Stephen Emmel

Stephen Lewis Emmel (born June 27, 1952 in Rochester (New York) ) is an American coptologist .

Life

Stephen Emmel received his BA from Syracuse University in 1973 (Department of Religion). He began his graduate studies with James M. Robinson , who took Emmel with him to Cairo in 1974 as a research assistant in the international project for the publication of the Coptic Gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi scriptures . Emmel lived in Egypt from 1974 to 1977 in order to complete the edition of the Nag Hammadi papyri in the Coptic Museum and to assist with the publication of a facsimile edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices and an English-language edition and to translate the texts contained therein. During these years he traveled several times to Jerusalem to meet the Egyptologist and linguist HJ Polotsky to deepen his knowledge of Coptic grammar.

In 1978 Emmel continued his studies with Bentley Layton at Yale University , where in 1980 he discovered part of Nag Hammadi Codex III in the Beincke Rare Book and Manuscript Library , which contained the previously unidentified fragment in a group of various papyri acquired in 1964. At about the same time he became the first scholar to see the now famous Gnostic Gospel of Judas in what is now Codex Tchacos when it went on sale in Geneva in 1983 . In the short time, however, Emmel did not see the title Judas Gospel in the papyrus manuscript and was therefore not the first to identify the text as such. In 2004, when the National Geographic Society was considering a project to promote the preservation and publication of the Codex Tchacos , Emmel was asked to join the Codex Advisory Panel and he also appeared in the Society's widely acclaimed Gospel Documentation of the Judas Project . Emmel received his PhD from Yale University in 1993 (Department of Religious Studies, Program in the Study of Ancient Christianity). His doctoral thesis laid the foundation for his current research, which is an international joint project to publish the writings of the old Coptic monk leader Schenute von Atripe (347-465). In 1996 Emmel was appointed professor for Coptology at the Institute for Egyptology and Coptology at the University of Münster . During the academic year 2010–11 he was released from the University of Münster to work as the first full-time professor of coptology at the American University in Cairo . In 2019 he retired.

In 1976 Emmel became a founding member of the International Association for Coptic Studies , whose first international congress he helped organize (Cairo, December 1976). Between 1996 and 2000 he was president of the association and since 2000 its secretary. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Coptic Studies (1988-2001 with Gerald Michael Browne ) and he has contributed to the editing of several academic monographs.

Music as a hobby

Emmel began to sing and play the piano and guitar in his youth and made music as a hobby. An acquaintance with David Tibet through a shared interest in the Coptic language (Tibet has an MA in Coptic Studies from Macquarie University ) led Emmel to play on stage with the Tibet band Current 93 from 2007-2010 . Part of one of these performances was recorded and published in 2008.

Fonts (selection)

• as editor: Nag Hammadi Codex III, 5. The dialogue of the savior (= Nag Hammadi studies. Volume 26). Brill, Leiden 1984, ISBN 90-04-07558-5 .
• as editor: An international directory of institutions holding collections of Coptic antiquities outside of Egypt . Centro Italiano Microfiches, Rome 1990, ISBN 88-85354-00-9 .
• as editor with Martin Krause , Sofia Schaten and Siegfried G. Richter : Egypt and Nubia in Late Antique and Christian Times. Files of the 6th International Coptic Congress, Münster, 20. – 26. July 1996 (= Languages ​​and Cultures of the Christian Orient. Volume 6). Reichert, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-89500-095-7 .
  • Volume 1. Material culture, art, and religious life .
  • Volume 2. Literature, language and world of thought .
• Shenoute's literary corpus. Volume 1 (= Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium. Subsidia. Volume 111) (= Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium. Volume 599). Peeters, Leuven 2004, ISBN 90-429-1230-8 (also dissertation, Yale 1993).
• Shenoute's literary corpus. Volume 2 (= Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium. Subsidia. Volume 112) (= Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium. Volume 600). Peeters, Leuven 2004, ISBN 90-429-1231-6 (also dissertation, Yale 1993).
• as editor with Johannes Hahn and Ulrich Gotter : From temple to church. Destruction and renewal of local cultic topography in late antiquity (= Religions in the Graeco-Roman world. Volume 163). Brill, Leiden 2008, ISBN 978-90-04-13141-5 .
• as editor with David Brakke and Stephen J. Davis : From gnostics to monastics. Studies in coptic and early christianity in honor of Bentley Layton (= Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta. Volume 263). Peeters, Leuven / Paris / Bristol 2017, ISBN 978-90-429-3400-9 .

Web links

• Page at the University of Münster
• Page at academia.edu