Knowledge of the Sahidic manuscripts was lost until they were rediscovered in the 18th century. By the ninth century, Sahidic was gradually replaced by neighbouring Bohairic, and disappeared. So the Sahidic is famous for being the first major literary development of the Coptic language, though literary work in the other dialects soon followed. The first translation into the Sahidic dialect was made at the end of the 2nd century in Upper Egypt, where Greek was less well understood.
The collection of manuscripts of Sahidic translations is often designated by cop sa in academic writing and critical apparatus ("Sa" for "versio Sahidica" in BHS). , but most texts come from the 9th century and later. The earliest Bohairic manuscripts date to the 4th century The Sahidic was the leading dialect in the pre- Islamic period.
The two main dialects, Sahidic and Bohairic, are the most important for the study of early versions of the New Testament. New Testament 8th century Coptic manuscript of Luke 5:5–9 John 1:1–4 Bodmer XLIV – Book of Daniel Bohairic.Bodmer XXIII – Isaiah 47:1–66:24 4th century.Bodmer XXII – Jeremiah 40:3–52:34 Lamentations Epistle of Jeremiah Book of Baruch 4th/5th century.Bodmer XVIII – Deuteronomy 1:1–10:7 4th century.Bodmer XVI – Exodus 1:1–15:21 4th century.Bodmer VI – Proverbs 1:1–21:4 4th/5th century Paleo-Theban ("Dialect P").Bodmer III – John 1:1–21:25, Genesis 1:1–4:2 4th century Bohairic.The Mudil Psalter, the oldest complete psalter in the Coptic language ( Coptic Museum, Egypt, Coptic Cairo). In Sahidic, some Biblical books survived with complete text, as well as a large number of extant fragments representing most of the canonical books and certain of the deutero-canonical (the two Wisdoms, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and the Greek additions to Daniel).
Portions of the Old Testament exist in each Egyptian dialect.
Translators of books of the Old Testament into Egyptian dialects were naturally made from the Alexandrian Greek version ( Septuagint), and there is no reason to doubt that they were translated at as early a date as the Gospels and Epistles, if not indeed before them. Old Testament Job and his daughter from folio 4v of Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele III, MS I B 18. Coptic remains the liturgical language of the Coptic Church and Coptic editions of the Bible are central to that faith. A considerable number of apocryphal texts also survive in Coptic, most notably the Gnostic Nag Hammadi library. Partial copies of a number of Coptic Bibles survive. The Sahidic was the leading dialect in the pre- Islamic period, after the 11th century Bohairic became dominant and the only used dialect of the Coptic language. Biblical books were translated from the Alexandrian Greek version. Several different versions were made in the ancient world, with different editions of the Old and New Testament in five of the dialects of Coptic: Bohairic (northern), Fayyumic, Sahidic (southern), Akhmimic and Mesokemic (middle). There have been many Coptic versions of the Bible, including some of the earliest translations into any language.
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