Wolf-Peter Funk (born 1943 in

Oederan Oederan is a town in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. Geography Oederan is situated 14 km southwest of Freiberg, 17 km east of Chemnitz and about 50 km west of Dresden. The town includes the villages of Börni ...

, Germany; died February 18, 2021, in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

, Canada) was a historian of religion and

Coptologist Coptology is the science of Coptic studies, the study of the Coptic language and Coptic literature.What is Cop ...

known for his pioneering studies on

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...

Manichaeism Manichaeism (; in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian Empire, Parthian ...

, and Coptic manuscripts such as the Nag Hammadi library.

Biography

Wolf-Peter Funk was born in 1943 in

, Germany as the only son of Johanna Roeber and Wolfgang Funk. As a student of

Hans-Martin Schenke Hans-Martin Schenke (born April 25, 1929, in Oschersleben; died September 4, 2002, in Berlin) was a German Protestant theologian, New Testament scholar, and Coptologist known for his pioneering studies on Gnosticism and Coptic manuscripts. Biog ...

, Wolf-Peter Funk was one of the founders of the Berlin Working Group for Coptic Gnostic Writings. As part of the research group in Berlin, he translated many texts in the Nag Hammadi library during the 1970s. In 1986, Funk became a visiting professor in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at

Laval University Laval means ''The Valley'' in old French and is the name of: People * House of Laval, a French noble family originating from the town of Laval, Mayenne * Laval (surname) Places Belgium * Laval, a village in the municipality of Sainte-Ode, Luxemb ...

, specializing in Coptic linguistics and biblical and Gnostic literature. At Laval, he worked on the "Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi" (Nag Hammadi Coptic Library) Project, and was later appointed Associate Professor at Laval. He has worked on digital concordances of the Nag Hammadi texts, which were originally stored on

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

s. Wolf-Peter Funk has worked on the reconstruction and translation of the Manichaean Coptic manuscripts held at the National Museum of Berlin. He taught Coptic at Laval University until 2009.http://www.cmcl.it/~iacs/funk_obit.pdf He has also worked on concordances of the Manichaean

Kephalaia Kephalaia (Greek for "chapters" or "headings") are a genre of Manichaean literature represented mainly by two large papyrus codices containing Coptic translations from 5th-century Roman Egypt. The ''kephalaia'' are sometimes seen as the actual wor ...

and the Manichaean Homilies. He died from cancer at the

Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus The Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus (English: Hospital of the Child Jesus) is a hospital located in Maizerets, a neighborhood of the district of La Cité-Limoilou in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. It is one of only 3 hospitals in the province with a Leve ...

on February 18, 2021, at the age of 77.

Works (selected)

Selected works (books authored or with contributed articles): * * * * * * * * *

Translations and concordances

French translations and concordances published by Laval University Press:Presses de l'Université Laval
* (BCNH "Textes" no 36) * (BCNH "Textes" no 35) * (BCNH "Textes" no 34) * (BCNH "Textes" no 30) * * (BCNH "Textes" no 27) * (BCNH "Textes" no 28) * (BCNH "Textes" no 24) * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Funk, Wolf-Peter 1943 births 2021 deaths People from Oederan 20th-century German translators German religion academics Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Université Laval faculty Historians of Gnosticism Coptologists