mountainman

Noone seems particularly enthusiastic about the issue of the nomina sacra, but the issue does emerge quite prominently in various threads. It's sort of like a lesser-known sub-plot to the question "When and by whom were the earliest collection of the new testament books assembled and edited". Whoever this editor was, his codes were copied by all following christian writers. But it is clear that the Greek "Jesus" code "J_S" in the earliest Greek new testaments is the same code as "Joshua" as found in the Greek LXX. So somehow "J_S" in the LXX has suddenly reappeared as "J_S" in the New Testament with the new Christian movement/revolution. Again, this only supports the contention of some that the earliest Christians did not find "J_S" in history, but in the Greek LXX, which they data-mined for posterity.

Sheshbazzar

My thought is that the nomina sacra codes were a compromise reached early on and vigorously enforced to quell the disputations and superstitions over favored pronunciations or spellings (or NON-pronunciations) of the 'holy' names' and titles, which were by many believed to be imbued with true miracle working power.
(akin to a sorcerers invoking abilities through incantations 'In the Name of ****')

This employment of nomina sacra exclusively -in writings- allowed for all of the various factions and individuals to -pronounce- whatever form of name or title they were convinced of, or were the continuators of a 'tradition' received.
Eventually the pronunciations preferred by the majority orthodoxy and were publicly familiar (worldly) predominated, became accepted, and finally were catholicly enforced to the virtual exclusion of all others.
So we ended up with those ersatz pronunciations and spellings that are standard today. (Just try to get a Fundamentalist Christian to give up the form 'Jesus'. No matter how knowledgeable of the original languages they become, the ersatz 'Jesus' is the required mantra of all public exposition.
I have personally experienced being flatly told, I must use the form 'Jesus' only, or not be welcome within the church. Oh well, I don't go.)

Along this line it is to be noted that all the Epistles were written to individuals and congregations that have all been -personally visited- and are already 'converted'.
None of these writings are directed to any general audience, or to any 'outside' group in any attempt to persuade of, or to propagate the faith.
It required a -personal visit-, and a -personal face to face hearing- of 'The word of life' -directly from the lips of an Apostle or disciple- accompanied by 'baptism' into, and a laying on of hands "in the NAME of ******"

This 'secret' unwritten knowledge of the names of divine POWER, and of the formulas for their proper and effective invocation were what separated the nascent church from the 'worldly' and from all of the other competing 'pagan' religious groups.







.

Solo

In the beginning there was the Word salad ? :huh:

Jiri

Chili

"
In the beginning was God and Lord God and if Thomas exclaimed: "my Lord and my God" there is a difference between Lord God and God and so between Jesus and Christ and if reason must prevail there must be order in transformation. That's all.

Chili

Do what you like but always remember that a rose is a rose is a rose but only that which is called a rose is a rose and so here Jesus is Jesus by any other name and Christ is Christ by any other name.

In other words, there is substance to recognize here and from there it does not matter much what you call them. And of course there is substance to God for without it even you could no longer be, for he is the manner of man as well has the horseness of a horse.

OLDMAN

Let's do a tally shall we?
Moses' staff
Joshua' trumpet
Noah's Ark
The Arc of the Covenant
Christ's challace
Christ's body
and every other artifact of the Christian/Judeo religion has been lost, misplaced, destroyed or otherwise left out in the rain.....

or maybe they never existed in the first place.

The horsyness of a horse indeed..

mountainman

Or a primaeval scribal soup.

But that was how people usually addressed the Roman Emperor Caesar.

Ahha! Now there's a realistic notion if I ever saw one.
Fiction and fraud all the way down.

an index of fraud concerning "christian" history by century

Chili

Yes but only horseness is what makes a horse, and so it can be said of you that a horse you might see but horseness you do not see.

mountainman

Hey Shesh,

I agree with all the political comments you have sketched above, but harken back to the chronological framework you mention at the beginning ..... "a compromise reached early on and vigorously enforced ". Precisely WHEN this "early on" historically happened is the $64,000 question. The world's greatest minds have pondered this question for centuries, and we have seen here in BC&H a spectrum of possibilities displayed time and time again.

At one end of the spectrum we have the HJ crew and apologists claiming the codes were enforced from the 1st century and then preserved for more than two centuries (without substantial variation) through to the time of Eusebius and the Constantine Bible, where we see evidence of them in the earliest Greek codices today. At the other end of the (mainstream) spectrum we have recent analysts (both HJ and MJ crews) positing the codes were enforced from the late 2nd century and then preserved for more than a century (without substantial variation) through to the time of Eusebius and the Constantine Bible.

These two mainstream ideas necessitate the universal enforced preservation of the codes for at least a century, and perhaps at least two. Three questions arise -

(1) did any Greek literate non christians notice that the christian sect were using a very distinctive set of Greek codes in their literature during this period, and write about it?

(2) did any Christians rever the holy code of "J_S", and perhaps have this code engraved on their tombstone out of piety for their god?

(3) did any Gnostics (the non canonical sources also exhibit these codes) deliberately alter the codes during this period of centuries?

We dont see any evidence for any of these things. We may not be able to draw any conclusions but the lack of evidence is at least to me quite suspicious. The longer time goes on, the greater spread we should expect to see of variations in the use of these codes, and some reports of their unique approach to written Greek literature. But we see nothing.

Having outlined the above, to go beyond the mainstream conjectures of today, if we were to posit that the codes were introduced in the 4th century, then we would not need to expect any evidence of any of these above three issues related to the codes prior to the 4th century. Also, if the codes (and the NT) were implemented in the 4th century, then this would explain why we see an almost universal consistency in the "early use" of the codes themselves. From my position, I see the almost universal use of these codes as evidence in favor of the opinion that they were implemented very late.

Anyway, just my 2c's worth for midwinter's night here in Oz.

Best wishes


Pete

Chili

If he was anything like Shakespeare presented him they could, and likely should, but I am not sure if I would. For one, to be willing to do that they must know why they called him that and lhe ikely was not the only one as that may have been a common occurance back then.