If
Papyrus 72 (Papyrus Bodmer VII and VIII) is correctly dated
to 250-300, it is our earliest copy of Second Peter. Here we have a document that is early
enough, possibly, to give some insight on how scribes used nomina sacra instead of the full words God, Lord, Jesus, and Christ, and how soon the nomina
sacra were expanded to include words such as spirit, mother, father, son, man, savior, heaven, David, and
The first occurrence of nomina sacra in Second Peter is not unusual – in both occurrences in verse 1, “Jesus Christ” is presented in three-character suspension, ΙΗΥ ΧΡΥ.
Verse
2 in P72 is unique and rather remarkable:
instead of the usual reading ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ θυ καὶ Ἰυ τοῦ,
P72 reads επειγνωση του θυ ιηυ του κυριου – a rare example of κυρίου being written out in full.
In
1:8, the content is not unusual but the format is. In καθειστησιν εις τη του an
overline appears over τη του. It
is tempting to think that the scribe initially wrote τη and added the του while
proofreading, having initially written the overline to represent a final ν.
In
1:11, κυ appears as usual and the verse concludes with σωτηρος ιηυ
χρυ.
In
1:14, κς and ιης χρς appear.
In
1:16, κυ and ιηυ χρυ appear.
In
1:17, θυ πρς appears – and thus we have here evidence that πρς
is as early as the other four nomina sacra, at least where in appears
alongside θυ.
In
2:4 θς appears where expected.
In 2:9 κυριος appears written in full.
In
2:11 κυ appears both overlined and underlined.
In 2:20 κυριου is written in full and
overlined and after σωτηρος, ιηυ χρυ appear.
 |
| Second Peter 2:18-21 in P72 |
In
3:2 κυ appears as expected.
In
3:5 θυ appears.
In
3:9 κω and κς appear.
In
3:10 κυ appears.
In
3:12 θυ appears.
In
3:15 κυ appears.
In
3:18 κυ appears and so does ιηυ χρυ.
The mystery - which as far as I know remains unsolved - is, why is κυριος written out in full in these specific places, and not elsewhere? One thing is clear though: it would be commendable for future printed Greek New Testaments to offer an archetype of all witnesses with the nomina sacra presented in their earliest extant form, not artificially uncontracted (as is currently this case).
2 comments:
I agree. There are only two places in Paul's letters where the grammatical case of Jesus is not clear from the context. In both case the manuscripts are divided about the grammatical case. This is surely telling us that Jesus was written in the undeclined form ΙΗ in the initial text.
Some of the abbreviations make sense (for example, Heaven can refer to God as in Daniel, and David can refer to Jesus as in Ezekiel, so they fit), but others like Jerusalem and Mother and Cross are a little surprising to see in the list. But facts are facts.
I wondered whether "word" or "wisdom" were ever abbreviated, because if "the Spirit of God/the Lord" was, why not "the Word of God/the Lord" or "Wisdom" (as in Proverbs)? But I did not find any record in the CNTTS apparatus of these being abbreviated to NS in the GNT. However, I only checked about 20 verses and the apparatus is not exhaustive, so some rare occurrences might exist, unknown to us.
On a related note, the first nomina sacra in this blog post are in the verse where the KJV translators strangely avoided translating the Greek as "of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (if the Granville Sharp rule is valid) or "of our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (if the Granville Sharp rule is not valid; this use of "our" is similar to what the KJV did in 1 Cor. 16:23). This questionable translation of 2 Peter 1:1 in the KJV, coupled with the omission of "God" in Revelation 1:8 (with little or no Greek MS support for the omission; even GA 2814, Erasmus’ MS, includes “God”; see the top of page 8r http://digital.bib-bvb.de/view/bvb_mets/viewer.0.6.5.jsp?folder_id=0&dvs=1771833443669~644&pid=6970294&locale=en&usePid1=true&usePid2=truE ), one would wonder whether some textual critics and translators in the 1500s doubted that the New Testament calls Jesus God. (But Thomas did in John 20:17; the Byzantine text does in 1 Timothy 3:16; and almost all MSS and translations do in Hebrews 1:8 except the wrongly-translated Jehovah's Witnesses' version.) Regardless of the private thoughts of sixteenth-century textual critics and translators, perhaps the use of nomina sacra for words relating to Jesus (such as Son, David, etc.), as well as Spirit, hint that early Christians regarded Jesus and the Spirit as God, in light of the fact that they did not abbreviate just any other words relating to God, such as Word and Wisdom. However, some other words are capitalized that are not worshiped (Jerusalem, etc.), so this is not proof.
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