from the New Testament to be read during the prayers and the masses all days of the year.[10] The 138 folios are made of unwatermarked Egyptian paper. This Gospel lectionary features a colophon on folio 135, dated 1054 A.M., 1338 A.D.

Bibliography

- Atanassova, Diliana (2018). Neue Erkenntnisse bei der Erforschung der sahidischen Quellen für die Paschawoche, in: Heike Behlmer, Ute Pietruschka and Frank Feder (eds), Ägypten und der Christliche Orient. Peter Nagel zum 80. Geburtstag (Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel 1). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1–37.
- Briquet, Charles-Moise (1907). Les filigranes. Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600 avec 39 figures dans le texte et 16 112 fac-similés de filigranes, volume 2 (Ci-K), Paris : Alphonse Picard et Fils.
- Burmester, Oswald Hugh Edward (1933). Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte. Texte copte édité avec traduction française d’après le manuscrit Add. 5997 du British Museum, vol. I (Patrologia Orientalis, 24,2, Nr. 117). Paris: Firmin-Didot (Reprint Turnhout: Brepols 1985).
- Hebbelynck, Adolph/van Lantschoot Arnold (1937). Codices Coptici Vaticani Barberiniani Borgiani Rossiani, I: Codices Coptici Vaticani, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae codices manu scripti recensiti. Rome: In Bibliotheca Vaticana.
- Humbert, Geneviève (2002), Le manuscrit arabe et ses papiers, in Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 99–100/2002, 55–77, 67. https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/1174.
- Kropf, Evyn. Watermark Wednesdays blog series. Beyond the Reading Room (2014–2016). 
https://blogs.lib.umich.edu/beyond-reading-room/watermark-wednesdays-three-crescents.
- Le Léannec-Bavavéas, Marie-Thérèse (1998). Les papiers non filigranés. État présent des recherches et perspectives d'avenir. Paris: CNRS Éditions.
- Karabacek, Joseph von, (1991). Joseph von Karabacek, Arab Paper 1887, translated by Don Baker and Suzy Dittmar with additional notes by Don Baker. London: Archetype Publications.
- Mai, Angelo (1831). Catalogus codicum bibliothecae Vaticanae Arabicorum, Persicorum, Turcicorum, Chaldaicorum, Aethiopicorum, Slavicorum, Indicorum, Copticorum, Armenicorum et Ibericorum, item ejus partis Hebraicorum et Syriacorum, quam Assernanni in editione praeternisserunt Catalogus Codicum Bibliothecae Vaticanae. Rome: Typis 
Vaticanis.
- Zanetti, Ugo (1986). Filigranes vénitiens en Égypte, in Studi Albanologici, Balcanici, Bizantini e Orientali, in onore di Giuseppe Valentini S.J., (= Studi albanologici. Studi e Testi, 6). Florence: Olschki, 437–499.

 

This blog post also serves as an opportunity for me to introduce myself!  My name is Leila Hyde and I am from a little town on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.  I earned my bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University - Hawaii in History and then pursued a master’s degree at Indiana University in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures with a focus in Egyptology.  I arrived in Göttingen in May to begin working as a Trainee with the project.

July 7th, 2023 allowed for the celebration of the life and work of Dr. Jürgen Horn.  As a newcomer to the Academy and the city of Göttingen, I was pleased to become acquainted with some of the individuals in attendance.  The presentations vividly reminded those in attendance of Jürgen Horn’s widespread scholarly interests, the numerous contributions he made to academia as well as the good friend he was to those he worked with. After a welcoming address by Heike Behlmer introducing Jürgen Horn as teacher, colleague, and friend, some special aspects of Horn’s research were highlighted. Frank Feder recalled their common work during the former Halle University project “Koptische Septuaginta” (1994-1999) and the important contribution which Jürgen Horn made to the reconstruction and edition of the Coptic Old Testament.

 

Sebastian Richter focused on Horn’s interest in the history of scholarship on Ancient Egypt and singled out the outstanding but unpublished introduction to a planned volume on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (1767-1835) essay “Ueber die coptische Sprache”. The Prussian diplomat and statesman, brother of the famous scientist and explorer Alexander, had a vivid interest in the Egyptian language. Matthias Müller reminded the audience of Jürgen Horn’s research on documentary sources and suggested the location of a newly discovered monastery in Western Thebes. Finally, the “Märtyrerhelden” presented by Gerald Moers not only connected the cult of the Christian martyrs in Late Antique Egypt with today’s, but also shed light on this central topic in Jürgen Horn’s research, the martyr accounts, on which he wrote his dissertation. 

 

 

Just before Anne Boud’hors gave her impressive evening lecture “Die Macht Gottes und die Milde des Propheten”, on the policy of quoting the books of the prophets in Coptic Literature, Diliana Atanassova and Frank Feder surprised Heike Behlmer with her birthday present, a copy of her Festschrift entitled: Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte, comprising more than 1000 pages with articles by 58 contributors. 

 

Following the talks and presentation of the Festschrift, a delicious dinner was served which was prepared by many of the members of the Project.  This allowed many people to continue to talk with old friends and to make new acquaintances facilitating a good environment for networking and sharing ideas.

The investigation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary in Egypt is the primary objective of the DFG project AT 193/2–1 “Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary” currently pursued at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities of Lower Saxony. The on-site consultation of the manuscripts constituting the backbone of the project’s research is one of its milestones. During a 14-day visit of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, we were able to shed light on aspects up till then invisible on the digital reproductions of manuscript pages and to proceed to an autopsy of some non-digitized manuscripts. The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana is home to two of our main Sahidic–Arabic Holy Week lectionaries (included in the digital collection of the Vatican library) and to three of the Bohairic–Arabic Holy Week lectionaries (not yet digitized by the Vatican library) used by Burmester in his “Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte”.[1] Besides the activities mentioned above, the visit also allowed us to exclude the codex Vat.ar.15, a non-digitized Arabic codex wrongly assumed to be a Holy Week lectionary. My colleague Diliana Atanassova was also there for an on-site autopsy of all Sahidic liturgical typika kept in BAV within the framework of her DFG project AT 193/1–1 “The Hymns in the Coptic Liturgy of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt”.

The autopsy results concerning the manuscript sa 16L are presented in what follows. Part II (forthcoming) will be dedicated to some other manuscripts.

sa 16L, end of the 14th century [2] 
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Borg. Copt. 109, cass. XXIII, fasc. 99

Bilingual Sahidic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary written on unwatermarked Egyptian brownish ‘two-layered’ paper,[3] with apparent laid lines and non-distinguishable chain marks, 189 surviving folios, page dimensions 36.5x26.5 cm, text coverage 25.5x19 cm, lines per page: 26–28 for the Sahidic text and 15–22 for the Arabic text, line width 11–13 cm for the Sahidic text and ca. 6 cm for the Arabic text, intercolumn almost non-existent. 10 lines of Coptic text: 9–9.5 cm, corresponding to 7 lines of Arabic text. Initial structure: 27 quaternions. Extant: 25 quaternions, three of which with missing folios. Last quire: Three folios and a stub before a last folio added at the end. In its current state, the lectionary begins with the ninth Hour of the Day on Holy Monday and ends with Holy Saturday. Six marginal notes, four in Arabic, one in Bohairic and one bilingual in Bohairic and Arabic. Four give us details about the owner family of the manuscript before it came to Rome, as for example the marginal note dated 1160 A.M. corresponding to 1443 A.D. that provides us with a terminus post quem non for the writing of the codex.[4] 

One of the aims of the autopsy was to identify the text on f. 187r of the codex. Water leak between f. 186v and 187r had resulted in a transfer of ink from one page to the other leading to the fading of the red ink on f. 187r or to its coverage by the black ink transferred from the previous page (fig. 1).

Detail, sa 16L, f. 187r
https://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/community/modules/papyri/?site=INTF&image=620016/89052/2870/20/96

Using a magnifying glass with light as well as UV light helped identify parts of the damaged text and allowed for a tentative reconstruction.

A collaboration between the Digital Edition and Translation of the Coptic-Sahidic Old Testament Project and the British Library

By Chrysi Kotsifou

In May 2019, I visited the British Library to work on some Coptic Old Testament manuscripts from their collection. It was also then that I met for the first time with Dr Ilana Tahan, Lead Curator of the Hebrew and Christian Orient Collections. I was very glad to find out from her that the British Library would be starting a project of digitizing selected manuscripts from their Christian Orient Collections. Ilana Tahan had already created the Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project and now with the Eastern Christian Manuscripts Digitization Project, her department would be digitizing for the first time selected Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac manuscripts. This project has been part of the Heritage Made Digital (HMD) programme initiated and funded by the British Library. For Ilana Tahan it was imperative that the selection of the manuscripts to be digitized reflected the diverse fields of knowledge represented in each collection. Besides religious texts, the selection included secular topics such as linguistics, sciences, philosophy, and various others.

She asked me if our project would be willing to assist her in the selection of the Coptic manuscripts to be digitized. It was a great opportunity and honour to be part of this very important endeavor, especially if we consider that so far, the British Library has online only four items, namely Papyrus 98, Papyrus 1442, Or.6801, and Or.7029, and these newly-digitized manuscripts will be made available to everyone online for free. Ilana Tahan had already a list of selected Coptic manuscripts and immediately in May 2019, we offered her our recommendations and additions to that list. In the years to follow, I maintained a continuous collaboration with Dr Tahan and was able to follow how this project evolved and is now close to its completion. The years of the pandemic certainly delayed matters but the digitization project managed to carry on. With the first list of Coptic manuscripts having been established, the British Library then needed to proceed to the conservation of these items. Some of these manuscripts are papyrus and some parchment and many items are mounted in glass frames, especially the papyrus ones. All issues of conservation of the selected items needed to be addressed, before any digitization took place. In April 2021, I also contacted Prof. Siegfried G. Richter (then at the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung at Münster University) who also recommended to us more Coptic manuscripts to be digitized.

During my second visit at the British Library in May 2022, Dr Tahan was very happy to inform me that most of the Coptic manuscripts had already been restored and digitized. Unavoidably before any of these manuscripts could be made available to the public, they needed to be newly-catalogued and have all their metadata updated. Our project offered then to Dr Tahan that we undertake the task of creating this new catalogue. The digitization of the Coptic manuscripts was concluded by the winter of 2022; our project and the British Library signed a Memorandum of Understanding in February 2023; and in the months to follow we received in numerous batches the digital images. Here is the list of the Coptic manuscripts that have been digitized:

• Add MS 5114 (Pistis Sophia)
• Add MS 5996 (Lectionary)
• Add MS 5997 (Lectionary)
• Add MS 17725 (The Euchologion)
• Add MS 18997 (Bohairic Proverbs, Job)
• Add MS 19902 (Sahidic NT Fragment)
• Or 424 (Bohairic Pauline Epistles)
• Or 425 (Four Gospels Coptic & Arabic)
• Or 429 (The Euchologion)
• Or 433 (Baptismal service)
• Or 438 (Consecration of the Holy Oil)
• Or 1241 (Liturgical and Biblical Fragments)
• Or 1314(1) (Bohairic Minor Prophets, Daniel)
• Or 1314(2) (Bohairic Minor Prophets, Daniel)
• Or 1315 (Four Gospels)
• Or 1318 (Pauline Epistles)
• Or 1319 (OT Isaiah, Corpus Ieremiae)
• Or 1320 (Canons of Apostles)
• Or 1322 (Services for the consecration of Monks & Nuns)
• Or 1325 (Arabic-Coptic grammars and vocabularies)
• Or 3381 (Four Gospels)
• Or 3579A (Sahidic OT)
• Or 3579B (Sahidic NT)
• Or 3581 A (Homilies)
• Or 4844 (Psalms)
• Or 5000 (Budge Psalter)
• Or 5001 (Budge Homilies)
• Or 5287 (Misc. Coptic Fragments)
• Or 5984 (Wisdom Books)
• Or 5987 A–C (Magical Charm)
• Or 6010 (Prochorus, Acts of John)
• Or 6019 (A charm)
• Or 6695 (Pauline Epistles and John)
• Or 6781 (Ps.-Theodosius of Alexandria)
• Or 6783 (Miscellany)
• Or 7021 (Encomium of Theodosius)
• Or 7029 (Life of Aaron)
• Or 7594 (Biblical Misc. Papyrus)
• Or 8799 (Miscellany)
• Or 8800 (White Monastery fragments of Shenoute)
• Or 8802 (White Monastery palimpsest fragments)
• Or 8808 (Psalms)
• Or 8810 (White Monastery fragments)
• Or 13825 (Book of Sirach)
• Or 14149 (Gospel Fragments)
• ORB.99/260 (Book bindings)
• Papyrus IV (Deed)
• Papyrus 91 (Letter)
• Papyrus XLVIII (Job)

A priority list of Coptic manuscripts to be catalogued has been established in our contract with the British Library. These are the 46 underlined shelfmarks in the list above. Alin Suciu and I will carry out this first phase of the cataloguing. In the meantime, Alin Suciu has been in contact with Michael Erdman in the British Library and together they have updated the British Library Metadata Template to reflect better the cataloguing needs of Coptic manuscripts, especially the ones that are dispersed piece by piece in numerous countries and collections. This new catalogue will certainly be a welcome addition to Walter E. Crum’s Catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1905, and Bentley Layton’s Catalogue of Coptic literary manuscripts in the British Library acquired since the year 1906, London, 1987. Besides cataloguing, in due course our project will also edit all the newly-digitized Old Testament manuscripts on our Virtual Manuscript Room (VMR).

Last but not least, I would like to mention that the British Library also digitized the book bindings of the Coptic manuscripts in their collection. We received those photographs, as well, and I intend to catalogue them after the priority phase of the cataloguing is completed.

This collaboration is ongoing for five years now and there are still goals to be achieved. Our project believes that the British Library and Ilana Tahan undertook a very worthy cause and we are pleased to be part of it and to assist in any way possible towards its completion. Coptic studies are bound to be enriched in numerous ways when all the above-mentioned manuscripts will be made available to the public. But also, the contemporary Coptic communities in Egypt and abroad, whether lay or monastic, will be thrilled to see their heritage so carefully and scientifically treated and easily accessible to them.

On 4/11/2022, I reported on the new project dedicated to the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary (HWL), co-led by Diliana Atanassova and Frank Feder. Now, almost one year after its launch, it is time to provide a first progress report with the highlights of the period from April 1 to December 31, 2022.

1. New dedicated Holy Week Lectionary space in the VMR

The VMR now hosts three new dedicated sections for the Holy Week Lectionaries: Holy Week Lectionary Sahidic, Holy Week Lectionary Bohairic, and Holy Week Lectionary Arabic. We have updated the existing stock of digital copies of Holy Week lectionaries in the VMR with further manuscripts listed separately under the respective dedicated sections and henceforth available for transcription.

1.1 Uploading and display

The list in the new Holy Week Lectionary Sahidic section displays the five lectionaries that were already hosted in the Göttingen CoptOT manuscript workspace. These are sa 16L (1), sa 292L (2), sa 298L (3), sa 299L (4), and sa 349L (5) and correspond to more than 270 leaves.

The list in the new Holy Week Lectionary Bohairic section now includes six Holy Week lectionaries and four Ṭuruḥat for the Holy Week codexes, all newly prepared and uploaded. These are bo 3000L (6), bo 3003L (7), bo 3004L (8), bo 3004L (9), bo 3005L (10), bo 3006L (11), and bo 3007L (12), totalling more than 2000 leaves. The Ṭuruḥat are bo 3009L (13), 3010L (14), 3011L (15), and 3013L (16) and total 272 leaves.

The list in the new Holy Week Lectionary Arabic section includes all bilingual Sahidic–Arabic and Bohairic–Arabic Holy Week lectionaries already included in the other two dedicated sections as well as the monolingual Holy Week lectionary ar 1L (17) (185 leaves).

1.2 Indexing and tagging

Indexing in our context means identifying the contents of each page of a manuscript, i.e. biblical passages, liturgical instructions, liturgical rubrics, homilies, hymns, etc. Indexing is an essential work in preparation of the transcription of the texts in the codices. This step was further expanded by the development of a new feature tagging system specific to the Holy Week Lectionary, where the period, the day of the Holy Week and the time of the service are encoded. This can be seen in the following illustration

A brand-new volume in our Series Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible just appered with the Publisher Harrassowitz: Peter Nagel's editio minor of the Sahidic Psalms. It is based on the important London Papyrus manuscript British Library Or. 5000 (sa 2031, ca. 500 CE), the only completely preserved manuscript of the Sahidic Psalter, and the variant readings of two miniature manuscripts (Chester Beatty Library n. 815 with Ps 1-50, sa 6; and Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Library Collection n. 167 with Ps 51-151, sa 2010; both ca. 600 CE). Since the digital editio maior of the many but fragmentary Sahidic Psalm manuscripts will need more time, the importance of Nagel's edition is multifold: first it replaces the notorious edition by Budge from 1898 ("Budge Psalter") providing a reliable edition of the London Psalter with the variant readings of two other manuscripts; second, it provides the indispensable reference text for the fragmentary Sahidic manuscript transmission; and third, the complete translation and the comprehensive indices make it, at the same time, an indispensable reference work for scholars specialised in the Septuagint Psalter tradition and its versions.     

 

From 28 January to 2 February, Frank Feder, Chrysi Kotsifou and I attended the 10th Symposium of the Saint Mark Foundation for Coptic Heritage. This meeting's topic was "The Coptic Bible". Scholars from Egypt, the United States, and eight European countries gathered to address issues such as the transmission of the Coptic Bible in various dialects, its usage in education and in liturgy, and its role in inspiring Coptic monks and artists. Some of the speakers offered philological/linguistic papers relying upon biblical books in Coptic.

As far as the Göttingen Academy is concerned, the conference featured representatives of both the Coptic Old Testament project (our "big project") and the Pauline epistles project. Frank Feder gave an overview of the CoptOT project, in which he also detailed the historical attempts to edit and translate books of the Sahidic Old Testament. Chrysi Kotsifou's topic was: "Editing the Sahidic Book of Psalms".

Katharina Sandmeier's talk was focused on the history of research on the Coptic New Testament at the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF). My own presentation outlined Göttingen and Münster's work on the Pauline epistles in Coptic. It is my impression that our two speeches usefully complemented each other.

Unlike the regular conferences of, say, the IACS or the AFC, the Saint Mark Foundation's events are aimed at both Coptologists and members of the Coptic community in general. The presentations were abundantly recorded and photographed. Katharina Sandmeier and I volunteered to be interviewed by the COC Channel.

Our stay allowed us to catch up with old friends and meet new colleagues as well. On a personal note, I was especially delighted to meet Professor Lilian Larsen, a specialist of monastic education in Late Antiquity. I heartfully thank the Saint Mark Foundation and especially Hany Takla and Akhnoukh Fanous for their invitation and their wonderful hospitality.

1936 veröffentlichte Walter C. Till in Le Muséon 49 einen Beitrag über „Wiener Faijumica“ (S. 170-217). Zu diesen Wiener Faijumica rechnete er auch das Pergamentfragment K 57 (S. 213f). Till hatte auf der Haarseite zweimal ⲛⲟⲩϯ gelesen und dies als faijumische oder bohairische Schreibweise des Wortes für „Gott“ interpretiert, war sich aber selbst nicht sicher, da sonst keinerlei Dialekteinfluss festzustellen war. Identifiziert hatte Till den Text nicht. Dies gelang erst kürzlich Christian Askeland (E-Mail vom 6. Februar 2023), der den Text der Fleischseite als Sir 20,1ff erkannte. Bei näherer Betrachtung entpuppte sich der Text beider Seiten als sahidischer Standardtext von Sir 20. Das von Till auf der Haarseite gelesene zweimalige ⲛⲟⲩϯ ist jeweils Bestandteil der Phrase ⲟⲩⲛ-ⲟⲩ-ϯ „es gibt eine Gabe“, griechisch ἔστιν δόσις, in Sirach 20,10. Die Fleischseite ist also das recto dieses Pergamentfragments, die Haarseite das verso. Die Onlinepräsentation der Fotos auf der Seite der ÖNB weist noch, entsprechend der Edition von Till, die umgekehrte Reihenfolge auf. Dieser neue Wiener Zeuge des koptischen Jesus Sirach war sehr wahrscheinlich gemeinsam mit dem bereits bekannten Wiener Zeugen für Jesus Sirach K 8689 (Sir 45,9-10/Sir 45,13-15) ursprünglich Bestandteil ein und desselben Codex. Den beiden Zeugen wurde daher im Rahmen des Göttinger Akademievorhabens Digitale Gesamtedition des Koptisch-sahidischen Alten Testaments die Handschrift sa 2182 zugewiesen. Das auf den Fotos der ÖNB oberhalb des größeren Fragments platzierte kleinere Fragment (von Till nicht mitediert) gehört an den unteren Rand und fügt sich dort passgenau ein. Die Schrift ist auf der Fleischseite stark verblasst, was die Transkription anhand des Fotos erschwert.

K 57: Vorläufige Transkription