This is the first edition of two Coptic manuscripts with biblical contents from the Papyrus Collection of the University of Michigan; a German translation is provided. Comprehensive indexes provide access to the two papyri. The papyrus Michigan 3520 contains the biblical books of Ecclesiastes, the First Epistle of St. John and the Second Epistle of St. Peter in an early version of Fayumic (Dialect V4). The manuscript probably dates from the first half of the 4th century, and its age alone lends it extraordinary scholarly significance - both for the history of the transmission of biblical texts and for research into the Coptic dialects. The first part of the (slightly younger) Papyrus Michigan 6868 contains fragments of the Preaching of Solomon (Ecclesiastes) in Classical Fayumic (Dialect F5) and is similarly of great value for the history of the Coptic Septuagint. The second part of the Papyrus Michigan 6868, an Agathonicus fragment, was already published by Schenke in 1996 (in the Festschrift for Ludwig Koenen).

Author Biography

Until his retirement in 1994, Prof. Emeritus Dr. Dr. Hans Schenke taught New Testament Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin and founded the Berlin Working Group of Coptic Gnostic Writing more than 30 years ago. He died in 2002. Since his retirement in 1998, Dr. Rodolphe Kasser has been actively engaged as Honorary Professor of Coptic Language and Literature at the University of Geneva, and has edited numerous Coptic and Greek manuscripts (primarily from the Bodmer Collection).