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Old 01-05-2012, 01:21 PM   #1
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Default I Think the Marcionite Inscription at Deir Ali Witnesses Variant Nomina Sacra

I apologize in advance for starting this thread with a question (apparently the point of this forum is to argue with other people). That's not my style. Here's my observation. I don't know everything but I couldn't help notice that the inscription at Deir Ali from 318 CE the reference to Jesus the words appear in a shortened form:

Quote:
του κυ και σωρ Ιη Χρηστου
which represents:

Quote:
του κ(υριο)υ και σω(τη)ρ(ος) Ιη(σου) Χρηστου
Now I know that ancient inscriptions necessarily shortened names and references. But were these 'short forms' an established convention? The reason I ask this is because Clement already represents the name Jesus as being represented by the first two letters (Ιη) in the Stromata:

Quote:
As then in astronomy we have Abraham as an instance, so also in arithmetic we have the same Abraham. "For, hearing that Lot was taken captive, and having numbered his own servants, born in his house, 318," he defeats a very great number of the enemy. They say, then, that the character representing 300 is, as to shape, the type of the Lord's sign, and that the Iota and the Eta indicate the Saviour's name; that it was indicated, accordingly, that Abraham's domestics were in salvation, who having fled to the Sign and the Name became lords of the captives, and of the very many unbelieving nations that followed them. [Stromata 6.11]
I must have read this passage forty times but somewhere in the back of my head I had this reservation. Doesn't Clement's taking of only the first two letters of Ἰησοῦς seem kind of forced? Who would be convinced by this? It would be like a critic of mine saying - 'you see, that Stephan really is an idiot because the first two letters of his name are the same as word stupid ...'

My point is that could the inscription at Deir Ali demonstrate a shared convention among the Marcionites and Alexandrians? Already I notice that such a nomen sacrum does seem to exist from the manuscript evidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomina_sacra

Notice also that the nomen sacrum for Israel is IHL. Is there a connection?

More significantly it is said that P18 has a nomen sacrum of IH for Jesus and is of the Alexandrian text type http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_18 and is dated to the second century:

Quote:
[Ιωαννης τα]ι[ς επτα] εκ[κλης]ιαις
[ταις εν τη] Ασια χαρις υμειν και ειρη
[νη απο ο ων] και ο ην και ο ερχομε
[νος και απο τ[ων επτα πνευμα
[των α] εν[ω]πιον του θρονου αυ
[τ]ου και απο Ιη Χρ ο μαρτυς ο πι
στος ο πρωτοτοκος των νεκρω
και ο αρχων των βασιλεων της γης
τω αγαμωντι ημας και λυσαντι η
[μ]ας εκ των αμαρτων ημων εν
[τ]ω αιματι αυτου και επιησεν ημ[ι]
[βα]σ[ιλ]ειαν ιερεις του θ[υ]ω και π[α]τρι
[αυτο]υ. αυτω το κρατος και η δοξα
[εις το]υς αιωνας αμην ιδου
[ερχε]ται μετα των νεφελων
[και οψε]ται αυτον πας οφθαλ
[μος και ο]ιτινες αυτον εξε
I think this is a major discovery. You read it here first (unless I am proved to be an idiot then it was David Hinley's idea).
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Old 01-05-2012, 02:00 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stephan huller View Post
I apologize in advance for starting this thread with a question (apparently the point of this forum is to argue with other people). That's not my style. Here's my observation. I don't know everything but I couldn't help notice that the inscription at Deir Ali from 318 CE the reference to Jesus the words appear in a shortened form:

Quote:
του κυ και σωρ Ιη Χρηστου
which represents:

Quote:
του κ(υριο)υ και σω(τη)ρ(ος) Ιη(σου) Χρηστου
Now I know that ancient inscriptions necessarily shortened names and references. But were these 'short forms' an established convention? The reason I ask this is because Clement already represents the name Jesus as being represented by the first two letters (Ιη) in the Stromata:

Quote:
As then in astronomy we have Abraham as an instance, so also in arithmetic we have the same Abraham. "For, hearing that Lot was taken captive, and having numbered his own servants, born in his house, 318," he defeats a very great number of the enemy. They say, then, that the character representing 300 is, as to shape, the type of the Lord's sign, and that the Iota and the Eta indicate the Saviour's name; that it was indicated, accordingly, that Abraham's domestics were in salvation, who having fled to the Sign and the Name became lords of the captives, and of the very many unbelieving nations that followed them. [Stromata 6.11]
I must have read this passage forty times but somewhere in the back of my head I had this reservation. Doesn't Clement's taking of only the first two letters of Ἰησοῦς seem kind of forced? Who would be convinced by this? It would be like a critic of mine saying - 'you see, that Stephan really is an idiot because the first two letters of his name are the same as word stupid ...'
Clement is dependent here on the epistle of barnabas
Quote:
For the scripture saith; And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and three hundred. What then was the knowledge given unto him? Understand ye that He saith the eighteen first, and then after an interval three hundred In the eighteen 'I' stands for ten, 'H' for eight. Here thou hast JESUS (IHSOYS). And because the cross in the 'T' was to have grace, He saith also three hundred. So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross.
Andrew Criddle
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Old 01-05-2012, 02:02 PM   #3
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So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross. [Epistle of Barnbas]
Yes, that's true. But do you think it became a convention among the Alexandrians and Marcionites to represent 'Jesus in the two letters'?
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Old 01-05-2012, 02:21 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by stephan huller View Post
Quote:
So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross. [Epistle of Barnbas]
Yes, that's true. But do you think it became a convention among the Alexandrians and Marcionites to represent 'Jesus in the two letters'?
It may have originally been wider than Alexandrians and Marcionites.

Larry Hurtado in The Earliest Christian Artefacts (or via: amazon.co.uk) suggests that representing Jesus as IH is the earliest of all Nomina Sacra possibly having an origin in gematria. (eighteen corresponds to life.)

Andrew Criddle
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Old 01-05-2012, 06:50 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stephan huller View Post
I couldn't help notice that the inscription at Deir Ali from 318 CE the reference to Jesus the words appear in a shortened form:

Quote:
του κυ και σωρ Ιη Χρηστου
which represents:

Quote:
του κ(υριο)υ και σω(τη)ρ(ος) Ιη(σου) Χρηστου
Now I know that ancient inscriptions necessarily shortened names and references. But were these 'short forms' an established convention?
Whether inscriptions may have abbreviated differently than nomina sacra, you might want to check out some place that has a list of Christian inscriptions (I'm sure they start to turn up around the middle of the 4th century). Offhand I could not find anything in Diessman's Light from the Ancient East, but I bet there is something in one of the revised volumes of Schürer's Jewish people.

Quote:
The reason I ask this is because Clement already represents the name Jesus as being represented by the first two letters (Ιη) in the Stromata:

Quote:
As then in astronomy we have Abraham as an instance, so also in arithmetic we have the same Abraham. "For, hearing that Lot was taken captive, and having numbered his own servants, born in his house, 318," he defeats a very great number of the enemy. They say, then, that the character representing 300 [τ = 300] is, as to shape, the type of the Lord's sign, and that the Iota [ι = 10] and the Eta [η = 8] indicate the Saviour's name; that it was indicated, accordingly, that Abraham's domestics were in salvation, who having fled to the Sign and the Name became lords of the captives, and of the very many unbelieving nations that followed them. [Stromata 6.11]
I must have read this passage [in Clement] forty times but somewhere in the back of my head I had this reservation. Doesn't Clement's taking of only the first two letters of Ἰησοῦς seem kind of forced? Who would be convinced by this?
As Andrew has already indicated, this is from the Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 9:
Learn then, my children, concerning all things richly, that Abraham, the first who enjoined circumcision, looking forward in spirit to Jesus, practised that rite, having received the mysteries of the three letters.

For [the Scripture] saith, "And Abraham circumcised ten, and eight, and three hundred men of his household."* What, then, was the knowledge given to him in this?

Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The ten and the eight are thus denoted--Ten by I, and Eight by H. You have [the initials of the, name of] Jesus.

And because the cross was to express the grace [of our redemption] by the letter T he says also, "Three Hundred."

He [that is, Moses, the supposed writer of genesis] signifies, therefore, Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one. He knows this, who has put within us the engrafted gift of His doctrine.

*Not found in Scripture: but comp. Gen. 17:26-27, Gen. 14:14. [ANF vol 1, Donaldson & Roberts]
Quote:
My point is that could the inscription at Deir Ali demonstrate a shared convention among the Marcionites and Alexandrians? Already I notice that such a nomen sacrum does seem to exist from the manuscript evidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomina_sacra

Notice also that the nomen sacrum for Israel is IHL. Is there a connection?

More significantly it is said that P18 has a nomen sacrum of IH for Jesus and is of the Alexandrian text type http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_18 and is dated to the second century:

Quote:
[Ιωαννης τα]ι[ς επτα] εκ[κλης]ιαις
[ταις εν τη] Ασια χαρις υμειν και ειρη
[νη απο ο ων] και ο ην και ο ερχομε
[νος και απο τ[ων επτα πνευμα
[των α] εν[ω]πιον του θρονου αυ
[τ]ου και απο Ιη Χρ ο μαρτυς ο πι
στος ο πρωτοτοκος των νεκρω
και ο αρχων των βασιλεων της γης
... [Rev 4]
You know, of course, that the nomina sacra were not exactly uniform in use. Sometimes a sacred word was abbreviated by using the first two or three letters, sometimes by the first and last letters of either the inflected form or the base form of the word, and other combinations as well. Sometimes words are abbreviated in one part and not in another, and sometimes different forms of the nomina sacra are used interchangeably.

There is a chart of "standard" nomina sacra here:



and here:



Quote:
I think this is a major discovery. You read it here first (unless I am proved to be an idiot then it was David Hinley's idea).
Huphan,

Oh, I wouldn't call you an "idiot" :innocent2: but you can go off on really loooong OCD fueled tangents at times that make no sense whatever to us mere mortals. Whether the first two letters of your actual name represent you as "stoopid," remember what Forrest Gump said: "Stupid is what stupid does, sir!"

FWIW, I use that variant spelling "stoopid" because in the family represented in the comic page cartoon "For Better or Worse" (set in the Great White North), that was the favorite phrase of the son Michael Patterson as a teenager, perhaps signifying a strange Manitobaite pronunciation. That reminds me of your Seattle saying "oot anna boot," which I havent heard since I visited Ann Marie & Vicky Collins as a 13 yr old with my family around 1969). Of course, I say what I say with only love in my heart for you. ><

DCH

[Genuine ersatz edit by Mods: The views taken by Mr Hinley are the opinions of Mr Hinley and do not necessarily represent the opinions of FRDB or its Mods. If you agree with his opinions, then they are great opinions that members can endorse by adding cred points to him. If you do not like his opinions, they are evil and bad and of the worse kind and the Mods have placed David on super secret double probation.]
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Old 01-05-2012, 07:31 PM   #6
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Here's my latest tangent. If Clement's tradition has learned to drop the “three hundred” in order to separate the “eighteen” which is Jesus notice that in the Hebrew if you take the acronym of the number “318” you get the letters which form the name “Esau” (shin-ayin-vav = ayin-shin-vav). Coincidence?
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Old 01-05-2012, 10:32 PM   #7
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three hundred ten eight
שְׁמֹנָה עָשָׂר וּשְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת [Genesis 14:14]
= עֵשָׂו
Esau
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Old 01-06-2012, 01:55 AM   #8
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It is really late but I noticed that Hurtado mentions somewhere graffiti (or 'graffito') with the Hebrew letters yod and he joined together in a special way. I wonder if this is somehow related to the ΙΗ nomen sacrum. The Latin H is derived from the Greek eta. The yod-he combination is of course the sacred divine name of the Hebrews. It is still so sacred that you often see religious text jump from yod-dalet to tet-vav to signify fifteen. Indeed I have always had a pet theory that the fifteenth chapters of all the books of the Pentateuch might be especially significant. Genesis chapter 15 is the sign of the resurrection (or the sign of yonah). Exodus chapter 15 is the Song of the Sea (the crossing of the Red Sea). I think my theory breaks down in Leviticus 15. I think this is the chapter where they give the oldest known recipe for gefilte fish. No, it's an especially disgusting chapter on bodily discharges.

Quote:
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any man has an unusual bodily discharge, such a discharge is unclean. 3 Whether it continues flowing from his body or is blocked, it will make him unclean. This is how his discharge will bring about uncleanness:
4 “‘Any bed the man with a discharge lies on will be unclean, and anything he sits on will be unclean. 5 Anyone who touches his bed must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 6 Whoever sits on anything that the man with a discharge sat on must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

7 “‘Whoever touches the man who has a discharge must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

8 “‘If the man with the discharge spits on anyone who is clean, they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

9 “‘Everything the man sits on when riding will be unclean, 10 and whoever touches any of the things that were under him will be unclean till evening; whoever picks up those things must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

11 “‘Anyone the man with a discharge touches without rinsing his hands with water must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

12 “‘A clay pot that the man touches must be broken, and any wooden article is to be rinsed with water.

13 “‘When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean. 14 On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the LORD to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. 15 The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering[a] and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the LORD for the man because of his discharge.

16 “‘When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 17 Any clothing or leather that has semen on it must be washed with water, and it will be unclean till evening. 18 When a man has sexual relations with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both of them must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

19 “‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.

20 “‘Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21 Anyone who touches her bed will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 22 Anyone who touches anything she sits on will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, they will be unclean till evening.

24 “‘If a man has sexual relations with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.

25 “‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. 26 Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. 27 Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

28 “‘When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. 29 On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 30 The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the LORD for the uncleanness of her discharge.

31 “‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place,[b] which is among them.’”

32 These are the regulations for a man with a discharge, for anyone made unclean by an emission of semen, 33 for a woman in her monthly period, for a man or a woman with a discharge, and for a man who has sexual relations with a woman who is ceremonially unclean.
I don't know. I think you can still make a case for skimming through or summarizing the Pentateuch by reading successive chapter 15s of each book. Numbers 15 is about animal sacrifices to (re)gain the favor of God and Deuteronomy 15 is about redemption during Sabbatical years. Could make an interesting thesis (or something totally irrelevant)
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Old 01-07-2012, 07:52 PM   #9
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Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The ten and the eight are thus denoted--Ten by I, and Eight by H.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephan Huller
It is really late but I noticed that Hurtado mentions somewhere graffiti (or 'graffito') with the Hebrew letters yod and he joined together in a special way.
I wonder if this is somehow related to the ΙΗ nomen sacrum. The Latin H is derived from the Greek eta. The yod-he combination is of course the sacred divine name of the Hebrews.
There seems to be some confusion or misunderstanding within the Greek text(s) regarding the numerical value of the Hebrew letter ה 'hey', with the numerical value of ח 'cheth' (8) supplanting that of ה 'hey' (5)
The numbers 15 and 315 are more consistent with Hebrew numerical patterns.
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