The article brings to scholalry attention a large fragment of the Greek original of Severian of Gavala’s sermon «On the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem» (CPG 4246 = CPG 4287), which was previously considered lost. Prior to this discovery, the text was known only from Old Armenian and Old Georgian translations. The edition (editio princeps) of the Greek text from the majuscule manuscript Sinai, New Finds, ΜΓ3 is preceded by introductory remarks of palaeographical and codicological nature, as well as a list of other identified homiletic texts preserved in this ancient manuscript; an early dating of the end of the 8th century is suggested. The Greek text is accompanied by a Russian translation in a comparative table, where we juxtappose the Russian translations from the ancient Armenian and Georgian versions.

This publication presents a new translation of the Song of Songs of Solomon into Russian from the Greek Septuagint text. The introductory article points out the task facing Russian biblical studies to translate into Russian all the books of the Old Testament from the Septuagint, considers the peculiarities of the Greek text of the Song of Songs in the LXX translation, gives an overview of its manuscript tradition, printed editions, Slavonic and Russian translations. Finally, the peculiarities of the present translation are noted. The translation is accompanied by the Greek text, which in a number of places departs from the standard edition of A. Ralphs, taking into account modern publications and studies. A textual commentary on the translation is given, the purpose of which is, first, to give an idea of the peculiarities of the Septuagint text; second, to justify the choice of this or that Greek reading; further, to offer an explanation of rare words and difficult passages; and, finally, to justify the chosen variant of the Russian translation. In doing so, editions of the Masoretic text and other ancient translations, patristic works, and modern scholarly literature are consulted.

The present article is dedicated to the investigation problem of the interpretation of Melchizedek as the divine logos in one of Philo of Alexandria fragments namely Legum allegoriae III, 79–82. In this fragment Philo uses the word λόγος twice as a designation of Melchizedek. Since this word have multiple meanings, it doesn’t necessary means that Philo considered him to be the divine logos. Nevertheless, since the middle of the XVII century one can trace the trend in European scholarship to interpret the figure of Melchizedek in the fragment as the allegory of the divine logos. Nowadays this is a mainstream interpretation. However, the critical examinations of its basics shows that they are highly problematic. Moreover, it contradicts the inner logic of the whole discussion, that has our fragment as its part. In the current article I am going to give a critical view on the origins of the interpretation Melchizedek as a divine logos in Legum allegoriae III, 79–82; to show its contradictions to the general logic of Philo’s discussion; to provide my own interpretation based on the analysis of allegorical interpretation of Old Testament priests by Philo and his use of the term μέθη νηφαλία (sober intoxication) regarding priestly figures.

In examining the Messianic quotation from Isa. 7, 14b and its transmission in Matt. 1, 23, the main attention was usually paid to the analysis of the semantics of the word «Virgo» and textual discrepancies regarding it. In this publication we have studied the variability of the rendering of the verb «to call» in both the Old and New Testaments. At the same time, the Syriac translations of Isa. 7, 14b (Peshiṭta and Syro-Hexaples) and Matt. 1, 23 (Cureton Version and Sinaitic Palimpsest, Peshiṭta) have been studied in the light of the Masoretic text, the Great Scroll of Isai ah, the Septuagint, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, the Vulgate and the Greek text of the New Testament. Note that when analyzing these versions of Isa. 7, 14b and Matt. 1, 23, all textual evidence/discrepancies known through critical apparatuses were also taken into account. To understand the discrepancies in the Syriac translations of the messianic quotation, we turned to the compilation exegetical heritage of Isho‘dad of Merv. As a result, we came to the conclusion that the root of the current problem stems from the variability in the definition of the verb וְקָרָאת (Masoretic text) and the presence of another variant from the Hebrew prototype — וקרא.

This article discusses the features of the modern translation of the Russian Bible Society (2017) on the example of two passages Deut. 28, 66 and Dan. 9, 26 which, due to their laconic and ambiguous original text, can be considered as Old Testament biblical messianisms. A detailed analysis of these passages allows us to attribute the modern Russian translation of the Bible to a functional type of translation, which, as it turns out, can lead to the elimination of messianisms in favor of a one-sided description of historical events that are modern for the author of the Bible book.

The second part of the review of Coptic Studies publications presents contributions published in eleven journals for 2021: «Apocrypha» (one paper), «Archiv für Papyrusforschung» (one paper), «Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists» (one paper), «Church History» (one paper), «Harvard Theological Review» (one paper), «IKON» (one paper), «Le Muséon» (two papers), «Religion in the Roman Empire» (one paper), «Revue de l’histoire des religions» (one paper), «Trends in Classics» (one paper) and «Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde» (one paper). Two papers deal with apocryphal texts (papers by Bishara Ebeid and Christian Askeland). Two papers analyse the ascetic corpus of texts (papers by Benjamin Hansen and Christian Barthel). Three papers contain the hagiographic studies (papers by Frederic Krueger, Nebojsa Tumara and Stefan Bojowald). Four articles focus on magical texts (papers by Lincoln H. Blumell with Korshi Dosoo, as well as three other papers by Korshi Dosoo). Finally, one publication focuses on grammatical gender in Coptic (paper by Sabrina Bendjaballah and Chris H. Reintges).