At What Point Does 'Based on a Historical Character' Become Unhistorical?

[Secret Alias]

The Septuagint uses Ἰησοῖ as the dative, while the New Testament uses Ἰησοῦ.

[mlinssen]

The Septuagint uses Ἰησοῖ as the dative, while the New Testament uses Ἰησοῦ.

No, the NT doesn't. Can you show me an MS where it does please?

[Secret Alias]

If you follow the standard understanding.

Ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ προσῆλθον οἱ μαθηταὶ τῷ Ἰ[ησο]ῦ λέγοντες

[andrewcriddle]

FWIW there is a reddit thread about the irregular declension of the name Jesus.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/co ... 82_become/ It is suggested that it may involve issues about declining a name in Greek that is a transliteration from the Semitic.

Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

As always Andrew is the most useful resource at this discussion group. And he just shows up like a phantasm always with something interesting/appropriate. I would love to have a list of declined Hebrew names/nouns in Greek.

[mlinssen]

The Septuagint uses Ἰησοῖ as the dative, while the New Testament uses Ἰησοῦ.

Yes, a dative "Jesus" in the Septuagint, even though it's one that dates to 5th CE LOL (and I suspect that there is no Septuagint ever that is earlier than 200 CE, even if it's just 3 books and nothing more)

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209/1444

Vaticanus, book of Joshua, Chapter 1 verse 1:

Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ τὴ_
τελευτὴν Μωυσῆ εἶ
πεν Κ{ύριο}ς τῷ Ἰησοῖ υἱῷ
Ναυὴ τῷ ὑπουργῷ Μω
υσῆ λέγων

Absolutely brilliant to see the scribal habits, all in one sentence:

1. line-ending superlinear representing Nu, identical to the Demotic N
2. U-dieresis

I'll scavenge some more although I dislike Vaticanus for lack of a transcription.
Yet we have an ιϲ in Sinaiticus: https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscri ... 12&verse=7

Chapter 13:1 (the superlinears fall off at pasting)

κοϲι εννεα · και ιϲ
πρεϲ[β]υτεροϲ προ
βεβηκωϲ ημερω ·
και ειπεν κϲ προϲ ιν ·
ϲυ προβεβηκαϲ τω
[η]μερων · και η γη
ϋπολειπεται πολ
λη ει̣ϲ κληρονομι

Do also note the accusative in the same verse.
Last bit of Sinaiticus, which has only 3 chapters at best:

https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscri ... chapter=14

Joshua 14:1κ̣[αι] [ουτοι]
οι κ[α]τα[κληρονο]
μηϲαντ[εϲ] [υιων]
ϊϲλ εν τη [γη] [χανααν]
οιϲ κατεκ[ληρονο]
μ̣ηϲεν α̣υ̣[τοιϲ] [οφ] [λινεϲ] §
ελ[ε]α̣ζ̣α̣ρ̣ [ο] [ιερευϲ] §
και ιϲ̣ [ο] [του] [ναυη] §
και ο[ι] [αρχοντεϲ]
πατρι[ων] [φυλων] [των]
2
ϋϊω[ν] [ι][ϲ][λ] [κατα] [κλη]
ρ̣ου[ϲ] [εκληρονο]
μ̣[ηθ]η̣ϲ̣[αν] [ον] [τρο] §
π̣ον εν[ετειλατο] [κϲ] §
ε̣[ν] χ̣ιρι ι̣[υ] [ταιϲ] [εν] §
ν̣[εα] φυλα̣ι̣[ϲ] [και] §
[τω] [η]μιϲυ φ[υληϲ] §
3
α̣π̣ο̣ τ̣ου̣̣ [περαν] [του] §
[ιο]ρδα[ν]ου̣ [και] [τοιϲ] §
[λε]υ̣ϊταιϲ ο̣[υκ] [εδω] §
[κε]ν̣ κληρ̣[ον] [εν] [αυ] §
4
[τοιϲ] [ο]τι [ηϲαν] §

It's absolutely inconclusive although the traces that are in place don't disagree with the possibility

[Secret Alias]

My question as always with the question of whether the nomen sacrum is 'Jesus' or איש (the two possibilities given by Justin) - do we know enough about the manner in which Hebrew nouns/names were treated in Greek? There seems to be no absolute rule that I can see. איש is rendered ΙΣ according to Origen and Eusebius. What would an ancient Greek speaker be expected to do with that? I don't mean to make generalizations across cultures and centuries but if we imagine 'Christian Greek' (for that is what nomen sacrum are - a unique feature of a small Greek speaking community) to look and behave like 'urban American English' (= the way American blacks speak English) is there really predictability as new slang is created? Yes I've seen Creole go back to West African languages. But really, when someone does something which 'catches on' - you can explain it after the fact as being influenced by this or that. But I don't think you can predict trends in the future. Similarly, not sure you can use Shakespeare to predict what the latest rapper or Tiktok influencer says which catches on any more than use Homer to explain underground Christian Greek.

[mlinssen]

As always Andrew is the most useful resource at this discussion group. And he just shows up like a phantasm always with something interesting/appropriate. I would love to have a list of declined Hebrew names/nouns in Greek.

I like Andrew's contributions, usually. This is one of those that I like less as the reddit post pretends that all is well and swell.
This is straight from the transcriptions - whereas I really must know what the MSS say

Code: Select all

How did the declension of Iēsūs and Ἰησοῦς become so irregular?
Apparently the Septuagint uses Ἰησοῖ for the dative, which feels close enough to normal declensions. But especially in Latin, it's really only 4th declension because of convention.

EDIT: For reference, declensions

Greek, showing Ἰησοῦς declined as a normal contracted 2nd declension noun, as declined in the LXX, and as declined in the NT

Contracted 2nd declension	LXX	NT
Nominative	Ἰησοῦς	Ἰησοῦς	Ἰησοῦς
Genitive	Ἰησοῦ	Ἰησοῦ	Ἰησοῦ
Dative		*Ἰησῷ	Ἰησοῖ	Ἰησοῦ
Accusative	Ἰησοῦν	Ἰησοῦν	Ἰησοῦν

[highlight=yellow]And Latin, showing Iēsūs declined as a normal 4th declension noun, and as it's usually declined[/highlight]

4th decl.	Vulgate
Nominative	Iēsūs/Iēsus	Iēsūs
Genitive	*Iēsūs		Iēsū
Dative		*Iēsuī		Iēsū
Accusative	Iēsum		Iēsum
Ablative	Iēsū		Iēsū

The Latin is interesting as it would seem that it is either following the Greek LXX or the Greek NT.
The highlighted remark is rubbish of course, as there are two forms shown

[mlinssen]

If you follow the standard understanding ASSUMPTION.

Ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ προσῆλθον οἱ μαθηταὶ τῷ Ἰ[ησο]ῦ λέγοντες

Fixed that for you. Texts say what they say, Stephan - I haven't come across an NT MS yet that doesn't have IS and XS not written in full.
Thanks for the LXX though, I also spot it in Exo 17:9

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209/1444

Right column, start at line 7 from the top

Ἦλθεν δὲ Ἀμαλὴκ καὶ ἐ
πολέμει Ἰσ{ραὴ}λ ἐν Ῥαφιδεί{ν}
9 εἶπεν δὲ Μωυσῆς τῷ Ἰη
σοι Ἐπίλεξον σεαυτῷ
ἄνδρας δυνατούς

So it's Ἰησοι here, and I need another fav online Septuagint as Sinaitcus is so incomplete. But Deu 3:21 is a hit!

https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscri ... 3&verse=21

και τω ϊ
ηϲου ενετιλαμη
εν τω καιρω εκι

So it's either / or, all the usual claims fall through at the very first encounter of the word in the very first 2 different MSS.
In theory I could find out that this is an exception, yes - but do I know (almost!) for sure that it's not?

It all reminds me of Bentley Layton's "research" regarding apostrophes in between double consonants. Just utter rubbish, and if the fool had taken just 10 minutes of his time he could have proven himself wrong and saved me the time and energy to do so, and the world yet another one of his lies and falsifications.
So. Another few bits of know-less gained

[mlinssen]

My question as always with the question of whether the nomen sacrum is 'Jesus' or איש (the two possibilities given by Justin) - do we know enough about the manner in which Hebrew nouns/names were treated in Greek? There seems to be no absolute rule that I can see. איש is rendered ΙΣ according to Origen and Eusebius. What would an ancient Greek speaker be expected to do with that? I don't mean to make generalizations across cultures and centuries but if we imagine 'Christian Greek' (for that is what nomen sacrum are - a unique feature of a small Greek speaking community) to look and behave like 'urban American English' (= the way American blacks speak English) is there really predictability as new slang is created? Yes I've seen Creole go back to West African languages. But really, when someone does something which 'catches on' - you can explain it after the fact as being influenced by this or that. But I don't think you can predict trends in the future. Similarly, not sure you can use Shakespeare to predict what the latest rapper or Tiktok influencer says which catches on any more than use Homer to explain underground Christian Greek.

ROFL.
You don't read a lot of Coptic, do you? Or Latin? Syriac?

Tell me how you can have such a big mouth and such a narrow vision? After all those years and tens of thousands of hours? Do you really believe anything that the Falsifying Fathers claim?
Why don't you read my Commentary, just the logia that have Greek equivalents, and verify for yourself how:

1) the Greek undeniably is a copy of the Coptic and not vice versa; even where the direction is likely to be either, the route to Coptic always has more dependencies than vice versa
2) the scribal habits are copied across by the stroke; even the apostrophe in SAB'BATHON is copied axross from Coptic to Greek - and there we have a verbatim copy that 180-s the meaning of the content

It's called a working assumption, Stephan: you go with what you have.
Going with what we have, IS and XS were invented by someone and no one knew what they meant - and that perfectly attests to not only a written tradition, but also a lost tradition: a stolen tradition, a hijacked tradition. It's like a diary that you find in the attic, by an unknown person about an unknow person - yet a very exciting story it is, isn't it?

Everything in this entire field points to one and the same thing: a hostile takeover of an existing movement that refused to "enlighten" the hostage takers