My current and still developing view of the nomina sacra.

[Jax]

No declension in Coptic

So was it just I?

[Ben C. Smith]

No declension in Coptic

So was it just I?

No, it would be IS or IHS. "No declension" just usually means we use the nominative of the source language. That is how we do it in English, too. Iesus/Jesus is in the nominative in Latin, so that is what we use.

[Ben C. Smith]

I find myself wondering, how did the early Coptic, Syriac, and Latin texts render the name IS/IHS? Any Idea?

Latin texts often use the nomina sacra. So do Coptic texts. Not sure about Syriac.

[Ben C. Smith]

I find myself wondering, how did the early Coptic, Syriac, and Latin texts render the name IS/IHS? Any Idea?

Latin texts often use the nomina sacra. So do Coptic texts. Not sure about Syriac.

You can see the Nag Hammadi nomina sacra here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7472&p=115568#p115568.

[Jax]

I find myself wondering, how did the early Coptic, Syriac, and Latin texts render the name IS/IHS? Any Idea?

Latin texts often use the nomina sacra. So do Coptic texts. Not sure about Syriac.

You can see the Nag Hammadi nomina sacra here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7472&p=115568#p115568.

Thanks Ben. So just IS and IHS. Another dead end.

I wish that we had even one example of IES with an epsilon. At least then we could make a case that IHS is a variant based on the writer hearing the NS IS with an epsilon or eta between the iota and sigma either because of the way he heard it or because of the way that I and S sounded together when pronounced.

Oh well.

[Ben C. Smith]

I find myself wondering, how did the early Coptic, Syriac, and Latin texts render the name IS/IHS? Any Idea?

Latin texts often use the nomina sacra. So do Coptic texts. Not sure about Syriac.

You can see the Nag Hammadi nomina sacra here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7472&p=115568#p115568.

Thanks Ben. So just IS and IHS. Another dead end.

What are you trying to demonstrate again? We have at least one early example of the full name Jesus being apparently spelled with an epsilon. Does that do what you are wanting it to do, or does it have to be a nomen sacrum? Paap lists another example of the full name of Jesus in the genitive with an epsilon, but it dates to century V or VI. Is that too late for your purposes?

[Ben C. Smith]

What are you trying to demonstrate again? We have at least one early example of the full name Jesus being apparently spelled with an epsilon. Does that do what you are wanting it to do, or does it have to be a nomen sacrum? Paap lists another example of the full name of Jesus in the genitive with an epsilon, but it dates to century V or VI. Is that too late for your purposes?

While nothing in the data indicates what came first, IS or IHS, for the name of the XS/XRS I have noted that both forms are used in several texts (45,46,72,75,0162) making me wonder if anyone has done any work in identifying the longer abbreviations as the scribe simply adding an Eta while writing out the text from being dictated to.

Anyway, just a thought.

I think this may be what you are talking about. I missed this post in the thread for some reason.

But I guess I am not understanding what you mean by a scribe adding an ēta while being dictated to. I mean, both ΙΗΣ and ΙΣ are solid abbreviations of ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, so whether the scribe used the fuller ΙΗΣ or the more compact ΙΣ seems like just a matter of local custom or whatnot, unless you have something else in mind.

[Jax]

I find myself wondering, how did the early Coptic, Syriac, and Latin texts render the name IS/IHS? Any Idea?

Latin texts often use the nomina sacra. So do Coptic texts. Not sure about Syriac.

You can see the Nag Hammadi nomina sacra here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7472&p=115568#p115568.

Thanks Ben. So just IS and IHS. Another dead end.

What are you trying to demonstrate again? We have at least one early example of the full name Jesus being apparently spelled with an epsilon. Does that do what you are wanting it to do, or does it have to be a nomen sacrum? Paap lists another example of the full name of Jesus in the genitive with an epsilon, but it dates to century V or VI. Is that too late for your purposes?

I don't really have an ax to grind. It just seems that when I see a text with IH, IU, and IHS like 45 and IHU, IEN, and IES followed later by IU in 46 or IU IHU, and IHN in 72, IS, IHS, IU, IHU, IN, IHN in 75 and IHS and IS in 0162 I find myself wondering at the inconsistency.

I haven't confirmed it myself but I understand that in some texts the place where the NS is looks like it was left blank on the first writing and then filled in with the NS by an editor later. This seems to me that the person dictating the copy wanted to make sure that the correct rendering of the text was preserved and not left to the understanding of the scribe as if misunderstanding was common enough to be a problem.

I stay with the NS as this is represents the earliest copies of these documents that we have.

Not trying to be a pain in the but.

[Jax]

What are you trying to demonstrate again? We have at least one early example of the full name Jesus being apparently spelled with an epsilon. Does that do what you are wanting it to do, or does it have to be a nomen sacrum? Paap lists another example of the full name of Jesus in the genitive with an epsilon, but it dates to century V or VI. Is that too late for your purposes?

While nothing in the data indicates what came first, IS or IHS, for the name of the XS/XRS I have noted that both forms are used in several texts (45,46,72,75,0162) making me wonder if anyone has done any work in identifying the longer abbreviations as the scribe simply adding an Eta while writing out the text from being dictated to.

Anyway, just a thought.

I think this may be what you are talking about. I missed this post in the thread for some reason.

But I guess I am not understanding what you mean by a scribe adding an ēta while being dictated to. I mean, both ΙΗΣ and ΙΣ are solid abbreviations of ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, so whether the scribe used the fuller ΙΗΣ or the more compact ΙΣ seems like just a matter of local custom or whatnot, unless you have something else in mind.

It occurs to me that, in the ancient world, with a lack of printing presses, if you wanted mass copies of a text you took your text to a copy shop composed of people who could write, where you or the shop owner would read aloud the text for the writers in the room to copy out. These writers didn't need to be Christian to copy Christian texts and would have no idea what the NS abbreviations were supposed to be, or care. So if the reader says IS does he say I and then S or does he run the letters together? We have no real idea how ancient Greek actually sounded but I note that NS abbreviations like ThN, ThOm, ThS, and ThU are consistent across all of the texts that we have unlike IS, IHS etc. It seems to me that something like Theta Neu or Theta Sigma is less likely to be written incorectly than something like Iota Sigma or whatever IS sounded like pronounced as a word.

Just a thought.

[Ben C. Smith]

I don't really have an ax to grind. It just seems that when I see a text with IH, IU, and IHS like 45 and IHU, IEN, and IES followed later by IU in 46 or IU IHU, and IHN in 72, IS, IHS, IU, IHU, IN, IHN in 75 and IHS and IS in 0162 I find myself wondering at the inconsistency.

Okay, but we find at least that much variation in how names and other words were abbreviated outside of Christianity. Look at the numismatic abbreviations, for example, in the OP: ΚΑΙΣΑΡ = Κ, ΚΑΙ, ΚΑΙΣ. (And it is not as if ΚΑΙΣΑΡ is some unimportant name, either, obviously.)

In the case of Christian scribes, it is even pretty easy to understand why there might be variation. As per the OP, they would have both (A) the social precedent of abbreviating by suspension (both are extant in Greek before the rise of Christianity, but suspension was far more common) and (B) the obvious grammatical benefit (being able to show the case of the noun) of abbreviating by contraction. A mix of both kinds is rather expected under such conditions, right? And, even after one method is selected over the other, there was precedent both for shorter and for longer abbreviations.