Updated American Standard Version
Giving Bible readers what God said not what translators think God meant
The Sahidic Coptic version supports early Alexandrian readings and strengthens confidence in the documentary basis of the critical Greek New Testament.
What are variant reading(s)? They are differing versions of a word or phrase found in two or more manuscripts within a variation unit (see below). Variant readings are also called alternate readings.
Papyrus 2 (P2) is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek and Coptic. It is a papyrus fragment of a copy of the Gospel of John dating to the sixth century.
The earliest translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures were into Syriac, Latin, and Coptic. As Christianity spread, of course, other versions would have been required. Even though Greek was very much used in Egypt, in time, the need to have a translation in the native language of the growing Egyptian Christian population would come.
Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic preserve an Alexandrian-aligned New Testament; in John 1:1 their grammar is qualitative, not “a god,” matching the earliest Greek papyri.
