StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:59 am
I don’t have a copy at hand but Kim Haines-Eitzen discussed nomina sacra in her dissertation, revised as a book, “Guardians of Letters, 2000.”
Thanks!
MrMacSon wrote: ↑Mon Dec 14, 2020 1:42 am
Here's a webpage saying
nomina sacra are a Jewish invention
https://www.bible.ca/b-canon-nomina-sacra.htm, though with dodgy commentary -
2. "Nomina sacra" was a Jewish practice that is witnessed in the dead sea scrolls adopted by the Christians.
- Dead Sea Scroll (4Q175 or 4QTest) uses "Nomina sacra" and replaces the name of God (tetragrammaton) YHWH for four stars "****".
It goes well beyond the evidence to suggest that the four stars indicating the name of God the Dead Sea scrolls might be the actual origin of the
nomina sacra, since the
nomina sacra are abbreviations, not cancellations or deletions. But I feel pretty certain that the overall manner in which some Jewish scribes treated the name of God has something to do with the
nomina sacra, by way of inspiration or imitation.
MrMacSon wrote: ↑Mon Dec 14, 2020 1:42 amIt notes
nomina sacra in the Shephered of Hermas and I think Larry Hurtado has noted them in the Epistle of Barnabas [9:7-8].
Well, yes, the epistle of Barnabas evinces the
nomina sacra in Sinaiticus, as expected, since Sinaiticus evinces the
nomina sacra most of the time throughout all of the books it contains.
According to Hurtado (JBL, 1998), this may well have been the original form of the nomina sacra because it nicely explains the form of the horizontal line which differs from the usual Greek abbreviation mark. It is identical to the mark used to indicate numbers and Barnabas 9:7-8 engages in gematria to draw out numerological significance in the first two letters of Jesus' name. ... Barnabas gives the numerical value of IH as 18, which corresponds to the Hebrew חי "life" (cf. Eusebius, Praep. 10.5 who associates the letter ח with "life"). Although Barnabas does not make this connection, Hurtado theorized that the original function of the horizontal line was numerical in order to engage in isopsephy (equating two separate words which add up to the same number), and then it shifted to being an abbreviation mark once the practice included contracted forms and spread to the other words comprising the nomina sacra.
Right. Hurtado thinks that Ἰησοῦς was the first of the
nomina, that it was abbreviated by suspension (the most common kind of Greek abbreviation) to ΙΗ, and then, apparently, that ΙΗ was treated as the number 18 for numerological purposes and thus received an overstroke. However, he does not buy Barnabas' own quirky numerological argument (from Genesis 14.14) as the original meaning of the number 18; thus, he has to propose something else, as you point out: the Hebrew for "life" (חי), which also comes to 18 numerologically. The main if not only issue with this idea is that, while it is certainly possible, it does not enjoy
any attestation (as Hurtado himself admits) in this connection from our ancient writers. It thus joins the long list of good guesses — but
just guesses — for the ultimate origins of the
nomina sacra.
I am not sure that we have enough information to pinpoint the exact origin of this practice. Guesses will continue to be made, and I appreciate them, as they widen the scope of our vision and investigation. But my OP focused more on the broad, cultural origins.