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.’

Our AHRC/DFG project partner Hugh Houghton from the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing (ITSEE) of the University of Birmingham convened scholars from all over the world for an international conference on The Pauline Epistles and the Ancient Versions. The conference was not only the final meeting of the (AHRC/DFG funded) GALaCSy project team, but also the 14th Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. From our team Julien Delhez (now Louvain) and Frank Feder, as members of the GALaCSy Göttingen team, took part with papers on the Coptic transmission of the Pauline Epistles. In the three years of the GALaCSy project, Göttingen and Münster were responsible for the edition of all extant Coptic manuscripts of Galatians and Ephesians, with a special focus on the earliest witnesses. Although we were able to fulfil this task within the (only) three years of funding, mainly thanks to the well-preserved Sahidic manuscripts, such as sa 4, it has quickly become quite obvious that we have only discovered the tip of the iceberg. The Coptic versions of the Pauline Epistles are extant in many, but mostly fragmentary manuscripts that already existed in all known literary dialects of Coptic: Bohairic, Fayyumic, Mesokemic, Akhmimic, Lycopolitan, and Sahidic as early as the 4th century. Along with the psalms and the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles are the best-preserved books of the Coptic Bible. Much remains to be discovered that could shed new light on the textual history of the Greek New Testament.

The GALaCSy Team

Between April 14 and 16, 2025, my colleague Frank Feder and I undertook a research trip to the Cambridge University Library (CUL) as part of our ongoing work for the Coptic Old Testament Project in Göttingen. Our aim was to study and photograph Coptic manuscripts held in the collections of the library. In this post, I will report on these collections and highlight some of their most important pieces.

The Coptic and Copto-Arabic fragments at CUL originate from several sources. A substantial portion was acquired from the famous German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf (1815–1874), who brought them from Egypt during his travels. These fragments, inventoried as Add. 1875–1876 and 1885–1887, include some of the most valuable Coptic holdings of the library. Among them are parchment and paper fragments in the Bohairic dialect, which Tischendorf had brought from Wadi Natrun. These were later published by Hugh Evelyn-White (1884–1924) in the first volume of his The Monasteries of Wadi ’N Natrûn (1926). Particularly notable is Add. 1886.17, which contains Abba Isaiah’s Precepts to the Novices. Although the language of this manuscript is Arabic, it is written in Coptic characters.

Another major source of the CUL’s Coptic collection is the group of fragments that belonged to Sir Herbert Thompson (1859–1944), professor of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge. These are inventoried as Or. 1699. During our research, we also examined Thompson’s correspondence and notes, which revealed that he purchased these fragments in 1914 from Henry Hyvernat (1858–1941), professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

The Thompson fragments are particularly significant because they originate exclusively from White Monastery codices. Since fragments of these codices are now scattered across more than forty collections worldwide, the Thompson material is invaluable for reconstructing the original White Monastery manuscripts.

An unexpected find came from a box inventoried as Or. 1700 (Box 1), which contains numerous smaller fragments, apparently acquired by Thompson together with those now kept as Or. 1699. Surprisingly, these fragments had remained largely overlooked until now. Among them, we identified previously unattested biblical and liturgical pieces, as well as fragments of the works of Shenoute, hagiographic texts such as the Martyrdom of Cyprianus and Justina, and apocryphal writings like the Acts of Andrew and the Acts of John attributed to Pseudo-Prochorus.

Another important part of the CUL’s Coptic holdings comes from the collection of George Michaelides, which was acquired by the library in 1977. Although much of the Michaelides collection is formed of documentary papyri, it also includes a significant number of biblical and literary fragments. Among the highlights we identified is a parchment fragment containing Sirach 50:19–20, 24–27 in the Fayyumic dialect (Cambridge, UL, Mich.Pap.Q.118). This is the first known attestation of the book of Sirach in Fayyumic. Furthermore, the paleographical features of the fragment suggest an early date, likely the 5th century CE.

We also identified two Sahidic fragments (Cambridge, UL, Mich.Pap.Q.119–120) forming a leaf from a miniature codex, which preserve a portion of the Life of Paul of Tamma attributed to his disciple Ezekiel. This hagiographic work survives fully in Arabic, but only fragmentarily in Coptic. The section preserved in the Michaelides fragments had previously been unattested in Coptic, making this a particularly exciting find.

In addition to the manuscripts associated with Tischendorf, Thompson, and Michaelides, the CUL also holds two smaller collections of Coptic fragments that formerly belonged to Jack Plumley (1910–1999), professor of Egyptology at Cambridge, and Frederick William Green (1869–1949), Honorary Keeper of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum. These collections consist of biblical and literary texts in Sahidic and Greek, mostly written on papyrus.

We also had the opportunity to examine the famous Qau Codex (Bible Society MS 137), a fourth-century papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John in the Lycopolitan dialect—one of the most significant early witnesses to the translation of the Bible in Coptic.

Finally, the Genizah Collection at Cambridge, brought by Solomon Schechter from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, contains a few Coptic fragments as well. Among these, there is an intriguing Bohairic Litany of the Cross (T.-S. K24.39), based on the sermon In Venerabilem Crucem attributed to John Chrysostom, which was widely circulated in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages among both Eastern and Western Christians.

All in all, the trip proved to be fruitful. Nevertheless, much work remains to be done to fully identify the fragments and place them within their original codices. We look forward to sharing further updates as we continue to work through the materials we photographed during this trip.

In June of last year, our colleague, Alin Suciu brought a source of new Coptic papyrus fragments to the attention of our team.  These fragments, under the shelfmark Biblioteca Manoscritti 305 are housed in the Archivio di Stato di Lucca in Italy.

Of particular interest to me was a fairly large fragment from the book of Daniel, and it was with that main intent that I arranged a visit to the archive.

I visited the archive at the end of January and was able to consult the Daniel fragment.  An autopsy of the fragment enabled me to confirm Alin Suciu's identification of the fragment as coming from Daniel chapter 1.  This fragment forms an almost complete page from a codex.  This was a single column papyrus codex which would have measured not much more than 18 x 14.1 cm.  The margin is visible on one side of the page.  Specifically, the recto contains Dan 1:5b-8a and the verso 1:8b-10.

This attestation is of great help, as the only other witnesses of these verses in Sahidic are in sa 2050 and an ostracon (Var 18), which I am currently working on.  This is especially helpful with verse 7, which is entirely in a lacuna in sa 2050 except for the first word ⲁϥϯ.  Sa 2050 is housed in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris and is only the bottom portion of a page.  At some point, it is likely there was more to the fragment, as Maspero has a great deal more text recorded for Daniel 1:7 in his Fragments de Manuscrits Coptes-Thébains[1]. With the addition of the text from Lucca, one can almost completely reconstruct this verse.  In addition, a second attestation to these verses serves to establish a complete reading for these verses - something that is exceedingly difficult with the biblical Daniel corpus in Sahidic, which is so fragmentary that many sections are not attested at all, or are attested only by a singular manuscript.

There were many other fragments that I was able to examine. I was able to confirm that despite being under one accession number, these fragments were written by multiple hands and come from multiple different manuscripts.  Some fragments are unimodular, while others are bimodular.   In addition, the size of the letters varied significantly between some fragments, and some were written with a finer pen than others.  The most likely explanation for the variation among these fragments is that they come from multiple manuscripts.

There were many other fragments that I wished to more closely analyze, but was unable to due to time constraints.  Time was short, but I hope in the future another trip can be made to complete the initial work on these fragments.

I look forward to continuing to work with this archive in the future and hope that a closer analysis of the many fragments will yield more Old Testament attestations.

[1] Maspero, G., “Fragments de manuscrits coptes-thébains provenant de la bibliothèque du Deir Amba- Shenoudah,” Mémoires publiés par les membres de la Mission Archéologique Française au Caire 6 (1892) 268.