Customer Reviews

Discoveries: Coptic Egypt: Christians of the Nile (Discoveries (Harry Abrams))

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book covers the history of the christians of Egypt (the Copts). It is written by an expert on this subject. It covers the history up to the current events. it is easy to read. Loaded with photoes of very high quality. The facts are well presented with even handed opinions and fairness. It is valuable book for any one who has interest in history of Christianity,and Middle East history. The reader does not need to have any background knowledge about the topic because the book progress very smoothly through the history with solid explanation of all events. Highly recommended.

This is a cute little book that is crammed with info and pictures. It is an excellent book to start one on serious study of Christianity in Egypt and the history of Christianity in general.

good start for those who want to know more about copts and christianity in egypt

I found this a facinating little book, well written, colourful and quirky in spots. The illustrations are excellent, if a little small and well integrated with the text. I particularly enjoyed the coverage of textiles and manuscripts. Besides covering the history and archeology of the ancient Copts, the coverage of current dogma and liturgy and the problems experienced by the Copts in modern Egypt gives the book an unusually rounded feel.

I bought this book along with Jill Kamil's "Coptic Egypt". This book is much more attractive, has glossy pages, and lots of color photos, but it's presented in a sort of "Time-Life Books" format that's hard on continuity: the photos have long captions that displace the narrative text, the photos don't usually correspond with the text, the history is very abstracted and generalized, and quotes from historic sources are relegated to a section at the back entitled "Sources", or something like that. Everything gets chopped up into bite-size pieces to the point that it's tough to string it all together into anything coherent.

Also, the author tends to think in terms of The Church, not individual churches, so the Coptic Church comes off as just one faction among many which were struggling with each other in a pursuit of common Truth until the (seemingly) pre-destined emergence of The Church, i.e. the church in Rome. For me this took away from the individual character of the Coptic church. I'm interested in the numerous manifestations of Christianity at its outset, not in hurrying along to dismiss them as incidental to the The Church as it eventually evolved.

The Kamil book's better with the history, but it's weak on illustrations, i.e., very few photos and they're in black and white. Both books together are better than either one separately.