« Preliminary Reedition and Translation of the Gospel of the Savior: New Light on the Strasbourg Coptic Gospel and the Stauros Text from Nubia »

Abstract

The recently published "Gospel of the Savior" (editio princeps 1999) has already been shown to be a second manuscript of the work known from the "Strasbourg Coptic Papyrus" (editio princeps 1900). The Old Nubian "Stauros-Text" (known also from an as yet unpublished Coptic version) also witnesses to this work. When these witnesses are combined, the work gains something of a new identity. Although this work is certainly a "narrative gospel" in some sense, its surviving portions consist largely of sayings of Jesus ("the Savior") in conversation with his disciples ("the apostles"). The author has mixed sayings known from the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels with material that is otherwise unknown. The new gospel seems to have served in turn as a source of inspiration for the author of the "Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ" (by the apostle Bartholomew). The article concludes with a translation and the Coptic text.