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That might have implications for the LXX apparently having κύριος / kū́rios / Lord in many places (but not all) where the Pentateuch had YHWH and, iirc, for Paul doing so where he quoted, cited or used those LXX passages about YHWH.Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:52 pm Actually, a recent analysis may indicate that the name Joshua does not mean "Yahweh saves" at all. A new analysis indicates it means "Yahweh is lordly" or similar. https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/EJC-ff5bd8a45
MrMacSon wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:01 pm
In the LXX, YHWH was often or overwhelming replaced with κύριος, Kyrios ie. Lord (500+ times). Conversely, every time the word Κύριος is used is in the place of the Tetragrammaton. Whether that happened from the get-go or evolved, I'm not sure.
Philo of Alexandria also apparently followed this practice of using κύριος for YHWH (see Genesis 3:23 LXX in Legum Allegoriarum 1.95-96, Exodus 6:3 LXX in De Abrahamo 121, and elsewhere (Philo also associated YHWH with λόγος).
Paul seems to have followed suit, often applying LXX references to YHWH to Lord Jesus Christ eg. Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:9-13, Isaiah 45:23 in Romans 14:8-11; Philippians 2:10-11, Isaiah 40:13 in 1 Corinthians 2:15-16, etc.
Some scholars have said κύριος was at the center of the evolution of early Christians understanding of Christ and that use of the title κύριος helped define the relationship between Jesus belief in him as Christ.
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:27 pmNobody is sure, so you stand in good company.Iaо̄ (Ἰάω) plays into things at some stage, and of course so does κύριος, as well as simply writing the name out in Hebrew letters or, apparently a bit later, in the nonphonetically related ΠΙΠΙ in Greek (to mimic the look of יהוה on the page). Uniformity seems to have taken a while to impose itself:
Robert J. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God, page 88: 88 As it is, then, we can with some confidence say only that the Tetragrammaton, both in Hebrew and in other forms in Greek (iaô), might be found in manuscripts of the Greek Scriptures; that kurios may well also have been found as a substitute; and that the evidence is insufficient to establish a universal practice. In short: it appears prudent to conclude that there was no one way of way of presenting the Tetragrammaton or its substitutes in the Greek biblical texts of the time of the Apostle Paul. But importantly, the evidence of anticipations of the Palestinian Qere in the LXX Prophets and the usage of Philo prevent us from excluding tout court the presence of kurios in Jewish Greek biblical manuscripts.
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:06 pm ... He [Wilkinson] is writing only of what the very earliest Christians (such as Paul) would have found in their manuscripts. The LXX/OG preponderance of instance[s] of using Lord for Yahweh comes a bit later. Early on it is harder to tell exactly what was there. Less evidence, and the evidence is more mixed.
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:29 pmWell, maybe, but there is some evidence that people started speaking substitutes for the divine name before they started writing them. And there is also evidence both for Ἰάω and for κύριος as substitutions before early Christianity. What there is not unequivocal evidence for is a uniform custom at that early date, nor for which practice came first.
The fact remains that there is no good reason to favor Iesous over any other name or title when all we have to work with is IC etc.Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 11:03 amBecause one position has evidence (i.e. the fact that not a single source attests to those meanings you imply, and it requires rather wild theories to even make a reading for "Julius Caesar" possible, let alone plausible), i.e. that it is Jesus. The other is just conjecture. I've read almost all attempts at reading alternatives of the abbreviations, and not a single one manages to step beyond "looks alike is alike" type parallelomania... at least, that is what has seemed like anyone has talked to me about it. Like, "ΙΣ is similar to Ish in Hebrew which can be related to Moses who was called Eeshu which may be similar to Eesu which indicates that 'Jesus' isn't his name, etc. etc. etc." repeat this process ad nauseum till you finally don't have Jesus anymore. At some point, imo, you just have to admit that your code is so overly complicated that it seems, even for heavily symbolic authors, to be a bit wild. Like, the whole point of abbreviations and symbols is that their meaning is easily digestable and instantly noticeable. "Jesus" for IC is far more understandable, than some symbolic "Eesu" meaning "Eeshu" which has some other obscure connotation, or a nonsensical code for "Julius Caesar" (which really makes no sense in Paul or the Gospels for that matter).
I could also argue:
ΙΣ is an abbreviation of the first letters of the goddess Ishtar, which is a code for how she was then nailed up by Ereshkigal in the underworld, both of whom are still known in Greco-Roman times, as Ereshkigal is attested in the Greek Magical Papyri.
Or ΙΣ is an abbreviation of Ishara, the wife of the god Dagon.
Or ΙΣ is an abbreviation of Ishat, the wife of Moloch, slain by Anat.
At this point, I think we can play the abbreviation game all day long, but only one suggestion has consistently better evidence... Jesus.
Wordplay is important, but this isn't wordplay. It would be far to convoluted.
Except for the fact that IC seems to be the earliest usage over IHC, IH etc. IHC, IH were probably used later exactly to make Iesous seem like it was the correct name/title. Why else is the statement that "he had a written name known only to himself" in Revelation 12:9? Unless the abbreviation used for the XC was unknown?Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 12:24 pm Yes there is... because we have more than just ΙΣ. We also have early manuscripts using ΙΗΣ and we have some using IH. All three of these in conjunction rule out pretty much all other readings, because they do not correspond to Julius Caesar, to Ish, or to any other (sensible) name... except Jesus.
Julius Caesar's full name in Greek is ΓΑΙΟΣ ΙΟΥΛΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ... missing any connection to IH. IH points to the first two letters of Jesus' name. And... ΙΣ attests to the last letter of Ἰησοῦς.
So actually, the nomina sacra having three different standard forms in early manuscripts helps point to Jesus over any other reading. Jesus is the only reading that makes sense of these three without some far more convoluted, unevidenced, and unnecessary explanation.
How exactly does my arguing that we don't know what the abbreviation IC actually is make me a mythicist?Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 12:32 pm I'm not bothering with any other responses to the "abbreviation" arguments, because I really don't think they are worth having. Mythicist arguments are far better spent exploring gnosticism, Marcion, and literary theory, imo. Thomas Brodie and Jean Magne are the ones to pursue.