[[From A Multiform Heritage: Studies on Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Robert A. Kraft, ed. Benjamin G. Wright (Scholars Press Homage Series 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1999) 245-262]]
A Coptic Manuscript of the
Gospel of
John at the
University of
Robert
Kraft has gained acclaim for his wide range of scholarly interests and
skills, and he has received international recognition for his
pioneering
work in developing electronic data bases and in utilizing computer
technology in the
study of ancient texts. In addition to being a scholar with an
international reputation, his students know personally his commitment
to training
young scholars and including them in his research. The unraveling and
identification
of what began as a large clump of papyrus in the University of
Pennsylvania Museum provide eloquent testimony to Bob’s wide array of
scholarly
skills.
In 1979 Kraft began
work on the lump
of papyri fragments that bore the Museum number E16292. Although aware
that they seemed to be hopelessly fused together, he succeeded in separating
them and identifying them as a
Sahidic Coptic Gospel of John. In 1988 he turned the project over to
Ben Wright
and Noel Hubler. As a celebration both of his 65th
birthday
and of his
continuing and productive scholarly career we offer this publication of
E16292 as
a
tribute to Bob’s work with papyri, computers and salvage, but most
especially
to the priority he places on mentoring his students.
Introduction to the Collection
At
the end of the 19th century, the
1For a history of the papyri acquisitions see, John R. Abercrombie, “Egyptian Papyri,” Expedition (Winter 1978) 3-12.
The Museum’s holdings
were hardly
touched from the time Müller made his purchases until 1966 when
Kraft and some
interested graduate students began to investigate what the Museum
owned. In
1971 a program was begun to organize the Museum’s manuscript
collection. Only
minimal attention was focused on the Coptic, however, because of the
relatively
large amount of material in that language and its relatively poor state
of
preservation.
At present the larger
collections,
Greek, Arabic, and Coptic, still require extensive work. As far as the
extent
of the Coptic holdings is concerned, in 1989, the last year that we
worked on
the entire collection, the Museum shelf list showed 131 acquisition
numbers as
Coptic (including some bilingual documents). Among these numbers are
several
“dump” envelopes containing numerous small fragments. No one still
quite knows
how many different documents comprise the collection.
As a result of the paucity of work done on the Coptic materials, most
of the
documents remain unidentified. During the several earlier expeditions
into the
Coptic collection, Kraft and one of his students identified eleven
texts. These
included a large Psalms manuscript (an announcement of which was
published by
Kraft),2 a fragment of the Acts of the Apostles (published
by
Kraft),3 some fragments of Psalms, several non-literary
texts (one
private letter was published by Leslie S. B. MacCoull),4 and
the
Gospel that is the focus of this article. In the course of our work in
the
collection, we identified small fragments of several New Testament
books:
Matthew, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians and Hebrews. Outside of
the
Bible, we have found parts of at least three folio pages from the life
of an as
yet unidentified saint, a short text that praises St. Stephen, as well
as
numerous personal letters. Still, a large number of texts remains to be
studied.5 [[247]]
2Robert
A. Kraft, “An Unpublished Coptic/Sahidic Psalter Codex at the
3Robert A.
Kraft, “A
Sahidic Parchment Fragment of Acts 27.4-13 at the
4Leslie
S. B.
MacCoull, “A Coptic Letter in the
5We worked
on the entire
Coptic collection for most of two summers, 1988 and 1989. In addition
to
extensive work on the Penn Gospel, we surveyed the entire collection,
trying to
identify, or at least to describe the contents of, as many documents as
possible. The notes from [[247]] our work can be found on Kraft’s web
page (URL
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html under “Papyrological and
Manuscript
Studies”).
The Penn Gospel
In
1979, while making one of his periodic
forays into the Coptic collection, Robert Kraft discovered, among the
papyri
acquired by Müller, a large lump of papyrus (Museum no. E16292)
that had
apparently been used in antiquity as stiffening for a book cover. The
lump was
part of a larger purchase made by Müller in
While examining the
fragments, Kraft
found one that contained the name LAZAROS, and further examination
confirmed
that this particular piece contained John 11.1, “Now a certain man was
ill,
Lazaros of
The text originally
occupied
approximately 40 folio pages of a larger book. Although no single full
page is
preserved, our reconstructions show that each page measured
approximately 22.8
cm. x 19.4 cm. The text was written in two columns/page with
approximately 32
lines/page and 13 letters/line.6 Of [[248]] John’s 21
chapters, the
fragments preserve some part of all but 1, 2, and 12. It cannot as yet
be
determined in what type of book the Gospel was contained, but it does
not seem
to have been a New Testament, at least not in its modem form. The final
verses
of John (21.21-23, 25) are extant together
with the Gospel’s concluding title lines, but the opposite side of this
final
Johannine fragment contains a text written in a hand different from
that of the
Gospel. It does not appear to be a long colophon. Unfortunately, we
have not
been able to identify the text, but using electronic search methods we
have
concluded that it is not from a book of the New Testament as published
in
Horner’s critical Sahidic text. The
possibility remains, of course, that it contains a
variant New Testament text that departs significantly from that of the
Sahidic
New Testament that we have in electronic form, but given our inability
to fmd any connections
with Horner’s New Testament text that seems unlikely to us.
6The
54 lines of the papyrus
which are complete, or nearly complete, average 12.85 letters per line.
To get
an idea of how many lines existed per column, we examined fragments
where three
columns existed or could be reconstructed. Many fragments have columns
which
presumably were separated by two columns of text, because they were the
first
and last columns on a folio page. By counting the characters between
fragments
it was possible to estimate the number of lines between fragments. By
adding
the number of lines that most likely filled the gap to the number of
lines on
one fragment, it was possible to estimate the number of lines over
three
columns. Excluding fragment 3.6, whose column arrangement is unclear
due to a
double transposition (see further below), nine fragments were examined using this method.
At the
low end, fragment 4.2 had between 89 and 94 lines over three columns.
At the
high end, fragment 2.8 had 101 lines over three columns, while fragment
3.8 had
between 98 and 102 lines over its three columns. Overall the fragments
averaged
95.94 lines over three
columns or 31.98 lines per column.
Similar numbers are
achieved if we
look at consecutive columns. Fragments which come from consecutive
columns on a
folio page (usually from columns 2 and 3) average 31.36 lines per
column. To
arrive at this number we excluded Fragment 4.16, which, if it contained
a text
of John like Horner’s critical edition (G. W. Horner, ed., The
Copric
Version of the New Testament in the Southern Dialect, Otherwise Called
Sahidic
and Thebaic [Oxford, [[248]] 1911-1924]), would have had 45 to 47 lines
per column. This number is 10 lines more than
the next highest line count and may well reflect some sort of textual
omission
in the Penn Gospel.
On paleographical
grounds, the
manuscript can be dated to about the 9th or 10th
century.7
The scribe who copied it employed a full stop and an enlarged. space
after some
large sense breaks, often coinciding with verse breaks in modem
editions.
Super-literal strokes do appear occasionally, but with no evident
consistency.
7The
palaeographic charts in
Maria Craemer’s Koptische Paleographie (Wiesbaden O.
Harrasowitz, 1964)
were the primary basis for this conclusion. We have not been able as
yet to
check the Penn Gospel against Henri Hyvenat, Bybliothecae Pierpont
Morgan
codices coptici (Rome, 1922) in which a number of manuscripts from
the 9th
and 10th centuries an published in facsimile.
At this stage of our
study, we can
only offer some preliminary and tentative remarks about the
text-critical place
of the Gospel in the Coptic tradition. We collated the text against
Horner’s
critical edition and against Herbert Thompson’s collation of two
Chester Beatty
manuscripts of John.8 Unfortunately, Horner’s edition is
long out of
date, but it remains all that there is. More recent publications of
Coptic
biblical texts have not yet been incorporated into a much needed new
critical
edition, and we have not had the opportunity to collate our text with
all those
that have appeared since Horner’s work. [[249]]
8Sir
Herbert Thompson, Coptic
Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the PauIine Epistles in the
Sahidic
Dialect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932). At the end
of the
volume is an appendix in which Thompson collates two Chester Beatty
manuscripts
of John against Horner.
These two manuscripts, designated A and B by Thompson, are apparently Chester Beatty 813 and 814 as mentioned in a
publication that we have not as yet seen: Johannes H. Quecke, Das
Johanrsesevangelium saidisch. Text der Handschrift PPalau Rib lnv.-Nr.
183 mit
den Varianten der Handschrften 813 und 814 der Chester Beatty Library
und der
Handschrift M 56 (Papyrologica Castroctaviana, Studia et Textus
11;
Rome/Barcelona 1984).
The text-critical
situation in the
Sahidic is complicated by the fact that many, if not most, of the
witnesses
used by Horner for John are fragmentary, as is the Penn Gospel. Thus,
we can,
at this juncture, only indicate manuscripts, or in the case of the
Bohairic,
traditions, listed by Horner to which our fragments seem to be related.
Additionally a large number of the variants are orthographic and thus
are of
little text-critical value.
Four Sahidic
manuscripts show the
closest relation to our John text:
Horner’s Ms 69, a Vatican manuscript, Ms 86, also in the
9For
the contents of 69 and 86,
see Horner, Coptic Version, 3.351, 352. On the Chester Beatty
manuscripts, see the collation in Thompson, Coptic Version, Appendix.
The two Chester Beatty
manuscripts
each contain the entire gospel. For the portions contained in our
fragments,
the Penn Gospel is closest to Chester Beatty A, which has seven
variants in common
with our text, including a different word order for 5.32 and a different text for the end of 7.47. It
also
varies from Horner eight times independently, but four involve the
omission or
of a particle, the omission of the article and the omission of the
direct object
marker. Chester Beatty B agrees with our manuscript seven times,
including 5.32
and 7.47, but it varies independently eleven times. Among these,
however, are a
number of variants entailing the use of a particle.
The Penn Gospel has a
number of
orthographic proclivities, but grammatically it is unremarkable.
Orthographically, it shows some signs of phonetic changes from earlier
Coptic
manuscripts. It tends to fill out consonants with overstrikes by
prefixing E. At John 11.19 and 21.25 the Penn
Gospel adds an E in front of
a consonant with overstrike and at 20.10 it has an EM where Horner has MM. By contrast, it consistently drops E in perfect relative forms (see 7.38 and
11.33;
compare NSEHh for ENSEHh at 20.30).
The Penn Gospel also
demonstrates
some changes in diphthongs, perhaps reflecting an assimilation of some
diphthongs to simple vowels in later Sahidic. It uses, for example, EI for
I in 11.40 and at 20.20 it changes OU to O. Perhaps
its most striking orthographic change is the spelling of sWPE as hW[PE] at 21.4. The
spelling parallels the form of sWPE in the Amharic dialect. The Penn Gospel also
displays
unfamiliarity with Greek, as it transposes letters in Greek terms at
11.18 and
18.22. [[250]]
Grammatically,
the Penn Gospel is
inconsistent in its use of circumstantials. Twice it uses initial forms
where
Horner has circumstantials, but once it has a circumstantial where
Horner’s
text has an initial. The Penn Gospel uses a first perfect at 5.6 and an
imperfect at 18.22. In both places, Horner has circumstantials. Both of
these
variants are also found in
The E16292 fragments
also seem to
have some relationship to the Bohairic translation of John. They agree
with the
Bohairic in a number of substantive variants. The relationship between
Sahidic
and Bohairic Coptic in this period, however, complicates any attempt to
understand the textual situation of the Penn Gospel. Without going into
detail,
the question must be asked if E16292 provides an example of the Sahidic
and the
Bohairic translation being based on the same type of Greek text, or if
it
demonstrates a Sahidic text form developing towards the Bohairic, which
by this
time has become the standard liturgical text of Coptic Christianity. At
this
time we cannot say.10
10For
details on the various
translations of the Coptic Bible, their status as independent
translations of
the Greek and the possible relationships between the translations in
the
different dialects, see Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the
New
Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations (Oxford:
Oxford
University Press, 1977) 99-152.
The
Penn Gospel shows a remarkable double
transposition on fragments 3.6, 1.2 and 4.9, which we discovered
originated
together on the same sheet of papyrus. They preserve parts of John
8.48-9.22.
The fragments are inscribed over four columns in the following
arrangement:
Although the four columns are on the same sheet, they evidently
all did
not appear on the same manuscript page.11 The Penn Gospel
has about
2 cm between columns on the same page, but there are 5.5 cm between the
columns
on fragment 3.6. They, then, are the inside columns on two different
pages of a
single papyrus sheet that had been bound in a larger quire. The large area between columns was where the sheet had been folded.
11For details on the
development of the codex
see E. G.
Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia:
University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1977).
Thus,
column 1 contains section 1, while
its verso, column 4, continues with section 2. Still on the verso,
column 3 has
section 3 and its recto has section 4, column 2 of the fragment. If the
quire
were laid out to open from the right, section 1 should be to the right
of
section 4 and section 2 should be to the left of section 3 as follows:
column 1 = section 4 column 2 = section
1 [[251]]
column 3 = section 2 column 4 = section
3
But
the order of the columns in the Penn Gospel is reversed:
column 1 = section 1 column 2 = section
4
column 3 = section 3 colunm 4 = section
2
If
the quire (and therefore the codex)
opened from the left side of the page, then the arrangement would
follow
naturally. If the quire opened from the right, as one would normally
expect,
then column 4 would come first, followed by columns 1 and 2, and then
column 3.
The order of the text would then be:
John 8.53-55 8.48-51
9.17-22
9.12-16
A
right-handed quire would require a double transposition. The scribe
started
with 8.53-55,
then skipped back to 8.48,
then
continued on to 9.17, then jumped back to 9.12.
Such a double
transposition could be
explained in the following way. The scribe copied from an exemplar
which had
slightly longer lines or columns than the Penn Gospel. The page (or
pages) in
the scribe’s exemplar had been torn and reinserted backwards. Thereby,
section
2 preceded section 1 and section 4 preceded section 3 in the exemplar.
Such an
inversion of pages in the exemplar would explain the double
transposition of
passages in the Penn Gospel.
Apparently, the columns
in the
exemplar contained more letters than the Penn Gospel. Between section 2
and
section 3, where there would be two intervening columns of text
missing, Horner
has the equivalent of between 105 to 113 lines of text. Based on
averages from
other fragments, we would expect 96 lines over three columns, so 9 to
17 lines
between the sections are missing. Presumably, the Penn Gospel did not
have as
many letters per column as the exemplar.
The Text of the Penn Gospel
The
text of the Penn Gospel is listed in
chapter-verse order of the Gospel of John. First, we list each fragment
number
followed by its text.12 Following the fragment number, <-> indicates the direction of the papyrus
striations for the first side.
Next, we list column numbers if multiple columns are preserved. Then
follows
the text with chapter and verse numbers noted. Where a passage is
preserved on
multiple fragments, which are either joined or nearly so, the multiple
fragments are listed at the head of the section. The first fragment is
unmarked,
while an equal sign and fragment number in the margin identify the
beginning
and end of subsequent fragments. If two fragments preserve text from
the same
line, braces [[252]] enclose the text from the second fragment. An
empty line
between passages represents a gap between fragments.
12Kraft
assigned fragment numbers when he separated the lumps of papyrus. The
first
number designates the lump from which the fragment came. The number
after the
decimal designates the layer in which the fragment lay in the lump.
Since these
numbers were assigned as the fragments were separated, they do not
match the
chapter-verse order of the book.
A
dot over a letter indicates that it is
only partially preserved. A period in the line indicates that ink is
visible
but that the letter is illegible. A raised period in the line is a
punctuation
mark in the text. Decorations were also visible in the margins on
fragment 3.5,
at the beginning of column 2, John 7.28, and at the end of fragment
4.12, John
8.14. There are six lines of decoration at the end of the Gospel text
followed
by the title.
| fragment # | first side | other side |
| 4.16 | John 03.03 | John 03.09-10 |
| 2.11 | John 04.39-41 | John 05.05-07 |
| 2.12 | John 05.32-33 | John 06.01-02 |
| 3.3 + 4.15 | John 06.04-08 + 07-08 | John 06.22 + 24 |
| 1.4 | John 06.43-44 | John ???? |
| 2.10 | John 07.06-07 | John 07.12-13 |
| 3.5 + 1.3 | John 07.22-28 | John 07.32-38 |
| 4.10-12 | John 07.47-50 | John 08.12-14 |
| 2.9a | John 08.31 | John 08.37-38 |
| 3.6 + 1.2 + 4.9 | John 08.48-09.15 + 09.16 | John 08.53-09.20 +09.21-22 |
| 2.8 | John 09.28-30 | John 10.06-08 |
| 4.8 + 1.1 | John 10.37-38 + 10.42-11.03 | John 11.06-09 +11.13-15 |
| 3.7 | John 11.18-21 + 11.26-29 | John 11.32-33 + 11.39-41 |
| 3.8 | John 13.29-31 | John 14.08-???? |
| 2.4 | John 15.25 + 16.04-05 | John 16.???? |
| 4.6 | John 16.25-26 | John 16.30-32 |
| 2.3 | John 17.15-18 | John 17.22-23 |
| 4.2 | John 18.21-23 | John 18.36 |
| 2.1 | John 19.18-20 | John 19.32-34 |
| 4.5 | John 20.04-05 | John 20.10-11 |
| 2.2 | John 20.20-21 + 20.25-26 | John 20.30-31 + 21.03-04 |
| 4.3 | John 21.20-23 + 21.25 | new text = ?? |
Fragment 4.16 <-> = John 03.03 , 03.09-10
Fragment 2.11 <-> = John 04.39-41 , 05.05-07
Fragment 2.12 <-> = John 05.32-33, 06.01-02
Fragments 3.3 + 4.15 <-> = John 06.04-08, 06.22-24
Fragment 1.4 <-> = John 06.43-44, ????
Fragment 2.10 <-> = John 07.06-07, 07.12-13
Fragments 3.5 + 1.3 <-> = John 07.22-24, 07.28-38
Fragments 4.10-12 <-> = John 07.47-50, 08.12-14
Fragment 2.9a <||> = John 08.31, <-> 08.37
Fragments 3.6 + 1.2 + 4.9 <-> = John 08.48-09.16, 09.17-22
Fragment 2.8 <-> = John 09.28-30, 10.06-08
Fragment 4.8 <-> = John 10.37-38 + 10.42-11.03, 11.06-09, 11.13-15
Fragment 3.7 <||> = John 11.18-21 + 11.26-29, <-> 11.32-33 + 11.39-41
Fragment 3.8 <-> = John 13.29-31, 14.08-????
Fragment 2.4 <-> = John 15.25 + 16.04-05, ????
Fragment 4.6 <-> = John 16.25-26, 16.30-32
Fragment 2.3 <-?> = John 17.15-18, 17.22-23
Fragment 4.2<-?> = John 18.21-23, 18.36
Fragment 2.1 <||> = John 19.18-20, 19.32-34
Fragment 4.5 <-> = John 20.04-05, 20.10-11
Fragment 2.2 <||> = John 20.20-21 + 20.25-26, <-> 20.30-31 + 21.03-04
Fragment 4.3 <-> = John 21.20-23 + 21.25
Unplaced [needs checking]
1.5
2.5-7a-b and 9b [no 6?]
3.1-2, 4, 6, 10
4.1+4+7+13+14+17
Addendum by RAK 30ap2010
Wright and Hubler do not comment on the many instances of apparent "mirror writing" on the preserved fragments, presumably caused by ink blotting between the tightly compacted lumps, and/or the impact of any adhesive used to create the lumps. A closer examination of those instances may serve to identify further fragments or better readings, and also to confirm the order in which the already damaged fragments were lumped. Among the most obvious examples are frgs 2.12, 4.9, 1.3, 4.5, [among those fully processed by now], where the mirror writing is perpendicular to the main text. The back side of 2.12 <|>, for example, gives a clear mirror image of 2.11 <->; 4.10 <|> is mirrored on 4.9 <|>; 1.1 <|> has a clear mirror image on the margin, not yet identified. Both sides of 1.3 have mirror images -- on side one <-> is 1.2 and on the other side 1.4 (and clearly the page was fragmented before this phenomenon occurred). Virtually every page has such mirror images, which are more difficult to decipher unless in margin areas or perpendicular to the main preserved text.
