Vorkosigan

That's a bit of mischaracterization, as (a) Griffin settled Kim's hash nine years ago and (b) Metzger mentions other reasons besides Turner. Turner he simply refers to in order to supply an alternative view that reflected an even wider experience.

I know the meeting was discussed at XTALK several years ago. Perhaps a search of the archives.....

Steven Carr

Really? There are no pieces of paper dated after 1800 which contain a long 's'?

Prester John

Thankyou for the replies :thumbs:

andrewcriddle

Christian scribes developed a set of standard abbreviations for sacred (or at least religiously significant) terms. These abbreviations are known as nomina sacra

eg ThEOS (God) was written ThS KURIOS (Lord) was written KS IHSOUS (Jesus) was written IS PNEUMA (Spirit) was written PNA STAUROS (Cross) was written STS SWTHR (Saviour) was written SHR etc

The full system has about 20 standard abbreviations.

They are written with a horizontal line over the contraction

It is a distinctive Christian development and although some of the nomina sacra may be very early (ie end of 1st century) the full system is generally regarded as somewhat later

(The Epistle of Barnabas refers to a (non-standard) nomina sacra for Jesus in section 9 and for P52 the (alleged) absence of nomina sacra is
sometimes used to support the case for an early date)

According to Metzger P46 has an extensive and well developed system of nomina sacra which points to a period well after the origin of the earliest form of the system around the end of the 1st century.

Metzger himself IIUC would prefer a date of around 200 CE.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

How do we know when nomina sacra developed? Are there very early Christian documents that do not use them?

andrewcriddle

IIUC there are no early Christian documents which clearly lack nomina sacra it has been alleged that although the fragmentary P52 is missing the portions where they would occur in the verse, space calculations indicate the name was written in full. This is an extremely flimsy argument.

However (again IIUC) the earliest documents only have the four most basic nomina sacra those for IHSOUS KURIOS ChRISTOS and ThEOS.

The full set appears to be a later development.

Looking at the photograph of P46 in Metzger as well as the four core ones it has in Romans 15 verse 30 PNS for PNEUMATOS (Spirit).

I'll try and confirm online how many of the secondary nomina sacra are found in P46 but Bede is IMO correct that the presence of the core abbreviations is perfectly compatible with Kim's dating. The problem is the secondary ones.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Searching online as well as the four core ones and the abbreviation for PNEUMA already noted, P46 has nomina sacra for STAUROS (cross) and ANThRWPOS (man or human)

Andrew Cridle

Clivedurdle

Is it not more that the early xians changed things because they thought it would express the truth as they saw it better? Forgery involves an intention to deceive - I don't think they were deceitful, they were chiselling away at it in an attempt to improve it, make it clearer from their perspective.

Vorkosigan

Clive, don't respond to that crap. It's just Bede making crude attempts to derail the thread by insulting everyone.

andrewcriddle

From Discussion on another list it appears that P46 also abbreviates PATROS (father).

I think we can accept that the nomina sacra in P46 are much broader than the four core very ancient ones.

I'll try and investigate how reliable an age indication that may be.

Andrew Criddle