Strasbourg Coptic Papyrus

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The Strasbourg Coptic Papyrus is a fragment of an apocryphal gospel .

The two heavily damaged papyrus sheets from the 5th or 6th century, which have been in the Strasbourg State and University Library since 1899 (Kopt. 5 and Kopt. 6), were first recognized by Carl Schmidt as the remains of an apocryphal Gospel in Coptic .

The very poor state of preservation makes reconstruction problematic. A first attempt by Adolf Jacoby and Wilhelm Spiegelberg was sharply criticized by Carl Schmidt, who subsequently presented a reconstruction that is widely recognized today. The dispute between Adolf Jacoby and Willhelm Spiegelberg on the one hand and Carl Schmidt and Adolf Harnack on the other caused a lot of waves at the time. Harnack had submitted the reconstruction by Jacoby and Spiegelberg Schmidt for assessment, since this reconstruction was being discussed to be published within the framework of the Berlin Church Fathers Commission.

So far it was not possible to assign the fragments to a specific gospel at all. Jacobi considered it part of the Coptic Gospel of Egypt , Schmidt calls the Gospel of the Twelve with great reservations . Felix Haase , however, rejected all such attempts. S. Emmel sees connections to the unknown Berlin Gospel and suspects that it is the Gospel after the twelve apostles , which Origen mentions in a homily of Luke. It is also unclear in which language the script was originally written and the origin of the script. It can date from the 3rd century at the earliest.

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