Bible

Bohairic, originally the Coptic dialect of the Nile Delta, became the dominant liturgical form of the Coptic Bible, and it remains the version used in the services of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Its scope covers both the Old and New Testaments, translated from Greek, with the Septuagint serving as the base text for the Old Testament and the Greek New Testament for the New. Its translation philosophy stays close to the Greek, and it is best categorized as a fresh translation within a revision tradition, drawing on earlier Coptic traditions — among them the Sahidic version of Upper Egypt — as its predecessor or base translation. As with other early versions, its readings are of interest to textual scholars of the Greek Bible. One distinctive feature is that the predominance of later manuscripts can obscure the earlier stages of the tradition.