Alin Suciu is a Romanian coptologist and

papyrologist Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...

. He is a senior researcher at the

Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Göttingen Academy of Sciences (german: Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen)Note that the German ''Wissenschaft'' has a wider meaning than the English "Science", and includes Social sciences and Humanities. is the second oldest of the se ...

and docent in Early Christian Literature and Coptic Christianity, Faculty of Theology,

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

Biography

Suciu holds a PhD degree in religious studies from Université Laval, Québec. He has published articles on ancient manuscripts and

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

patristic Patristics or patrology is the study of the early Christian writers who are designated Church Fathers. The names derive from the combined forms of Latin ''pater'' and Greek ''patḗr'' (father). The period is generally considered to run from ...

, and

apocryphal Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

texts in the

Journal of Biblical Literature The ''Journal of Biblical Literature'' (''JBL'') is one of three academic journals published by the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). First published in 1881, ''JBL'' is the flagship journal of the field. ''JBL'' is published quarterly and inc ...

Journal of Semitic Studies A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

Harvard Theological Review The ''Harvard Theological Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1908 and published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School. It covers a wide spectrum of fields in theological and rel ...

Vigiliae Christianae ''Vigiliae Christianae: A Review of Early Christian Life and Languages'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Brill Publishers in the field of early Christian studies. According to the publisher: The initiators of this journal were ...

Le Muséon ''Le Muséon: Revue d'Études Orientales'' (''The Muséon: Journal of Oriental Studies'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal of Linguistics and Oriental Studies. It was established in 1881 by Charles de Harlez, subsidised by the government of Bel ...

, and elsewhere. He maintains a scholarly blog entitled Patristics, Apocrypha, Coptic Literature and Manuscripts. Suciu is a member of the ''Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari'' (CMCL), an international project which aims to reconstruct codicologically the dismembered

Sahidic Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic w ...

manuscripts of the library of the

White Monastery The Coptic White Monastery (), also The Monastery of Abba Shenouda () and The Athribian Monastery () is a Coptic Orthodox monastery named after Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite. It is located near the Upper Egyptian cities of Tahta and Sohag, a ...

, situated near

Sohag Sohag ( , ), also spelled as ''Sawhāj'', ''Suhag'' and ''Suhaj'', is a city on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt. It has been the capital of Sohag Governorate since 1960, before which the capital was Girga and the name of the governorate was ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...

. The CMCL project is currently hosted by the Hiob Ludolf Center for Ethiopian Studies]in Hamburg. During the debate concerning the authenticity of the

Gospel of Jesus' Wife The Gospel of Jesus' Wife is a papyrus fragment with Coptic text that includes the words, "Jesus said to them, 'my wife.... The text received widespread attention when first publicized in 2012 for the implication that some early Christians bel ...

papyrus, Suciu suggested that there are strong arguments which indicate that the fragment is a modern forgery. He is the author of ''The'' Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon'': A Coptic Apostolic Memoir'' (WUNT I, 370; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), which focuses on a Coptic apocryphal text previously known as the '' Gospel of the Savior''. Suciu argues that the ''Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon'' is one of numerous "apostolic memoirs," a peculiar genre of Coptic literature, which consists of writings allegedly written by the apostles, often embedded in sermons attributed to famous church fathers.

Selected publications

* Suciu, Alin.
Revisiting the Literary ''Dossier'' of Stephen of Thebes: With Preliminary Editions of the Greek Redactions of the Ascetic ''Commandments''
" ''Adamantius'' 21 (2015) 301–325. * Suciu, Alin.
On a Bilingual Copto-Arabic Manuscript of 4 Ezra and the Reception of this Pseudepigraphon in Coptic Literature
" ''Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha'' 25.1 (2015) 3-22. * Suciu, Alin.
The Sahidic Version of Jacob of Serugh's Memrā on the Ascension of Christ
" ''Le Muséon'' 128 (2015) 49–83. * Suciu, Alin.
Coptic Scribes and Manuscripts. Dated and Datable Codices from the Monastery of Apa Shenoute. I: The Codices of the Scribe Victor, the Son of Shenoute (First Half of the 12th Century)
" ''Journal of Coptic Studies'' 16 (2014) 195–215. * Suciu, Alin.
A Coptic Fragment from the ''History of Joseph the Carpenter'' in the Collection of Duke University Library
" ''Harvard Theological Review'' 106:1 (2013) 93–104. * Suciu, Alin.
Ps.-Theophili Alexandrini Sermo de Cruce et Latrone. Edition of Pierpont Morgan M595 with Parallels and Translation
" ''Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum – Journal of Ancient Christianity'' 16 (2012) 181–225. * Suciu, Alin - Thomassen, Einar. "An Unknown ‘Apocryphal’ Text from the White Monastery," in P. Buzi – A. Camplani (eds.), ''Christianity in Egypt: Literary Production and Intellectual Trends. Studies in Honor of Tito Orlandi'' (Studia Ephemeridis ‘Augustinianum,’ 125; Rome: Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, 2011) 477–499.

References

External links

Alin Suciu's page on Academia.edu

Alin Suciu's page on Ad Astra - An Online Project for the Romanian Scientific Community

Alin Suciu's blog - Patristics, Apocrypha, Coptic Literature and Manuscripts

* ttp://oglindanet.ro/tezaurul-literaturii-crestine-in-limba-copta/ Tezaurul literaturii creştine în limba coptă. Interview with Alin Suciu (in Romanian)
Alte comori ale creştinismului egiptean de limbă coptă. Interview with Alin Suciu (in Romanian)

Un cercetator roman a demontat un fals ordinar de la Harvard: Asa-zisa “evanghelie a soţiei lui Iisus”. A hoax at Harvard University: the so-called Gospel of Jesus’s wife
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suciu, Alin Living people 1978 births Coptologists Papyrologists Patristic scholars People from Oradea Université Laval alumni Romanian expatriates in Germany