When they opened it, they found it contained a black stone slab covered with writing in three different scripts.Ī note from a French army officer accompanied the package. In late August, shortly after Napoleon's departure, a large, heavy package arrived at the scholars' palace in Cairo. The French army stayed behind in Egypt-and so did the scholars. Read the excerpt from The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone. Some of these scholars made otherwise significant contributions to the world's knowledge of ancient Egypt.Ī German priest of the 1600s, Athanasius Kircher, wrote the first grammar and vocabulary of Coptic, the language of Christian Egypt.įrom 1650 onward, Kircher produced several volumes of such nonsense. Looking at a certain group of symbols-which actually stood for the name of a pharaoh-Kircher let his imagination run wild. Which sentence from this excerpt is a fact? It earned him a reputation for being an expert on the hieroglyphs-a reputation that lasted, unfortunately, long after his death in 1680. Without any evidence to support him, he said that the hieroglyphs meant "The blessings of the god Osiris are to be procured by means of sacred ceremonies, in order that the benefits of the river Nile may be obtained."įrom 1650 onward, Kircher produced several volumes of such nonsense. These books were to prove of great value when the hieroglyphs were eventually deciphered.īut Kircher's ideas about the hieroglyphs themselves were even farther off the mark than those of Horapollo. A German priest of the 1600s, Athanasius Kircher, wrote the first grammar and vocabulary of Coptic, the language of Christian Egypt. Some of these scholars made otherwise significant contributions to the world's knowledge of ancient Egypt. I was just wondering if anyone else had something to say on the topic.Ead the excerpt from The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone by James Cross Giblin. It is a late version of the Hebrew that has Christological references "sanitized" by the Jewish Community that use it, while the LXX was the Bible of the Christian Church, which should be used by Christians, with understanding that it is a translation with limitations). (The MT is the Hebrew, so the KJV translators thought it was the obvious choice to translate from rather than the later LXX translation of the Hebrew. I would not just memorize from the KJV OT without checking first, as it may be quite different in Christological passages For Psalms, I would compare Brenton to the Coptic translation, and memorize from KJV or Brenton if not substantially different from the Coptic. I would check Brenton, NETS, and KJV for OT passages, and memorize from KJV if not substantially different, Brenton otherwise. I personally would memorize from KJV for NT. You would have to check your Church books to see what translations are being used in them. But the literary quality is not great at this point. It is far more accurate than pretty much anything else available. Here is an Agpeya translated from the Coptic (even the Gospels): Brenton's translation is quite poor, but a much more accurate OT than KJV. Many Churches use Brenton's translation of the LXX for the OT prophecies, and many translate the Psalms from Coptic. We follow the LXX (of which the Coptic Bible is a translation, and in fact in many ways more accurate than the versions of the LXX available today). The KJV and its descendants uses the MT for the OT, which is not right in an Orthodox Church. You should be able to tell which of these your Church uses by how old fashioned it sounds. It is more understandable to youth who aren't familiar with the older English, but it does have some inferior translation choices, so it's a trade-off. I think that eventually gained approval as well, but I'm not sure. Many still use that, but some have switched to the NKJV. The translation originally approved to read in Coptic Churches is the KJV. Is there any particular English Bible translation used in the services of the Coptic Orthodox Church? I ask because I had planned on memorizing some passages of Scripture and I wanted it to be in conformity to the translations we used at Church.
But, I am putting here to get a second opinion. I have already posted this on another forum where I got some good results.