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

Learning outcomes

The student acquires critical skills on specific subjects related to ancient philological, literary and historical disciplines or, in any case, useful for the advancement of her / his training (through contact with experienced scholars from different disciplines).

Course contents

Greek forgotten: hapax legomena and mistranslations in the Gospel of Truth (NHC I,3 and XII,2).

Until 1947, as two Coptic copies of the text were discovered in Egypt, the Gospel of Truth was just one among the many titles of now lost early Christian works. In a first moment, the seminar will provide students with the basic fundamentals of Coptic language and literature (20 hours). The last 10 hours will be then devoted to examining some philological and linguistical peculiarities of this rediscovered ancient Christian 'Gospel'. This aims both to demonstrate that the Gospel of Truth is not an original Coptic work and to reconstruct, albeit partially and hypothetically, its Greek text, which is - still - lost.

The introductory lesson will be held on Wednesday, November 13th at 5 pm in Aula Pasoli (Department of Classic Philology and Italian Studies, Via Zamboni, 32, 3rd floor). Lessons will take place in Aula Pasoli every Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. and every Thursday from 4 to 6 p.m.

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

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

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 (OLA 30), 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, Oregon 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, Georgia 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 chiesa copta. Egitto e Nubia, Edizioni Studio Domenicano, Bologna ²2014

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

— A proposito della pluralità linguistica nelle comunità cristiane dell’Egitto preislamico, forthcoming in Vie quotidienne et pluralité des langues. Le plurilinguisme dans les chrétientés du Haut et Bas-Empire, Actes du Colloque du GSEP, 23 février 2008 (Cahiers du GSEP, 2), a c. di E. Norelli e G. Aragione, Éditions du Zèbre, Prahins

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

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

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, 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

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 interpretive 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 four sentences: two of them already analyzed during the lessons, the other two never read before. The test will be considered passed with the correct translation of at least two 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 (downloadable from https://iol.unibo.it).

Office hours

See the website of Daniele Tripaldi