I recently finished an excellent and important book:
Lois M. Farag, ed. The Coptic Christian Heritage: History, Faith, and Culture. London: Routledge, 2014. (It is available here and here.)
There are many books on Coptic Christianity but what makes this one interesting and important is that it was written by Coptic Christians about their own faith. Their insider perspective is missing from most works about Coptic Christianity. I, like most outsiders, might write differently about their faith than they do; and they certainly write differently than most outsiders do, and that is the point. That is what makes this book so special and important. It is an insider's account. They emphasize the sorts of things that are important to them, not the things that are important to outsiders. Although I am familiar with the Coptic faith, I learned a great deal from this book. Their account is to be preferred to the accounts of outsiders. If one is interested in Coptic Christianity, this is a good place to start.
Showing posts with label Coptic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coptic. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
What is a Word?
Coptic (for those who do not know) is the ancient Egyptian language written in Greek characters. The earliest dated Coptic inscription dates to 200 B.C. It mostly died out by the ninth century but there was a revival and late flourishing in the thirteenth century A.D.
Those who read Coptic manuscripts (and Coptic is not the only language whose manuscripts have this characteristic) know that Coptic manuscripts do not put spaces between words. Published versions of Coptic manuscripts put spaces between the words, but those spaces are not usually found in the manuscript. So a non-trivial problem is how do we know that a space should go between letters. Different editors solve this problem differently. How would we know where an ancient Coptic speaker would divide the text into different word units? The ancient Coptic scribes actually left some clues but these clues are often either ignored or reinterpreted (and sometimes misinterpreted) by modern editors.
This is just one of the many problems that confronts an editor the minute he or she undertakes to edit a text. Modern writers tend to give it no thought whatsoever. For us, the problem has already been solved.
Those who read Coptic manuscripts (and Coptic is not the only language whose manuscripts have this characteristic) know that Coptic manuscripts do not put spaces between words. Published versions of Coptic manuscripts put spaces between the words, but those spaces are not usually found in the manuscript. So a non-trivial problem is how do we know that a space should go between letters. Different editors solve this problem differently. How would we know where an ancient Coptic speaker would divide the text into different word units? The ancient Coptic scribes actually left some clues but these clues are often either ignored or reinterpreted (and sometimes misinterpreted) by modern editors.
This is just one of the many problems that confronts an editor the minute he or she undertakes to edit a text. Modern writers tend to give it no thought whatsoever. For us, the problem has already been solved.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Interconnected Ancient World IV: Coptic Buddhism
As an undergraduate, I noticed the tendency among academics
to specialize in smaller and smaller corners of a field of knowledge. There was
a spoof article circulating about Inca ruins in the Yucatan that read simply,
“There are none” followed by a two page footnote. Along the idea that one might
specialize in the intersection of two fields that did not actually intersect
and thus have nothing that one might actually study, I imagined at the time
that since Coptic was essentially a Christian language that Coptic Buddhism
would be a similarly empty field. In graduate school, however, I discovered
that the intersection of the two fields was not as empty as I had imagined.
In the latter half of the third century A.D., the Manicheans became popular in Egypt, although they seem to have disappeared from Egypt by the end of the fourth century. They had a program of translating their works into Coptic. One of these works was a document containing the basic doctrines of the Manicheans, called the Kephalaia. It contained a brief biography of the Buddha:
In the latter half of the third century A.D., the Manicheans became popular in Egypt, although they seem to have disappeared from Egypt by the end of the fourth century. They had a program of translating their works into Coptic. One of these works was a document containing the basic doctrines of the Manicheans, called the Kephalaia. It contained a brief biography of the Buddha:
“When Buddha himself came also [. . .] about him that he himself also taught [. . .] much wisdom. He chose his congregation [and] perfect his congregation. He revealed to them his hope. Yet he just did not write his wisdom in scrolls. His disciples who came after him, when they remembered any wisdom that they heard by the hand of Buddha, wrote it in scrolls.”[1]
According to the Manicheans, the gospel was taken
While we know of not a single convert to
Buddhism among the Copts, it is clear that even what might be thought a Coptic
backwater knew something about Buddha. This example shows that even cultures
that one might be inclined to say were not in contact might know something
about each other.
“to the east [by] Buddha and Aurentes and the others [. . .] who were sent to the east from the coming of Buddha and Aurentes until the coming of Zarathustra to Persia, the time that he came to Hystaspes, the king, and from the coming of Zarathustra until the coming of Jesus [Christ], the son of the Highest.”[2]
Friday, December 21, 2012
The Interconnected Ancient World II: A Tally of Bricks
When the Mormon pioneers entered Utah, life was anything but
easy, and they had to make due with whatever they had available. One pioneer
told Orson Hyde, “I labored hard under the pangs of hunger to put up a little
adobie cabin and prepare to live, and at the same time my wife and children,
pale with want, were ranging the hills and benches to find thistles and roots
to eat, which we boiled in the milk of the remaining cows the wolves had not
eaten.”[1]
Sun dried mud brick, adobe, was the preferred building material. It was even
suggested that the Salt Lake Temple be built “of the stone that is got in the
Red Bute Kanyon, or of adobies, or of the best stone we can find in these
mountains.”[2]
The term adobe is
particularly associated with the southwestern United States, and came from the
region of Mexico and Central America. Though mud brick is common in the
southwest from prehistoric times, the origin of the term is Spanish, adobe.
The Spanish term, however, is not native to Spanish and
first appears in the thirteenth century, when Spain was part of Fatimid Spain.
It comes from Arabic, al-ṭūb “bricks.”[3]
The Coptic term derives from earlier Egyptian ḏb.t “brick” and goes all the way
back to the beginning of Egyptian history. The bricks themselves began to be
used in the Naqada I period,[4]
and were used for most forms of non-monumental architecture throughout Egyptian
history. In Exodus, the main building material was mud brick (Exodus 1:14;
5:7-19).
Both the Children of Israel before their Exodus and the
Mormon pioneers after their Exodus built their dwellings of the same material
and used the same word for it.
[1]
Orson Hyde, 24 September 1853, Journal of
Discourses, 2:114.
[2]
Heber C. Kimball, 9 October 1852, Journal
of Discourses, 1:160.
[3]
Hans Wehr, Arabic-English Dictionary
(), 571.
[4]
Dieter Arnold, The Encyclopedia of
Ancient Egyptian Architecture (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2003), 34.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Reading the Gospel of Judas XII: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
One of the first scenes in the Gospel of Judas has Jesus “when
he visited his disciples when they were gathered seat giving thanks over the
bread. He mocked his disciples.”[1]
What were his disciples doing that was worthy of ridicule? The same phrase is
used in the Mesokemic version of Matthew 26:27 when Jesus, administering the
Last Supper, gives thanks over the cup of wine (the Bohairic version uses a
different expression). It is also used in the Lycopolitan version of John 6:23
where they remember the place of the feeding the five thousand when Jesus gave
thanks over the bread. For the early Christian readers of the Gospel of Judas,
this seems to have been designed to refer to the Eucharist, or the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper. This reading is confirmed in the next sentence:
They said to him: Master, why are you laughing at our Eucharist, What have we done that merits that? He answered and said to them: I was not laughing at you; you are not doing this because you want to but because your god will be blessed through this.[2]
When Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, he
said that it was his new covenant and gave remission of sins (Matthew 26:28). (Its
covenant aspect is why it is called a sacramentum “an oath.”) This was
one of the most prominent practices of the early Church, one even mentioned by
Pliny[3]
making it the earliest Christian practice mentioned by non-Christians. Its
importance to the earliest Christians can hardly be overstated. The writer of
the Gospel of Judas rejects the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
This is of a piece with making the betrayer of Jesus as his
most devoted follower. The Gospel of Judas signals within the first two pages
that it is rejecting those things that Christians held most sacred.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Reading the Gospel of Judas XI: Lycopolitan again
One of the interesting features of some Lycopolitan documents is the use of the djandje (ϫ) where Sahidic and other dialects have a chi (ⲭ). The two letters look strikingly similar, the only difference being the line underneath the djandje. One could easily expect that perhaps the scribe had a quirky way of not picking up his pen when making the letter. That, however, would be a mistake.
Way back in the Twenty-first Dynasty, almost a millennium and a half before most Lycopolitan manuscripts were written, the Egyptian language began to lose the distinction between its g, k, and q. This can be seen in the misspellings that appear then and become more frequent with time. The interchange between these letters becomes common in Demotic.
Be that as it may, it does not explain the interchange between the djandje (ϫ), which usually has a sound more like the English j, and the chi (ⲭ), which is a variation of the g/k/q sound.
Modern Egyptian Arabic, however, has precisely that confusion. The letter that most Arabic dialects pronounce as a j is pronounced in the Cairo area as a g. This dialectical feature is more widespread than just Cairo, but is more likely to disappear the further south one goes.
Lycopolitan's use of a djandje for a chi may be early evidence of this sound shift. They are writing a j (ϫ) for a k/g (ⲭ), because they pronounce the j sound as a g. This is also evident in Bohairic, a northern dialect, which writes ⲛϫⲓ for Sahidic ⲛϭⲓ. The spelling may be different but the pronunciation was likely the same.
Way back in the Twenty-first Dynasty, almost a millennium and a half before most Lycopolitan manuscripts were written, the Egyptian language began to lose the distinction between its g, k, and q. This can be seen in the misspellings that appear then and become more frequent with time. The interchange between these letters becomes common in Demotic.
Be that as it may, it does not explain the interchange between the djandje (ϫ), which usually has a sound more like the English j, and the chi (ⲭ), which is a variation of the g/k/q sound.
Modern Egyptian Arabic, however, has precisely that confusion. The letter that most Arabic dialects pronounce as a j is pronounced in the Cairo area as a g. This dialectical feature is more widespread than just Cairo, but is more likely to disappear the further south one goes.
Lycopolitan's use of a djandje for a chi may be early evidence of this sound shift. They are writing a j (ϫ) for a k/g (ⲭ), because they pronounce the j sound as a g. This is also evident in Bohairic, a northern dialect, which writes ⲛϫⲓ for Sahidic ⲛϭⲓ. The spelling may be different but the pronunciation was likely the same.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Reading the Gospel of Judas X: Theology
In the Gospel of Judas, when Jesus approaches the twelve
disciples, they are “sitting together studying theology” (Gospel of Judas
33.24-26). Judas was depicted as one of those doing so, but so were all the
other apostles.
The term used for theology in this passage is a calque of
the Greek term. The term was literally translated into Coptic rather than
borrowed as it was in English.
The term theology is first used by Plato, in his dialogue, The
Republic. Plato means by it lies told about gods to children and child-like
adults to manipulate them for political purposes.[1]
In that passage Plato reasons that as long as one says nice things about the
gods, no harm can come from them. It does not matter whether or not they are
true. For Plato, theology is a useful tool to silence prophets or other people
who are inspired.
The early Christian church did not have a positive view of
theology. The word itself does not occur in the New Testament. The earliest
Christian to use the word, Clement of Alexandria, refers to the “theology of
idols” had among the pagans.[2]
On the other hand, Gnostics (the term is simply the Greek
word for “intellectual”) liked philosophy and theology.
In the Gospel of Judas, when Jesus sees his disciples engaged in theology, he laughs at them (Gospel of Judas 34.2-3). Clearly, doing theology was not a good thing, not even from the perspective of the author of the Gospel of Judas.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Reading the Gospel of Judas IX: Why a Gospel of Judas?
When Judas tried to repent of his heinous crime, he
discovered that it was too late to undo the damage that he had done. Can anyone
imagine what it would have been like among the twelve apostles if Judas had
stayed around? They all knew what he did. They were there. So Judas did the
honorable thing from the Roman point of view, he committed suicide (Matthew
27:3-5). The gospel writer puts Judas’s death at near the same time as Jesus’s
death. So Judas cannot have written the gospel attributed to him.
Judas did not write the gospel attributed to him; someone
else did. Given his horrible reputation, why would anyone write a Gospel of
Judas? What Christian would take it seriously?
One possible explanation is that it was not meant to be
taken seriously. It was a satire. If that is the case, it is written to make
fun of the positions of certain Christian factions.
The other possibility is that it was meant to be taken
seriously with the following logic: In order to redeem humans, Jesus had to
die. Anyone who helped Jesus to die must have been doing the will of God.
Judas, by betraying Jesus, was doing the will of God. Therefore, Judas must
have been the best of Jesus’s disciples. This logic is implicit in the Gospel
of Judas and several points of it are made explicitly.
When reading the Gospel of Judas, one must bear in mind
whether it was ever meant to be taken seriously. It might be sick satire and it
might be sick logic. The intellectual position on issues that the Gospel of
Judas need to be carefully examined.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Reading the Gospel of Judas VIII: Judas's Legacy
It is clear from the gospels that during Jesus’s life, many
groups persecuted Jesus and his followers and they wanted to kill Jesus and end
his Church. The outside persecution could be endured, what made a difference was
the treachery inside and its conspiracy with the persecutors. As I have noted
before:
The most deadly combination for the Church in its first century was apostates within colluding with persecutors without. Judas Iscariot had used that combination to kill Jesus, and others found it equally effective in killing his Church.[1]This was Judas’s legacy to the first century Church.
Whenever 3 John was written, probably in the last half of
the first century, John notes Diotrephes would not permit him to come to the
Church because Diotrephes wanted to be in charge (3 John 1:9).
In the seventies and eighties, a number of Christians left
their faith, although the man who recorded this did not care why they did so
only that they did so.[2]
Jude’s grandsons were denounced as politically dangerous in
the late eighties or early nineties, but they were released even though they
were Christians.[3]
This means that someone had to make accusations to Roman authorities about
them, accusations so serious that they carried the death penalty.
At the end of the beginning of the Second Century, Pliny
writes to his friend, the emperor Trajan, and notes that he is receiving
anonymous accusations against individuals accusing them of being Christians.[4]
Pliny wants to know whether simply being a Christian is automatically sufficient
cause for execution, and it seems that whoever wrote the accusation must have
thought so.
Hegesippus records that also about this time a certain
faction of Christians at Jerusalem accused Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem, to the
authorities and had him put to death.[5]
Hegesippus also says: “until that time, the Church had remained a pure and
uncorrupted virgin since until that time those who corrupted it lay undeclared
in darkness.”[6]
Clement of Rome says that in Trajan’s day the Church was
filled with “unholy sedition,”[7]
as proof of that he pointed to “everyone abandoning the fear of God, and
becoming blind to his faith, neither walking in the ordinances of his appointment,
nor comporting according to the Christian duty, but walking according to wicked
lusts of his own heart.”[8]
This tale of Christianity to the beginning of the second
century shows that various individuals tried to sabotage the Christian faith,
often by betraying the leaders to get gain or imagined power. Between the
betrayal of Jesus and the similar betrayals of local Christian leaders lies about
a half century hiatus. Other betrayals may have occurred, obscured from our
view. The legacy of Judas was alive and well at the end of the first century.
[1]
John Gee, “James, First and Second Peter, and Jude: Epistles of Persecution,”
in The Life and Teachings of the New Testament Apostles: From the Day of
Pentecost through the Apocalypse, ed. Richard Nietzel Holzapfel and Thomas
A. Wayment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 190.
[2]
Pliny, Epistles 10.96.6.
[3]
Eusebius, History of the Church, 3.19.1-20.8.
[4]
Pliny, Epistles 10.96.2.
[5]
Eusebius, History of the Church, 3.32.1-3.
[6] Eusebius,
History of the Church, 3.32.7.
[7]
Clement of Rome, Corinthians, 1.1.
[8]
Clement of Rome, Corinthians, 3.4.
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