More information on the importance of ancient Coptic bible texts By Tommy Richards

Read free online: "Coptic Biblical texts in the dialect of Upper Egypt" by Budge, E. A. Wallis, Sir, 1857-1934

"Contains Coptic versions of the Books of Deuteronomy, Jonah, and the Acts of the Apostles, from the papyrus Codex Oriental no. 7594, and the Book of the Apocalypse from the paper manuscript, Oriental no. 6803."

"The oldest known copy of any translation of ... the Greek Bible."

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Budge says in the Preface: "The texts in the papyrus Codex are of great importance, for the script in the Greek hand which comes at the end of the Acts of the Apostles proves that the volume cannot have been written later than the middle of the fourth century. Hence it is now certain that copies of some Books of the Old and New Testaments, written in Coptic, were in circulation among the Egyptian Christians early in the first half of this century: and it is legitimate to conclude that the origin of the version itself cannot be placed later than the third century. The Codex is, in fact, the oldest known copy of any translation of any considerable portion of the Greek Bible: indeed it is probably as early as any copy now in existence of any substantial part of the Bible."

That was in the early 20th century. Not long after, an incredible discovery was made. In the forward of Crum's thousand-page Coptic Dictionary, we read "...Only in rare instances did a Coptic document preserve a text, or part of a text, whose Greek original was lost, in which case it became the only source..." "All this changed dramatically with the discovery late in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi codices. The discovery consisted of thirteen Coptic codices copied about the middle of the fourth century C.E. (A.D.)..." "Suddenly, learning Coptic became the middle-age crisis of the New Testament and Patristics scholars and produced another language requirement for their doctoral students." "The thirteen codices contained fifty-two tractates, but since six are duplicates, there are only 46 works. All are translations from Greek, and most were composed in the second and third centuries C.E." ~Forward by James M. Robinson (The forward contains many more important details which you may read after purchasing online, as I have done.)

As you can probably (hopefully) see, there is good cause for attention to be paid in this field of study!

If anyone is interested in learning basic Coptic language and grammar, I recommend reading and/or printing the [free] book found online: "Layton, Bentley. Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic With Exercises & Vocabularies. Leuven. Paris and Dudley. Peeters, 2006." which is required for Washington University's "COPTIC 101 A: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic".

Best wishes to all, in and through Christ Jesus!

Tommy Richards
https://septuagint-lxx.com
https://spirituallysmart.com

Vatican's Eyes on Egypt

Catholics are just as surprised as anyone, but nobody knows the endgame.

by JOHN THAVIS (CNS) 01/31/2011 

A protester gestures in front of a burning barricade

VATICAN CITY (CNS) —

Church leaders are watching the unfolding political drama in Egypt with a mixture of hope for reform and concern over potential violence, said the head of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.

Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa told Vatican Radio Jan. 30 that the widespread unrest that has weakened the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak came as a surprise to Catholics in the region.

“We all sense that these are epochal changes. None of us would have imagined these kinds of developments a few months ago,” he said.

“This means that there are currents, especially in the Arab world, that now have found visible expression. This is certainly a positive sign, but it’s also worrying because we don’t know how all this will end — we hope with the least possible amount of violence and bloodshed,” he said.

Father Pizzaballa said he hoped that “respect for religious minorities will be preserved” in Egypt. His concern appeared to reflect the fact that Mubarak’s opponents include both radical and moderate Muslim groups, and it was unclear who might assume power if the president resigns.

Father Pizzaballa spoke on a Church-sponsored day of prayer for peace in the Holy Land. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI marked the day with a prayer to “lead minds and hearts toward concrete projects of peace.” He did not specifically mention the unrest in Egypt.

The Pope, joined by two Italian youths, then released two doves from his apartment window as a sign of peace.

In his comments to Vatican Radio, Father Pizzaballa said the search for peace and freedom involves “not allowing oneself to be dominated by passions.”

“We all see how in the Middle East, in the Holy Land and in Jerusalem, passions can blind people. Instead, to have real freedom, we need a certain distance from things in order to see them more clearly,” he said.
He said real freedom in the Middle East needs to include religious freedom, access to places of worship and holy places, and freedom of religious expression.

Francesco Zannini, who teaches at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, said the situation in Egypt reflected the weakening political power of Arab leaders who have ruled as “monarchs” but who are threatened by changes brought by globalization.

In Egypt, it was unclear whether the momentum of the unrest was great enough to bring lasting reforms, Zannini told the Rome-based agency AsiaNews. One big question, he said, was whether Mohamed ElBaradei, an opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, had the capacity to govern Egypt.
Zannini said that although Islamic extremists had begun to join the protests in Egypt, he doubted whether they would ever present a governing alternative there. He said he thought radical Islam was losing influence among the populations of the Middle East, and had shown itself too inflexible to have success on a political level, where consensus-building is needed.

EU and Vatican criticised

The People's Assembly launched a scathing attack against the European Parliament accusing it of disseminating false reports about the "repression of Christians" in Egypt, reports Gamal Essam El-Din

 

Egyptian MPs, belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and opposition, opened fire on the Brussels-based European Parliament, accusing it of interfering in Egypt's internal affairs. Speaker of the People's Assembly Fathi Sorour told MPs in a session on Monday morning that he condemned the way in which the European Parliament had "tried to exploit the attack which hit the Two Saints Church on the New Year's Eve in order to imply that there is a systematic policy of repression against Coptic Christians in Egypt". Sorour said that in a meeting with a delegation from the Bundestag (German parliament) yesterday, he had stressed that "the terrorist attack against the Alexandrian church targeted Muslims and Christians alike and the European Parliament's statements about repression of Christians in Egypt are entirely unfounded".

Supporting Sorour, senior NDP MPs accused the European Parliament of propagating lies about Egypt. Abdel-Ahad Gamaleddin, NDP spokesman in the People's Assembly, insisted that "the European Parliament's statement claiming that Coptic Christians face persecution shows how most European institutions are completely ignorant of the situation in Egypt."

Chairman of the assembly's National Security and Defence Committee Amin Radi urged the European Parliament to exercise restraint before publishing false statements about religious conditions in Egypt.

"The European Parliament should fully understand that the bomb attack against the church was aimed at sowing discord between Christians and Muslims in Egypt," Radi said.

The Ghad Party's Ragab Hilal Hemeida accused the European Parliament of offering money to its clients in Egypt to spread lies and instill a kind of "creative chaos in the country".

MPs also attacked Pope Benedict XVI for issuing a statement that reflected "the spirit of the Crusades". "Please, Pope of the Vatican," pleaded independent Coptic MP Gamal Assad Abdel-Malak, "stop recalling the spirit of the Crusades. Copts in Egypt do not face repression and are not in need of the protection of the Christian West." 

"Since Napoleon Bonaparte's French Expedition and until the Zionist colonialist campaigns of today the West has been trying to exploit what it calls the Coptic issue and other religious minorities to interfere with the internal affairs of Egypt. Yes, there are some discriminatory policies against the Copts but these are nowhere near a systematic policy of persecution."

Abdel-Malak urged the government "not to dig its head into the sand like an ostrich and assume everything is OK with Egypt's Copts". He asked the ruling NDP to enter into "open discussion" of Coptic grievances "so as to close the door to foreign meddling".

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was also singled out by MPs for attack. Saad Al-Gammal, chairman of the assembly's Arab Affairs Committee, charged that both "the Mossad and the extremist Islamist organisation Al-Qaeda are seeking to inflame sectarian strife in countries like Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen."

"Mossad now serves the interests of Al-Qaeda and vice-versa. Neither will be able to break the national unity of Egypt."

Raafat Seif, spokesman of the leftist Tagammu Party, refused to join the anti-European Parliament tirade, saving his criticism for the proliferation of policies that allowed the growth of the kind of intolerance that culminated in the Alexandria bombing.

"Such policies include the growth of extremist education in private and government schools, the use of television and print media and mosques to spread hate against others, including Copts, describing them as infidels," said Seif.

NDP MPs tried to stop Seif from continuing until Sorour intervened. He went on to denounce "the extremist ideology of Wahabi Islam which had imposed itself on Egypt at the expense of the moderate and centrist ideology of Al-Azhar, which calls for tolerance, freedom of religion and inter-faith dialogue".

In response, Sorour urged MPs not to link Coptic grievances with the Alexandria bomb attack. "In so doing," he argued, "MPs are repeating foreign allegations that the bomb attack is somehow linked to Coptic grievances and the repression of Christians in Egypt."

Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab reiterated the argument that the bombing was an attempt to sow divisions among Egyptians. He warned MPs against confusing issues "by connecting the crime to Coptic grievances".

NDP MPs also criticised coverage of the attack on television channels. "Coverage of the bombing was at odds with the national interest," said Abdel-Ahad. "Channels which refuse to toe the national line should be closed."

Zakaria Azmi, chief of the presidential staff and a heavyweight NDP MP, accused daily newspapers of being so desperate to obtain a scoop that they had published conflicting reports about the results of the investigation into the Alexandria attack.

"Such irresponsibility could force citizens to lose confidence in the investigating authorities," he said. Newspapers should remember that the penal code criminalises all forms of intervention in ongoing investigations," said Azmi.