IMPORTANCE OF THE SAHIDIC VERSION IN RESEARCH AND TRANSLATION (Revised 1/90 -- Copyright 1989 & 1990 by Joseph Wells) It is noteworthy that the New Testament was translated into three languages during the koine period (b.330 AD), that is, while the koine (common) Greek was still the lingua franca of the Roman world and universally understood. This gives us an opportunity to see how people who read, wrote, spoke, and thought in New Testament Greek rendered the divine Word into their mother tongues. These three languages were Latin, Syriac (spoken in Palastine), and the Sahidic (a dialect of Coptic, spoken in Egypt). To date, the vast majority of research has been done on the first two. This is unfortunate since the Sahidic surpasses both Latin and Syriac in several ways. It represents a superior textual tradition, it is represented by more and older manuscripts, it is an excellent source of historical interpretation, and is more like English in certain respects. The following will note each of these four aspects of the Sahidic version. 1. Both the Latin and Syriac are representative of the inferior Western textual family, while the Sahidic ranks with the best papyri and the "B" Uncial (Vatican Library 1209) as representative of the Proto-Alexandrine textual family, which is generally recognized as the best and earliest group of manuscripts. The Westcott-Hort, UBS, and Nestle-Aland master texts are based on this family. 2. The Old Latin and Syriac are represented by two extant manuscripts each which can be dated as being from before the fifth century (400 AD). All four are of the Gospels only. On the other hand, Sahidic manuscripts dating from the same period are numerous and represent many of the Bible books. Below is a comparison chart of the extant manuscripts for each language. Language Manuscript Contents Century Condition ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Latin: Vercellensis Gospels IV partial Bobiensis Gospels IV/V partial Syriac: Sinaitic Gospels IV fragmented Curetonian Gospels IV/V fragmented Sahidic: Crosby 1 Peter III/IV complete Brit. M. 7594 Deut Jonah Acts III/IV fragmented Mich. 3992 John 1Cor Titus Ps Isa III/IV fragmented Berlin 408 Rev 1John Philemon IV partial Kahle 22 Eph 1Pet 1John James IV fragmented Kahle 25 Matthew IV fragmented Berlin 15926 Acts IV fragmented Garrido Matthew IV fragmented Rainer V Acts IV/V partial Bodmer XIX Matthew Romans IV/V fragmented Kahle 21 1 Timothy Titus IV/V fragmented Barcelona Mark Luke John IV/V partial ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3. On the subjects of textual criticism and historical interpretation, well known coptologist J. M. Plumley stated (in "The Early Versions of the New Testament" by Bruce Metzger, page 142): By and large the Coptic version can be a valuable aid to the scholar engaged in textual criticism, and because in certain passages it preserves very ancient traditions of interpreta- tion, it ought to be of considerable interest to the scholar working on the history and development of Christian doctrine. 4. While English is related to Latin, in some important respects it is quite similar to the Sahidic. Where Greek has the definite article (the) but no indefinite article (a, an) (Latin Syriac have no articles at all), Sahidic, like English, has both. Moreover, usage in the two languages is strikingly similar. Unlike Greek, English and Sahidic do not use the definite article with proper names, also both insert the article at times when the Greek only infers it. Further, unlike other ancient languages Sahidic has an indefinite article the use of which is very similar to modern languages like English, Spanish, German, etc. In all, the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language is a valuable, albeit greatly untapped, resource for New Testament researchers and translators.