Coptic: Egypt’s Christian Language

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The Coptic language has been in the news recently. Loudly. And everywhere; also in BAR.a Perhaps more than is good for it. Remember the Coptic “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” whose claim to authenticity trumpeted worldwide by elevated authorities was promptly pulverized into subatomic particles and laughed off the stage? But about that, not here. Not now. Not again. About consequences, more later. A total, formal and unconditional retraction of articles and statements claiming authenticity would be a great start, from a professional perspective. And we’ll get to the ethics when we get there. Also, should competence be an issue, […]

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Footnotes

Hershel Shanks, “The Saga of ‘The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,’” BAR 41:03.

Jewish scribes would have used the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, as their base text.

Endnotes

This article consists of excerpts from the Fourth Annual Henri Hyvernat Lecture, delivered by the present writer on March 26, 2015, at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. An extended version of the lecture honoring Hyvernat’s memory and discussing Coptic literature in greater detail will be published in Leo Depuydt, “The Literature of the Copts and the Contributions of Monsignor Hyvernat to the Study of the Subject (Fourth Annual Henri Hyvernat Lecture),” Advances in Historical Studies 4 (2015), pp. 320–335 (doi: 10.4236/ahs.2015.44022).

See Leo Depuydt, Fundamentals of Egyptian Grammar, vol. 1 (Norton, MA: Frog Publishing, 2012), pp. 565–578.