Coptic

The language of Egypt endured for at least 3500 years before the Islamic conquest swept it aside in favour of Arabic. During that time it naturally underwent significant evolution.

There was at one time much debate over the origin of the Egyptian language; was it Semitic or not? It seemed to have Semitic influence, but not enough to really be part of the family. This seems now to have been solved; Joseph H. Greenburg in the 1960s proposed to group most of the languages of northern Africa and the Middle East in one great "Afroasiatic" superfamily. Egyptian and the Semitiic languages were two of the families within this greater group. Thus Egyptian is related to the Semitic languages, but at a rather large distance.

Coptic is the final stage of the evolution of Egyptian (the words "Copt" and "Coptic" are much-distorted versions of the name "Aigypt[os]"). Although there is no clear linguistic divide between Late Egyptian and Coptic, there is something of a literary one: Coptic is Egyptian written in an alphabet based on the Greek. It is widely stated that the Coptic alphabet (consisting of the twenty-four Greek letters plus seven letters -- give or take a few -- adopted from the Demotic) was developed because the old Egyptian Demotic alphabet was too strongly associated with paganism. This seems not to be true, however; the earliest surviving documents in the Coptic alphabet seem to have been magical texts.

It is at least reasonable to suppose that the Coptic alphabet was adopted because it was an alphabet -- the hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic styles of Egyptian are all syllabic systems with ideographic elements. And both hieratic and demotic have other problems: Hieratic is difficult to write, and demotic, while much easier to copy, is difficult to read. And neither represents vowels accurately. Some scribe, wanting a true alphabetic script, took over the Greek alphabet, adding a few demotic symbols to supply additional sounds.

Coptic finally settled down to use the 24 Greek letters plus six or seven demotic symbols. It was some time before this standard was achieved, however; early texts often use more than these few extra signs. This clearly reveals a period of experimentation.

Coptic is not a unified language; many dialects (Akhmimic, Bohairic, Fayyumic, Middle Egyptian, Sahidic) are known. The fragmentation of Coptic is probably the result of the policies of Egypt's rulers: The Romans imposed harsh controls on travel in and out of, and presumably within, Egypt; before them, the Ptolemies has rigidly regimented their subjects' lives and travels. After a few hundred years of that, it is hardly surprising that the Egyptian language ceased to be unified.

New Testament translations have been found in all five of the dialects listed; in several instances there seem to have been multiple translations. The two most important, however, are clearly Sahidic (the language of Upper Egypt) and Bohairic (used in the Lower Egyptian Delta). Where the other versions exist only in a handful of manuscripts, the Sahidic endures in dozens and the Bohairic in hundreds. The Bohairic remains the official version of the Coptic church to this day, although the language is essentially extinct in ordinary life.

The history of the Coptic versions has been separated into four stages by Wisse (modifying Kasser). For convenience, these stages are listed below, although I am not sure of their validity.

1. The Pre-Classical Stage, 250-350 C.E. First attempts at translation, which had little influence on the later versions.
2. The Classical Sahidic and Fayyumic Stage, 350-450 C.E. Preparation of versions for use by those who had no Greek. The Sahidic becomes the dominant version. Other versions, notably the Fayyumic, circulate but are not widespread.
3. The Final Sahidic and Fayyumic Stage, 450-1000 C.E. The Arab conquest reduces the role and power of the Coptic church. The Sahidic begins to decline.
4. The Bohairic Stage, after 800 C.E. The Bohairic version becomes standardized and gradually achieves dominance within the Coptic church.

A more detailed study of the various versions follows.

The Sahidic Coptic

The Sahidic is probably the earliest of the translations, and also has the greatest textual value. It came into existence no later than the third century, since a copy of 1 Peter exists in a manuscript from about the end of that century. Unlike the Bohairic version, there is little evidence of progressive revision. The manuscripts do not always agree, but they do not show the sort of process seen in the Bohairic Version.

Like all the Coptic versions, the Sahidic has an Egyptian sort of text. In the Gospels it is clearly Alexandrian, although it is sometimes considered to have "Western" variants, especially in John. (There are, in fact, occasional "Western" readings in the manuscripts, but no pattern of Western influence. Most of the so-called "Western" variants also have Alexandrian support.) As between B and , the Sahidic is clearly closer to the former -- and if anything even closer to P⁷⁵. It is also close to T (a close ally of P⁷⁵/B) -- as indeed one would expect, since T is a Greek/Sahidic diglot.

In Acts, the Sahidic is again regarded as basically Alexandrian, though with some minor readings associated with the "Western" text. In the "Apostolic Decree" (Acts 15:19f., etc.) it conflates the Alexandrian and "Western" forms. (One should note, however, the existence of the codex known as Berlin P. 15926. Although its language is to be Sahidic, its text differs very strongly from the common Sahidic version, and preserves a number of striking "Western" variants found also in the Middle Egyptian text G67.)

In Paul the situation is slightly different. Here again at first glance the Sahidic might seem Alexandrian with a "Western" tinge. On examination, however, it proves to be very strongly associated with B, and also somewhat associated with B's ally P⁴⁶. I have argued elsewhere that P⁴⁶/B form their own text-type in Paul. The Sahidic clearly goes with this type, although perhaps with some influence from the "mainstream" Alexandrian text.

In the Catholics, the Sahidic seems to have a rather generic Alexandrian text, being about equidistant from all the other witnesses. It is noteworthy that its more unusual readings are often shared with B.

The Bohairic Coptic

The Bohairic has perhaps the most complicated textual history of any of the Coptic versions. The oldest known manuscript, Papyrus Bodmer III, contains a text of the Gospel of John copied in the fourth (or perhaps fifth) century. This version is distinctly different from the later Coptic versions, however; the underlying text is distinct, the translation is different -- and even the form of the language is not quite the same as in the later Bohairic version. For this reason it has become common to refer to this early Bohairic version as the "proto-Bohairic" (pbo).From the same era comes a fragment of Philippians which may be a Sahidic text partly conformed to the idiom of Bohairic.

Other than these two minor manuscripts, our Bohairic texts all date from the ninth century or later. It is suspected that the common Bohairic translation was made in the seventh or eighth century.

It is quite possible that this version was revised, however; there are a number of places where the Bohairic manuscripts split into two groups. Where this happens, it is fairly common to find the older texts having a reading typical of the earlier Alexandrian witnesses while the more recent manuscripts often display a reading characteristic of more recent Alexandrian documents or of the Byzantine text. One can only suspect that these late readings were introduced by a systematic revision.

As already hinted, the text of the Bohairic Coptic is Alexandrian. Within its text-type, however, it tends to go with rather than B. This is most notable in Paul (where, of course, and B are most distinct). Zuntz thought that the Bohairic was a "proto-Alexandrian" witness (i.e. that it belonged with P⁴⁶ B sa), but in fact it is one of 's closest allies here -- despite hints of Sahidic influence, which are found in the other sections of the New Testament as well. One might theorize that the Bohairic was translated from the Greek (a manuscript with a late Alexandrian text), but with at least some Sahidic fragments used as cribs.