W.E. Crum's Coptic Dictionary is the authoritative Coptic lexicon for studying the Coptic Bible and early Coptic Christian writings. His work is comparable to the Oxford Latin Dictionary or the Liddell & Scott Greek-English Lexicon in terms of its coverage of the Coptic language.
Crum's work, finished in 1939, is a very comprehensive study of early Coptic writings and the Coptic Bible, but was published before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi in 1945. To account for these discoveries, Richard Smith's work A Concise Coptic-English Lexicon, is an excellent companion to Crum. Additions from the Nag Hammadi, which included many well-known Gnostic writings, most notably the Gospel of Thomas, are noted in Smith's lexicon, which was published in 1983. Taken together, Crum and Smith provide excellent coverage of all important Coptic literature.
Additional Coptic-language resources you'll want to explore include: Sahidic Coptic Collection (Sahidica), The Coptic Versions of the Minor Prophets, and The Nag Hammadi Library in English.
What is Coptic? Why is the Coptic Bible important?
The ancient Egyptians wrote with over 4000 symbols, but were quick to adopt the Greek alphabet’s 24 letters in the aftermath of the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great. Coptic is the Egyptian language written in Greek letters – with some additional letters added to represent sounds not found in Greek. The Coptic Bible contains some of the earliest recorded manuscripts of the canonical scriptures, as well as many significant Gnostic texts. The Coptic Bible is incredibly important because of its relationship to the early Church and the evolution of the Greek texts in such close proximity to the time of Christ.
By adding Crum's Coptic Dictionary to your Logos Bible Software Library, you expand your ability to study Coptic Christian works with the definitive dictionary resource. In the critical apparatus, (see SESB), used by scholars to help determine the best text of the Greek Bible, there are over 6,100 references to Coptic readings. Greek and Hebrew lexicons often list Coptic cognates. Crum's Coptic Dictionary, combined with the text of the Coptic Bible, a forthcoming addition to Logos, will be a key resource in investigating the text of the New Testament. Along with its companion text, Smith's A Concise Coptic-English Lexicon, this dictionary allows your Logos Bible Software to become your primary tool for studying Coptic Christianity, including the Coptic Bible and Coptic patristic writings, as well as the Nag Hammadi texts such as the Gospel of Thomas.
About the Author
Walter Ewing Crum (1865-1944), author of the Catalogues of Coptic Manuscripts for both the British Museum and the John Rylands Library, devoted thirty-five years to the preparation of his Coptic Dictionary, first published in 1939. It immediately became, and has remained, the definitive dictionary of the Coptic language. Each word is given with variant word-forms, its context in English summary, the original or equivalent words in Greek, and illustration of its use. Drawn from sources including Sa'idic and Bohairic manuscripts, medieval vocabularies, Manichean papyri, magical texts, inscriptions, and official, ecclesiastical, and private documents, the dictionary offers a comprehensive view of the language in all its dialects and all aspects of its literature: biblical, patristic, and mundane.
Praise for the Print Edition
Coptology is fortunate to have among its tools one of the finest of ancient language dictionaries, that by W. E. Crum. Crum's dictionary is essential for understanding the meanings of Coptic words.
- Richard Smith, author of A Concise Coptic-English Lexicon
…the fruit of a lifetime of detailed research… There is in fact no replacement for 'Crum.'… [Later works] stand on Crum's shoulders and will never replace Crum as the foundation on which modern Coptology has been built."
- James M. Robinson
Benefits of the Logos Bible Software Edition
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Sample Pages from the Print Edition