29424 - Seminars (1) (LM) (G. A)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the seminars, students will acquire competences in interpreting specific topics related to philology, literature and history, or necessary to the creation and improvement of their background.

Course contents

Lifting the Veil: Truth, Voyeurism, and Vision in the Gospel of Philip (NHC VII,3).

"Truth has not come into the world naked" wrote the anonymous author - or compiler - of the Gospel of Philip, a work originally composed in Greek between the 2nd and the 3rd century CE, which now survives only in a Coptic translation rediscovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Collecting and commenting as it does on multifarious traditions and images, the text basically aims at piercing the veil of typoi and eikones and peeking under them, in order to become one with the vision and the object of the vision itself, stripped naked at last. In a first phase, the seminar intends to provide students with the basics of Coptic language and literature (20 hours). The last 10 hours of the seminar will be then devoted to reading and analyzing relevant passages from the Gospel of Philip, as well as to re-locating the work within the Christian literary history of the first three centuries (10 hours).

Readings/Bibliography

Selected bibliography (it is given here just as an orientation tool for researches in the field; it is not meant as an actual exam bibliography)

1. Grammars

P. Buzi - A. Soldati, La lingua copta, Hoepli, Milano 2021;

T.O. Lambdin, Introduction to Sahidic Coptic, Mercer University Press, Macon 2000;

B. Layton, Coptic in 20 Lessons. Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies, Peeters, Leuven - Paris - Dudley 2007;

— A Coptic Grammar (Porta Linguarum Orientalium), Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004;

M. Müller, Grammatik des Bohairischen, Widmaier Verlag, Hamburg 2021;

T. Orlandi, Elementi di grammatica copto-saidica, Roma 1983;

U.-K. Plisch, Einführung in die koptische Sprache: Sahidischer Dialekt, Reichert, Wiesbaden 1999;

A. Shisha-Halevy, Coptic Grammatical Chrestomathy. A Course for Academic and Private Study, Peeters, Leuven 1988.

2. Dictionaries, lexica and grammatical tools

Bohairic-English Dictionary, downloadable for free at http://coptic-treasures.com.;

J. Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010;

W.E. Crum – J. McConkey Robinson, A Coptic Dictionary, Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene 2005;

B. Layton, Coptic Gnostic Chrestomathy. A Selection of Coptic Texts with Grammatical Analysis and Vocabulary, Peeters, Leuven - Paris -Dudley 2004

R. Smith, A Concise Coptic-English Lexicon, Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1999;

3. Varia

R.S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt, Princeton University Press, Princeton – Oxford 2009;

M. Betrò, La riflessione religiosa nell’Egitto tardo e il ruolo dei templi nella sua formazione e diffusione, in Origeniana Octava. Origene e la tradizione alessandrina. Papers of the 8th International Origen Congress. Pisa 27-31 August 2001, a c. di L. Perrone, vol. I, Peeters, Leuven 2003, 3-12;

P. Buzi, La letteratura egiziana antica. Opere, generi, contesti, Carocci, Roma 2020;

— La chiesa copta. Egitto e Nubia, Edizioni Studio Domenicano, Bologna 2014;

A. Camplani, La littérature copte des origines: les traductions du Grec, in Histoire de la littérature grecque chrétienne des origines à 451, sotto la direzione generale di S. Morlet, vol. V: Du quatrièmesiècle au concile de Chalcédoine (451). L’Égypte et Cyrène, a c. di M. Rizzi, Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2024, 549-600;

— Sulla multifunzionalità del tradurre in copto: note sparse su frammenti copti tardoantichi, Cicerone e moderne ipotesi di ricerca, in Egitto crocevia di traduzioni, a c. di F. Crevatin, Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste 2018, 101-144;

— Il copto e la chiesa copta. La lenta e inconclusa affermazione della lingua copta nello spazio pubblico della tarda antichità, in L’Africa, l’Oriente mediterraneo e l’Europa, a c. di P. Nicelli, Milano-Roma 2015, Biblioteca Ambrosiana-Bulzoni Editore, 129-153;

— Momenti di interazione religiosa ad Alessandria e la nascita dell’élite egiziana cristiana, in Origeniana Octava, cit., 31-42;

Christianity in Egypt: Literary Production and Intellectual Trends. Studies in Honor of Tito Orlandi, a c. di Paola Buzi e Alberto Camplani, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Roma 2011;

L’Egitto cristiano. Aspetti e problemi in età tardo-antica, a c. di A. Camplani, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Roma 1997

J.-L. Fournet, The Rise of Coptic. Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2020;

D. Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt. Assimilation and Resistance, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1998;

Greek Influence on Egyptian Coptic: Contact-Induced Change in an Ancient African Language, ed. by E. Grossman, P. Dils, T.S. Richter, and W. Schenkel, Widmaier Verlag, Hamburg 2017;

A. Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian. A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995;

E.O.D. Love, The Nature of Old Coptic III. Old Coptic at Akoris (§ 9), Journal of Coptic Studies 25 (2023) 157-181;

— The Nature of Old Coptic II. Old Coptic at Tebtunis (§ 6), Soknopaiou Nesos (§ 7), and Narmouthis (§ 8), Journal of Coptic Studies 24 (2022) 243-281;

— The Nature of Old Coptic I. Approaching & Contextualising Old Coptic (§ 1-4). Old Coptic at Oxyrhinchus (§ 5), Journal of Coptic Studies 23 (2021) 91-143;

H. Lundhaug – L. Jenott, The Monastic Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015;

D. McBride, The Development of Coptic: Late-Pagan Language of Synthesis in Egypt, Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquity 19 (1989) 89-111;

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, a c. di C. Riggs, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012;

G.G. Stroumsa, Alexandria and the Myth of Multiculturalism, in Origeniana Octava, cit., 23-29;

J. van der Vliet, Editing Coptic Literature in the Twenty-First Century. A Rejoinder, Journal of Coptic Studies 25 (2023) 287-294;

— Coptic Documentary Papyri After the Arab Conquest, The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 43 (2013) 187-208;

http://paths.uniroma1.it/atlas, Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature, directed by P. Buzi;

http://alinsuciu.com/, blog of A. Suciu;

http://www.coptica.ch/, ed. by P. Cherix;

http://www.cmcl.it/~orlandi/, homepage of prof. Tito Orlandi;

http://tasbeha.org/ and http://www.alhan.org/downloadable collection of Coptic hymns;

https://archive.org/index.php;

http://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/home, project of the digital edition of the Coptic Bible at the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.

4. Approaching the Gospel of Philip

Vangelo di Filippo (NHC II,3), introduzione e traduzione di F. Berno, in I codici di Nag Hammadi. Prima traduzione italiana integrale, a cura di A. Annese, F. Berno e D. Tripaldi, Carocci, Roma 2024, 167-190;

Vangelo di Filippo, a cura di F. Berno, Paoline, Milano 2021.

Teaching methods

Lectures and analysis of Coptic texts. Slides and videos will be shown. Students will be given the opportunity to actively participate in and offer their own contribution to the exegetical work on texts.

Assessment methods

The final written test aims to verify the grammatical and linguistic skills acquired during the lessons, and consists of a translation from Coptic of five sentences: two of them already analyzed during the lessons, the other three never read before. The test will be considered passed with the correct translation of at least three sentences.

Teaching tools

Computer and projector; bibliographic and electronic databases; fotocopies; texts and segments of texts in PDF format uploaded by the teacher as teaching materials. Students with learning disorders and/or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Office hours

See the website of Daniele Tripaldi