Subject: tc-list re: thanks for help

From: "Thomas J. Kraus" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 12:31:17 +0200

Thanks to everybody providing help in my search of nomina sacra (in 
Swanson´s editions).
One point which caught my eye and may be of any interest to anybody: Bruce 
Prior found in Swanson´s Matthew the following nomina sacra printed in the 
apparatus:

Matthew 26:1 IS with a stroke in many manuscripts
Matthew 26:2 STAURWQHNAI with a stroke above the rho and the omega

The leaf of the Chester Beatty Codex of the Gospels and Acts (P45) kept in 
the Vienna collection, P.Vindob.G 31974, reads on the recto for
Matthew 26:1 I[H with a stroke above it (the utmost form for IHSOUS)
Matthew 26:2 SRNA[I with a stroke above all the letters

Quite amazing that Swanson did not include these unusual forms. 
Especially, IH (common in P45) is very rare in texts on papyrus or vellum 
(above all in biblical texts; cf. P64), and can be found mainly in 
inscriptions. Couldn´t we get some further pieces of information if such 
forms (IH is more an abbreviation than a contraction, the latter the 
regular way of forming nomina sacra) were included in the appropriate 
editions? Of course, textual criticism might not profit from these to a 
major degree, but intermanuscriptal or -scribal studies and issues these 
might be of interest, not to speak of the scribes´ way of thinking and 
their attitude towards the text they had to copy.

Once more: thanks to you all for providing help.

best wishes

Thomas J. Kraus

Universitaet Regensburg
Kath.-theol. Fakultaet
Universitaetsstr. 31
D-93053 Regensburg

Tel. + 49 941 943 36 90
Fax. + 49 941 943 19 86
[email-masked]

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From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 12:07:33 +000

Thomas Kraus mentions interest in the varying forms of Jesus' 
name in nomina sacra, so I take the immodest step of pointing to 
my recent JBL article ("The Origin of the Nomina Sacra:  A 
Proposal," JBL 117/4[1998], 655-73), in which I offer a suggestion 
that takes up this variation as significant.
Larry Hurtado

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  [email-masked]