When undertaking textual criticism of the Coptic translation of the Septuagint, one encounters all kinds of errors that are inherent to the manuscripts, yet these have a bearing on the textual history. I recently encountered such an error while preparing the critical edition of the Sahidic translation of Deuteronomy, specifically at the beginning of Deuteronomy 33:16.

As the editor of Deuteronomy, I had to make a decision regarding this part of the verse, and decided to emend it, as it did not make sense and was not consistent with any Greek Vorlage. The CoptOT project team at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony has decided to adopt the siglum “Sa” from the Göttingen edition of the Septuagint for cases where we do not have a direct Greek text witness, but have to correct an obvious mistake that occurs in all manuscripts.

Deuteronomy 33:16a is part of the blessing that Moses gave to Joseph, which is found in verses 13–16. For better clarity regarding the context of the passage in question, I am quoting these verses according to the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), edited by A. Pietersma & B.G. Wright, New York 2007:

Deut 33:13           “And to Ioseph he said:

                            His land is from the Lord’s blessing,

                            from the seasons of the sky and of dew

                            and from unfathomable springs below

Deut 33:14          and in a season of produce of the sun’s changes

                           and from conjunctions of months

Deut 33:15          and from the top of mountains of yore

                           and from the top of the everlasting hills

 Deut 33:16         and in a season of earth’s fullness.”

In what follows, I am comparing the Greek text of the Göttingen Septuagint with the Coptic manuscripts from the fourth, ninth/tenth or eleventh centuries for Deuteronomy 33:16a, offering my reconstruction of the original Sahidic text, as well as, for comparison, the Bohairic version:

Deuteronomy 33:16a

Gö LXX:                       καὶ καθ’ ὥραν γῆς πληρώσεως

sa 17 (IV c.)                 ⲁ[ⲩ]ⲱ ⲛ̄ⲧⲡⲉ ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ ⲡϫⲱⲕ’ ⲙ̄ⲡⲕⲁϩ

sa 2006 (IX/X c.)          ⲁⲩⲱ ⲧⲡⲉ ⲙⲛ ⲡϫⲱⲕ ⲙⲡⲕⲁϩ

sa 2164 (XI c.)             ⲁⲩⲱ ⲛ̄ⲧⲡⲉ ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ ⲡϫⲱⲕ ⲙ̄ⲡⲕⲁϩ

Sa                               ⲁⲩⲱ ⲙ̄ⲡⲧⲉ ⲙ̄ⲡϫⲱⲕ ⲙ̄ⲡⲕⲁϩ

Bo                               ⲛⲉⲙ ⲕⲁⲧⲁ ⲡⲥⲏⲟⲩ ⲛⲧⲉ ⲡϫⲱⲕ ⲛⲧⲉ ⲡⲓⲕⲁϩⲓ

Why would three Sahidic manuscripts from such different periods translate the phrase by (ⲛ̄)ⲧⲡⲉ ⲙ︤ⲛ︥ ⲡϫⲱⲕ ⲙ̄ⲡⲕⲁϩ “(in) the heaven and the fullness of the earth”? The key phrase is καθ’ ὥραν “in a/its season”, which occurs eight times in the Septuagint. For our purposes, only the occurrences in Deuteronomy 11:14 and Hosea 2:11 will be of relevance. In both cases, the Greek phrase καθ’ ὥραν is translated as ⲙ̄ⲡⲉϥⲧⲉ, with ὥρα being rendered by the Coptic noun ⲧⲉ, while in the other instances the Sahidic translation uses a different word.

According to Crum’s Coptic Dictionary, the masculine noun ⲧⲏ, meaning “time, season” (Crum 391b), “oftenest” occurs as its variant ⲧⲉ and can be used in adverbial phrases such as ⲙⲡⲉϥⲧⲉ, meaning “at his/its time, right time” or ⲉⲡⲧⲉ, meaning “at, in time”. If we were to translate καὶ καθ’ ὥραν γῆς πληρώσεως in Deuteronomy 33:16a into Sahidic using the noun ⲧⲉ, we should not expect the possessive article ⲡⲉϥ-, however, but rather the article ⲡ-, since the Greek uses a genitive construction involving two nouns, resulting in the Coptic expression ⲙ̄ⲡⲧⲉ ⲛ̄-/ⲙ̄- “in the season of ...”.

We can now reconstruct how the Coptic scribes may have arrived at their incorrect reading of Deuteronomy 33:16a. At an early stage in the history of the Coptic Deuteronomy text, the letters Tau (ⲧ) and Pi (ⲡ) were erroneously transposed. This is evident in our earliest surviving manuscript sa 17, which most likely dates to the fourth century. From a linguistic perspective, this could be termed a metathesis. Subsequent copyists did not suspect an error, as the noun ⲡⲉ with the correct feminine article ⲧ- exists in Coptic and means “heaven, sky” (Crum 259a). This word occurs abundantly in the Old Testament and is frequently used in conjunction with the word ⲕⲁϩ, meaning “earth” (Crum 131a). Once ⲡⲧⲉ became ⲧⲡⲉ, a further change suggested itself, namely to replace My (ⲙ) with Ny (ⲛ), as ⲛ̄- is the correct form of the preposition ⲛ̄-/ⲙ̄- before a word starting with the letter Tau (ⲧ).

Subsequently, in order to make sense of the phrase, the scribes changed another letter: The preposition ⲛ̄-, which can have several meanings, and assimilates to ⲙ̄- when placed in front of the letter ⲡ, was replaced by the preposition ⲙ︤ⲛ︥-, meaning “and, with” (Crum 169b–170a). It is evident that the scribes found it more comprehensible to unite “heaven” and “earth” by using “and”.

We have therefore an example of what the Germans would term a “Verschlimmbesserung”, meaning “disimprovement”, whereby a subsequent correction of an original mistake only makes things worse.

It is my great pleasure to announce the guest blog on the British Library website by our colleague, Lina Elhage-Mensching, on the Bohairic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary Add MS 5997 dated 1273 CE. This showcase is one of the results of a collaboration between the British Library and the Coptic Old Testament Project at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. Lina analyses this lectionary in the framework of the DFG project Digital Edition of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary (n° 491266891).

From 2 to 7 June, I visited the British Library in London to examine biblical and liturgical Coptic manuscripts held there. These manuscripts belong to three different projects ongoing at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. 

• CoptOT

As a member of the Göttingen CoptOT team, I was responsible for performing autopsy on pages containing texts from the books of the Pentateuch, including Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, as well as Old Testament lectionaries. Nowadays, autopsies are not performed on every page, given that the quality of coloured photographs has improved immensely since the start of my academic career in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, autopsy remains an important method when working with ancient manuscripts. Consequently, the statistics of the Göttingen Virtual Manuscript Room now include the number of pages autopsied by a team member.

At the British Library, I consulted Coptic manuscripts in the ‘Asian & African Studies Reading Room’ section on the third floor. There, throughout my research stay, I had the full support of Michael Erdman, the Head of the Middle Eastern and Central Asian Section. He gave me permission to take photos and to use the library’s UV light device. Furthermore, since the British Library does not yet have a special box that can be used as a ‘dark room’ for reading manuscripts under UV light, he also allowed me to build a temporary one using a few book cradles. This practical ‘invention’ served me very well.

In particular, it helped me read the parchment large leaf, bearing the shelfmark Or. 4717, folio 1 verso, which is the single leaf left from a once extensive manuscript listed in CoptOT as sa 2187 containing biblical Odes 2–4: Deut 32; 1Sam 2; Hab 3. The leaf measuring 290 mm x 235 mm has strong darkened areas and therefore using UV light renders the ink visible beneath the dirt and makes a significant difference. Whereas in cases where the ink has faded, but traces remain from the pressure of the calamus while writing, the result would be less satisfactory.  

• DFG project n° 491266891

As the supervisor of the DFG project ‘Digital Edition of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary’ I needed to photograph two Bohairic lectionaries with the curator’s permission. After studying my photographs, Lina Elhage-Mensching established that one of them, BL Or. 5453.1, folios 1–13, was not a Holy Week lectionary, but rather an Easter Week lectionary. The second lectionary, BL Or. 1242.6, folios 1–3, had not yet been studied in the framework of our project as the photos were lacking. This trilingual Bohairic–Greek–Arabic Holy Week lectionary has the siglum bo 3001L in our project. Its folios are dispersed over various library collections such as Oxford (BL, Copt.c.3, folios 1­­­–4), Hamburg (SUB, Lect. 1, folios 1–40) and Vienna (ÖNB, K 11346, folios 1–3).

• DFG project n° 287993677

Last but not least, as part of the third project, ‘The Hymns in the Coptic Liturgy of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt,’ I had to take care of typikon leaves from the codices MONB.WC, MONB.WK, and MONB.WP. I measured the new typikon leaves and compared my transcriptions with the manuscript. While this work was mostly routine, I was able to identify a few difficult words that were not found in the other typika from different library collections.

It is always a pleasure to visit the British Library and I look forward to my next research stay, as there is still much work to be done in the area of Coptic biblical and liturgical manuscripts.

A standard orthography simply refers to a uniform way of spelling, which in modern times is relatively easy to enforce–for example, through reforms by authoritative institutions. A notable example is the German orthography reform of 1996, initiated through an international agreement signed in Vienna by representatives of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Today, any deviation from such a standard is typically regarded as a typo. However, before the advent of printing, things were quite different: books were copied by hand, and spelling conventions often varied by region. Individual scribes were often inconsistent even in their own writing, resulting in diverse orthographic practices that lacked standardization.

Bible translations and language standardization

Bible translations played a pivotal role in the standardization of languages and their spelling. Luther’s Bible translation, for instance, had a profound influence on the standardization of the written German in the sixteenth century (Visser 2018: 350). Likewise, the Swedish Bible translation commissioned by Gustav Vasa, based on Luther’s version, marked a milestone in the development of a more uniform Swedish written language (Thelander 2005: 1900). Despite some irregularities, its orthography is quite consistent for its time, demonstrating a clear effort to maintain uniform spelling throughout the text (Pettersson 2005: 160).

The Sahidic Bible may not be an exception. In this brief article, I will demonstrate how Sahidic biblical manuscripts can help trace a similar process of orthographic standardization in Sahidic texts.

Method

The corpus comprises 52 texts (mostly biblical) preserved in 26 manuscripts, dating from the fourth century up to the tenth century. The goal is to computationally measure orthographic similarity–that is, the consistency of word spellings–across these texts.

The first step was to select variables (features) to capture orthographic behavior in the texts. These include: ϫⲉⲕⲁⲥ vs. ϫⲉⲕⲁⲁⲥ ‘so that’; assimilation of ⲛ before ⲃ, ⲗ, and ⲣ; the use of ⲏⲟⲩ vs. ⲏⲩ; and ⲡⲉⲉⲓ/ⲧⲉⲉⲓ/ⲛⲉⲉⲓ vs. ⲡⲉⲓ/ⲧⲉⲓ/ⲛⲉⲓ, among others (12 pairs of features in total).

Next, occurrences of each feature were counted in each text. Because texts vary in length, the values were normalized into ratios. For example, in Luke (sa 1), the cluster ⲏⲟⲩ appears 92 times, and ⲏⲩ 78 times. The normalized ratios are calculated as follows:

Ratio of ⲏⲟⲩ = total no. of ⲏⲟⲩ / (total no. of ⲏⲟⲩ + total no. of ⲏⲩ) = 92 / (92 + 78) = 0.541

Ratio of ⲏⲩ = total no. of ⲏⲩ / (total no. of ⲏⲟⲩ + total no. of ⲏⲩ) = 78 / (92 + 78) = 0.459

Ratios for all variables were calculated, and the resulting matrix was analyzed using Principal Components Analysis (PCA)–a statistical method that reduces dimensionality while preserving as much variability (i.e. statistical information) as possible (Redmont et al. 2023: 119). PCA is particularly helpful for identifying patterns in large datasets. The results were then visualized in a two-dimensional Euclidean space to assess the (in)consistency of orthography across texts.

Results and discussion

We generally expect orthographic consistency within a single manuscript, as texts of a manuscript were typically copied in the same location, sometimes by the same scribe. However, the texts of sa 31 (green ellipses) show considerable variation. Similarly, the sa 1 texts (red ellipse, lower right) are not closely aligned: the Luke text is clearly separated from both John and Mark (overwritten by “sa 32, Revelation”). PCA indicates that John and Mark are closer to each other than to Luke, supporting Quecke’s (1984: 18–19) paleographic observation that they were without doubt written by the same hand.

There are also discrepancies between witnesses of the same biblical book–for instance, the John texts in sa 1 and in sa 4 (grey arrows). The dispersed distribution of the texts suggests that these texts had not adopted standardized orthography. In fact, these divergent texts were copied in the fourth and fifth centuries.

In contrast, many other texts fall into two major clusters: (1) A small cluster comprising sa 4 texts, showing intra-manuscript consistency; and (2) a dense group of texts in the upper-right quadrant, nearly all of which were copied in the sixth century onwards.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that Sahidic orthography had become largely standardized no later than the sixth century. What motivated this standardization, whether institutional, ecclesiastical, or social forces, remains a question for further inquiry, requiring integration of both linguistic data and historical context. One possible explanation is provided by Funk (2013: 540; cf. also Feder 2023: 7–8) who suggests that large-scale production and distribution of Sahidic translations “was not begun until those translations had been subjected to careful revision and editing, presumably under the control of some church-based authority (whose identity and location is unknown to us).”

References

Feder, Frank. 2023. “Old Testament, Coptic Versions of the: Update,” in: Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia. https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/2188/

Funk, Wolf-Peter. 2013. “The Translation of the Bible into Coptic,” in: James Carleton Paget and Joachim Schaper (eds.), The New Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 536–546. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139033671.029

Pettersson, Gertrud. 2005. Svenska språket under sjuhundra år: en historia om svenskan och dess utforskande. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Quecke, Hans. 1984. Das Johannesevangelium Saïdisch: Text der Handschrift PPalau Rib. Inv.-Nr. 183 mit den Varianten der Handschriften 813 und 814 der Chester Beatty Library und der Handschrift M569. Papyrologica Castroctaviana 11. Rome and Barcelona.

Redmond, L., D. Foucambert, and L. Libersan. 2023. “Language Corpora and Principal Components Analysis,” in: D.G. Woolford, D. Kotsopoulos, B. Samuels (eds.), Applied Data Science. Studies in Big Data, vol. 125. Springer: Cham, 117–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29937-7_9

Thelander, Mats. 2005. “Sociolinguistic structures chronologically II: Swedish,” in: Oskar Bandle, Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Hakon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann, Ulf Teleman, Lennart Elmevik and Gun Widmark (eds.), The Nordic Languages, An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages, Volume 2. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 1896–1907. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197068-087

Visser, Arnoud. 2018. “The Luther Bible,” in: David M. Whitford (ed.), Martin Luther in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 350–57. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316596715.041

From March 25^th to 27^th, the University of Malta hosted the conference ‘The Book of Psalms and its Plurality: Textual Transmission, Exegetical Methodology, and Theological Hermeneutics.’ The conference was organized by Prof. Daniela Scialabba (Pontificio Istituto Biblico), Rev. Prof. Dr Marco Pavan (Pontificia Università S. Tommaso D'Aquino), and Rev. Prof. Dr Stefan M. Attard (L-Università ta’ Malta). Its aim was to stimulate discussion on the formation and interpretation of the Psalms in the light of manuscript evidence. Participants came from Italy, Germany, Malta, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States. They primarily explored Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac manuscripts. Some of the key questions that were addressed were: What is the impact of the study of the manuscript tradition on the methodological discussion about the reconstruction of the Redaktionsgeschichte of the Psalter? Does textual evidence still support the idea of the Psalter as a book? What is the relationship between the Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac manuscript traditions of the Psalter? 

I was the only participant who presented on the Coptic manuscripts of the Psalter. The title of my presentation was ‘The Psalms in the Coptic Tradition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages,’ and my analysis was three-fold: Firstly, I described the surviving Coptic manuscripts of the Psalms. Secondly, I emphasised the relationship of the Coptic Psalms with the Greek tradition and how the Greek Psalms in P. Bodmer XXIV have helped us highlight the numerous times that the Coptic classical text of the Psalms reflects a much earlier Greek tradition than the one solidified in the Septuagint. Finally, I presented our published, digital edition of Psalm 90. 

All in all, the conference was meticulously organized; all papers were insightful and thought-provoking; and the University of Malta was a most cordial host. During the Easter holidays, though, the saddest news was shared with us by Brent Strawn and Drew Longacre, the directors of the Critical Edition of the Hebrew Psalter Project. They announced that the federally-funded grant through the National Endowment for the Humanities to produce the Critical Edition of the Hebrew Psalter was summarily terminated without warning by the US federal government. They added that ‘we are forever grateful and we remain committed to bringing this work to completion as opportunity allows. We are convinced it is of great importance for biblical studies, Bible translation, and larger communities of faith, and we also wish to honor the work our volunteers and supporters have done. Indeed, one of the things that makes us most upset about this termination is that it is not just a cancellation of two researchers at a university somewhere. It is a cancellation of the work of some 200 volunteers drawn from across the world—indeed from every continent on the planet except Antarctica. Thankfully, none of that transcription work will be lost, but for the foreseeable future we will be considerably limited in our ability to manage new transcription work and construct the edition itself.’