A Coptic Bibliography

Abstract

The increasing stream of scholarly and scientific publications pouring steadily from modern presses has created an imperative need for subject bibliographies in practically every field, and to this need the field of Coptic studies is no exception. Indeed the lack of complete bibliographical guidance is here even more keenly felt because Coptic had, until the first issue of the Bulletin of the Société d' Archéologie Copte, in 1935, no proper organ of expression, and articles by Coptic scholars are scattered in periodicals devoted to Egyptian, Greek and the oriental languages, to history, religion, art and many other less likely fields, as well as in the journals of learned societies of many countries. The existing bibliographical guides are incomplete, out of date, or difficult to use for one reason or another, and valuable time and effort often have been spent in bibliographical research by Coptic scholars whose labors might have been saved for more fruitful employment. With the hope of eliminating this duplication of effort, a bibliography of Coptic studies has been compiled at the University of Michigan. At present it is in card form and is housed in the Office of the Curator of MSS. and Papyri. We hope to print it when world conditions again justify such publications, but in the meantime it may be profitable to give a brief account of the project, so that criticisms and suggestions from scholars may make the work more useful to them when it does appear.