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.

Reading the Gospel of Judas III: Lycopolitan

The language of the Gospel of Judas is Coptic. Coptic is the same language as the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but it is written in Greek characters rather than hieroglyphics. One of the advantages of Coptic over the hieroglyphic writing system is that the hieroglyphic system did not write the vowels while Coptic does. On the other hand, hieroglyphs had a way of distinguishing different terms that were pronounced the same. (English has some similar ways of distinguishing homophones such as the difference between “write” and “right”.)

Egypt, however, was a large country covering more than a thousand kilometers of the Nile. Communication was not as good as it is now. Thus Coptic shows a variety of dialects, six major ones and over a dozen minor ones. These dialects originally were spoken in different locations. The different dialects show differences in spelling, word choice, word usage, and pronunciation.

When the Bible was first translated into Coptic, about the second or third century A.D., individual books were translated into different dialects depending on the location or the dialect of the individual doing the translation. Only later did the biblical text become standardized, about the fourth or fifth century. We can thus compare the translation of biblical books into different dialects and see how the dialects differ.

While each of the dialects was originally associated with a specific location, over time certain dialects became used outside the location originally associated with the dialect. There are historical reasons for the rise of each super-regional dialect. The earliest super-regional dialect was Lycopolitan, which was spread by the Manichaeans, a Christian sect arising during the third century. By the end of the fourth century, the Manichaeans had largely vanished from Egypt. At the end of the fourth century, Shenoute became the abbot of the White Monastery outside of Panopolis (modern Akhmim). Under Shenoute the White Monastery became the center for Coptic learning and the dialect of Shenoute’s sermons, Sahidic, became the dominant dialect throughout Egypt. Later in the ninth century, Sketis within the Wadi Natrun became the center of Coptic learning and its dialect, Bohairic, became the dominant dialect for Coptic learning and has remained so until the present day. The official dialect of the Coptic Orthodox church is Bohairic.

The Gospel of Judas is written in Lycopolitan. If we look at Lycopolitan, we see that the majority, if not all of the works written in Lycopolitan are Manichaean. Coptic Manichaean texts are all in Lycopolitan. There are works in Lycopolitan that are not necessarily Manichaean. For example, a manuscript of the gospel of John in Lycopolitan was found at Qau, near Lycopolis. But Manichaeans viewed Mani as the coming paraclete (or Comforter) prophesied in the gospel of John and so the gospel of John held a special place in Manichaean belief. Thus the fact that the Gospel of Judas is written in Lycopolitan shows that the text aligns more closely with Manichaean belief than Coptic Orthodox belief.