The Sahidic Version of the Gospel of John as Part of the Editio Critica Maior

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 of the Gospel of John gives witness to rare variants of the Greek text used for translation. 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. Attestations of variants (identified during the first project) have already been included into the critical apparatus of the 28th edition of Novum Testamentum Graece. 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.

Translation of the New Testament into the Egyptian language (at this stage called Coptic) started already in the second or early third century. Among the Egyptian translations the Sahidic translation of the Gospel of John is probably the most important. It is a well attested translation, over 150 (mostly fragmentary) different manuscripts of this translation are known. The primary scientific goal was to proceed with the transcription of the Sahidic witnesses of the Gospel of John (continuation of the project 22017) and to prepare for their inclusion into the large project of the Editio Critica Maior (ECM). This project is dedicated to the documentation of all Greek New Testament manuscripts dating before 1000 AD, but includes also the ancient translations for the textual history of the New Testament. All available manuscripts of the Gospel of John in Sahidic have been transcribed and will be displayed on the homepages of the International Greek New Testament Project (IGNTP: http://www.iohannes.com/) and the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster (INTF: http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/manuscript-workspace). The project leader expects that the transcripts of approximately 140 Sahidic manuscripts of the Gospel of John (most of them fragmentary) will be online by May 2016 at the latest. This makes the primary research of P25082 and P22017 immediately available to the entire scholarly community. The data repositories allow access to the data without restriction. Both institutions allow for an equally important but very different display of the transcripts. The homepage of the INTF will display the manuscripts in the way all manuscripts are displayed on their homepage, i.e. on the left hand side the image of the manuscript page is displayed and on the right hand side the transcript as diplomatic transcript can be studied. This makes it possible for any interested scholar to research the transcript of any given witness of Johns Gospel and to check the image of the manuscript under research. The only restriction is that some institutions owning manuscripts do not allow open access of their images. These will also be available on the homepage of the INTF as thumbprints for the general public and as full access for researchers. Access has to be asked for at the INTF and is granted to all scholars. While the homepage of the INTF is dedicated to the research into selected manuscripts the homepage of the IGNTP serves a very different purpose. The IGNTP is dedicated to the ECM and, therefore, on this homepage the transcripts will be available as either single manuscripts or as tabulations of single verses depending on what the user makes his/her browser to display. This makes it possible to research as well the differences between the Sahidic witnesses of one verse as also the possibility of variants covering more than one verse in any given manuscript. Despite the wealth of manuscript evidence the Sahidic version of the Gospel of John will now be after the Latin version the second of the ancient translations to be available in such a way on the homepage of the IGNTP which is dedicated to Johns Gospel (http://www.iohannes.com/).