The Sahidic Version of Gospel of John

The Coptic version is the most important ancient translation of the New Testament. The Sahidic version is within this language for most of the Books of the New Testament (and also for the Gospel of John) outstanding. This is due to the age of the translation as well as the number of manuscripts attesting this text in this dialect. The Sahidic version belongs (on principle) to the Alexandrinian form of the text of the New Testament. It gives, however, witness to many important variants. The translation into Coptic started already around the end of the second century. However, manuscripts from the time before the end of the persecutions, that is from before the beginning of the 4th century, are very rare. Thus, the Coptic version might give witness to variants of the Greek text used for translation which are not preserved in any of the existing Greek manuscripts. Despite the importance of the Coptic version for the history of the text of the New Testament only very few books of the New Testament have been published as critical editions. A critical edition of the Gospel of John is still needed as well for Coptology as for New Testament Studies. The aim of the proposed project is to prepare for a critical edition of the Sahidic version of the Gospel of John. For this all known manuscripts of this text in the Sahidic dialect must be used, that is to say, six fully preserved manuscripts and approximately 190 fragmentary manuscripts. For these transcriptions an electronic publication is planned using the internet and presenting the text from the manuscripts interlinear. Furthermore, the proto-Bohairic and the Achmimic translations have to be used in this process. The interlinear presentation of all attested variants makes it possible to analyse critically the Greek version(s) which was (were) used in the process of translating the text of the Gospel of John into Coptic. This will also be published electronically. Furthermore, the results of the analysis of the Sahidic version of the Gospel of John will be published separately. The results of the proposed project are not only important for Coptology. They will also provide the Editio Critica Maior of the Gospel of John with most important data. The Editio Critica Maior uses all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament as well as the ancient translations (Latin, Syriac and so forth) for the documentation of the textual variants. The Coptic version being the most important of the ancient translations of the New Testament must be included. The Editio Critica Maior of the Gospel of John will use the results of the work with the Sahidic version of the Gospel of John. Thus, the results of this project will immediately be available for all who work in the field of Biblical Studies.

The New Testament is the book that has been most often translated. Thus, establishing the best possible critical text as basis for all translations is important for theological research. The project contributes to this goal. It prepares the ground for a critical edition of the Sahidic version (i.e. the important dialect of the native tongue of Egypt from 2nd to the 10th century AD) of the Gospel of John. For this task the known Sahidic manuscripts which are witnesses to this Gospel have to be collated that is to say approximately some 180 manuscripts (many of the fragmentary) must be transcribed, the transcription checked and then collated. Of these roughly 60 % have been transcribed during the project. It is often the case that one of the old translations is a witness to a rare variant attested so far only in few Greek manuscripts. The research has therefore already been used for the critical apparatur of the Gospel of John in the 28th edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece. This research project is, however, not only a scholarly research important mostly for those who are concerned with arcane philological questions: It was possible during the current research to propose for one verse (John 11:12) a translation which is more verbal than the traditional translation of this verse. The starting point was a variant which is attested only in one Greek manuscript, but also in the entire Coptic (i.e. Egyptian) tradition. This shows that the research is not only for those important who are mostly interested in the Coptic version of the New Testament but has also influence for the Greek text the variant mentioned was deemed so far unreliable and in consequence even on a very small scale influence for the modern translations of this important text. The duration of the project was January 2010 till December 2012. A continuation project started in January 2013 (FWF-P25082).