Everybody knew what the nomina sacra were

[Secret Alias]

The names יהושע Yehoshua’ (Samaritan pronunciation Yê’ûsha) and its shortened form ישוע Yeshua and the name הרשע Hoshea’ (anglice Hosea) all mean “the Lords saves” or “the Lord is salvation”, and allude to the last verses of Deuteronomy 33.

[MrMacSon]

Deuteronomy 33:24-29 [end] (NRSVUE version)

24 And of Asher he [Moses] said,

.....“Most blessed of sons be Asher;
........may he be the favorite of his brothers,
........and may he dip his foot in oil.
.25..Your bars are iron and bronze,
........and as your days, so is your strength.

.26..There is none like God, O Jeshurun,
........who rides through the heavens to your help,
........majestic through the clouds.

.27..He subdues the ancient gods, [nb. The eternal God is a dwelling place]
........shatters the forces of old;
.....he drove out the enemy before you
........and said, ‘Destroy!’

.28..So Israel lives in safety,
........untroubled is Jacob’s abode
.....in a land of grain and wine,
........where the heavens drop down dew.

.29..Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you,
........a people saved by the Lord,
.....the shield of your help
........and the sword of your triumph!
.....Your enemies shall come fawning to you,
........but you shall tread on their backs.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ion=NRSVUE
.

Previously, Deuteronomy 33:5:

As Moses begins his final blessings on the tribes of Israel, he says,

“[The Lord] was king over Jeshurun
when the leaders of the people assembled,
along with the tribes of Israel”
.

Asher (Hebrew: אָשֵׁר ’Āšēr), in the Book of Genesis, was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Zilpah (Jacob's eighth son) and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Asher.

Name

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The text of the Torah states that the name of Asher means "happy" or "blessing", implying a derivation from the Hebrew term osher in two variations: beoshri (meaning in my good fortune), and ishsheruni. Some textual scholars who embrace the JEDP hypothesis attribute them to different sources: one to the Yahwist and the other to the Elohist ... Some scholars argue that the name of Asher may have to do with a deity originally worshipped by the tribe, either Asherah, or Ashur, the chief Assyrian deity; the latter possibility is cognate with Asher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asher

Jeshurun (Hebrew: יְשֻׁרוּן Yəšurūn; also Yeshurun or Jesurun) is a poetic name for Israel used in the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. It is generally thought to be derived from a root word meaning upright, just or straight [yashar],* but may have been derived from שׁור, shur, to see, or may be a diminutive form of the word Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל‬ Yiśrāʾēl).

Biblical accounts

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Jeshurun appears four times in the Hebrew Bible: three times in Deuteronomy and once in Isaiah. It can refer to the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:15 33:26), the Land of Israel (Deuteronomy 33:5), or the Patriarch Jacob (whom an angel renamed Israel in Genesis 32:29) ...


* Numbers appears to use the word yashar (in its plural form yesharim) as a play on "Jeshurun" to refer to the people of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeshurun

Names were not consistent ...
(what each nomen sacrum meant to different people at different times probably wasn't, either)

---

eta
In Isaiah 44:1–2, God comforts His people with these words:

“But now listen, Jacob, my servant,
Israel, whom I have chosen.
This is what the Lord says—
he who made you, who formed you in the womb,
and who will help you:
Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant,
Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.”
.

Therein, Jeshurun, is a term or alternate name for Jacob ie. for Israel

and Isaiah 44 goes on:

3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my spirit upon your descendants
and my blessing on your offspring.
4 They shall spring up like a green tamarisk,
like willows by flowing streams.

5 This one will say, “I am the Lord’s”;
another will be called by the name of Jacob;
yet another will write on the hand, “The Lord’s,”
and adopt the name of Israel.
.

[lclapshaw]

yeshuah means salvation in aramaic
not a name a noun

You are proposing a false dichotomy. In a previous post, Stephan Goranson provided Tal Ilan's list of the ten most common male names of Jews in Palestine in and around the first century (Joshua/Jesus is #6):

Tal Ilan (in Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity. Part I, Palestine 330 BCE-200 CE [2002] page 56 Table 6) lists the 20 most popular male names. Here are the top 10 (with the number of times): 1 Simon (257), 2 Joseph (231), 3 Judah (179), 4 Eleazar (177), 5 Yohanan (128), 6 Joshua (103), 7 Hananiah (85), 8 Jonathan (75), 9 Mattathias (63), 10 Menahem (46).

All of them mean something in Hebrew.

Best,

Ken

And this is the main reason I have for having doubts that IC is an abbreviation for IHCOYC. It's just common enough as a name to not warrant being a secret or have any special meaning for consideration. If the name was a one off it might seem a slam dunk, but it isn't. There would have been a Joshua/Jesus on every street corner.

Now, if you have an abbreviation like IC and you don't know what it means and you datamine the meaning of Jewish names then "YHVH saves/YHVH is salvation" seems a compelling choice.

[davidmartin]

Acts "And there is salvation in no other, for there is not another name under heaven having been given among men, by which it behooves us to be saved"

does what it says on the tin. no other man with that name? sure there was but he's different. whether the man=salvation or he brings it. i think originally he just brings it but that's another theory assuming Acts is a fair bit down the religious stream already

"Therefore be it known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!"

[Peter Kirby]

"or we can refuse to accept it and jerk off."

Maybe tone it down a little?

Sure, I should be better than that. I'm sorry.

[lclapshaw]

"or we can refuse to accept it and jerk off."

Maybe tone it down a little?

Sure, I should be better than that. I'm sorry.

I understand, we all have our days.

[DCHindley]

I kind of took Peter's comment about "might as well jerk off" as meaning "might as well beat around the bush <yes, pun intended> rather than achieve a goal."

The idea is that jerking off is not as fulfilling as doing the deed for real. Of course, opinions on the validity of such an assumption may vary.

In Structure of Scientific Revolutions the example was given of "proposing epicycles upon epicycles" to make Ptolemaic astronomic assumptions conform to actual astronomic observations.' No one had effectively solved the problems of trigonometry until more modern times.

I don't know ... sometimes a solution makes itself clear to someone, that until that moment of clarity had been obscured by the reigning paradigm.

Now if you actually do happen to make it all click, that would be great.

DCH

[lclapshaw]

I kind of took Peter's comment about "might as well jerk off" as meaning "might as well beat around the bush <yes, pun intended> rather than achieve a goal."

The idea is that jerking off is not as fulfilling as doing the deed for real. Of course, opinions on the validity of such an assumption may vary.

In Structure of Scientific Revolutions the example was given of "proposing epicycles upon epicycles" to make Ptolemaic astronomic assumptions conform to actual astronomic observations.' No one had effectively solved the problems of trigonometry until more modern times.

I don't know ... sometimes a solution makes itself clear to someone, that until that moment of clarity had been obscured by the reigning paradigm.

Now if you actually do happen to make it all click, that would be great.

DCH

Really, the only point that I'm making is that if we assign a value to something like IC we potentially limit our understanding of the material being studied. That's all.

[Secret Alias]

I think we can't imagine a world where handwriting was the only way to communicate information over distance and time. So abbreviation became second nature. In our courts there developed shorthand. In our streets there is slant which in essence codifies messaging (a single word conveys a paragraph of explanation). Nomina sacra are like this. A codified method of abbreviation.

[Leucius Charinus]

I think we can't imagine a world where handwriting was the only way to communicate information over distance and time.

Depends on your age. Travelling the world in the 70's involved sending and receiving handwritten letters through the "C/- post restaunt" in major cities.

So abbreviation became second nature. In our courts there developed shorthand. In our streets there is slant which in essence codifies messaging (a single word conveys a paragraph of explanation). Nomina sacra are like this. A codified method of abbreviation.

Standardisation of these abbreviations suggests an authority - and likely a centralised authority. What is the terminus ad quem for the physical appearance of these abbreviations? 3rd century?