Sahidic OT Project at Göttingen!!!

Sahidic Job, Naples,
National Library, Ms.I.B.18

Scholars have long had access to editions of the Coptic New Testament texts.  In addition to more recent editions of various NT texts, one could always check the extensive editions of George Horner for the Bohairic and Sahidic NT.  The Old Testament, however, has been a more desperate situation, especially in the case of the Sahidic.  The Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities has confirmed the funding a complete digital edition and translation of the Sahidic Coptic Old Testament (Digitale Gesamtedition und Übersetzung des koptisch-sahidischen Alten Testaments), here.  The project will run from 2015–2036 with an annual budget of €500,000.  Heike Behlmer (Göttingen) and Frank Feder (Berlin) will oversee the project.  Although this project will doubtlessly be a great support to the Septuaginta-Unternehmen, it will be housed in the Egyptology department at Göttingen, an international center for Coptic scholarship.  Sometime in 2015, we can anticipate hearing positive news about funding for a major Greek LXX Psalms project from Göttingen.

Online Facsmiles of Sahidic Coptic MSS

Today there are over 180 extant Coptic MSS of the Gospel of John in the Sahidic Coptic dialect, as reported by Karlheinz Schüssler in his overview, “Some Pecularities of the Coptic (Sahidic) Translations of the Gospel of John,” Journal of Coptic Studies 10 (2008): 41-62.

Most of these MSS are fragmentary, but there are five complete MSS of John (i.e., sa 505, 506, 508, 561, 600), thirty-eight lectionaries, and three other liturgical MSS. Schüssler has published facsmile editions and transcriptions of sa 505 and sa 506 online on his website Biblica Coptica.

Both MSS are from the Monastery of Apa Jeremias (Saqqara) dated to around 600 C.E. These editions contain images facing transcriptions presented in a convenient e-book format.

Karlheinz Schüssler is editor of Journal of Coptic Studies, and Biblia Coptica, a series which lists all the Coptic biblical mss. He is currently working on a text of John in Sahidic for the International Greek New Testament Project.

More on Schüssler's personal webpage.

For Coptic resources on-line, see here (Coptica) and here (compiled by co-blogger Askeland).