Talk:Nomina sacra

Puzzled by "Starting in the third century" in Intro

Any idea what this actually means? If we are discussing inscriptions in stone etc, rather than documents should this be made clearer? Mercury543210 (talk) 10:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Leszek: I don't think your edit quite covers it as the earlier para states 1st-3rd!

My point was that I think this para is talking about INSCRIPTIONS but I'm very unclear on what is meant by INSCRIPTIONS. Mercury543210 (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the more appropriate term is "scribal conventions" as distinct from (epigraphic) inscriptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arius of Alexandria (talk • contribs) 22:39, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

medieval lunate form

This article mentions what it calls a medieval lunate form of the Greek letter sigma which looks like a C. But the form occurs in documents at least as old as the 3rd century A.D. Is there any certain reason it is called medieval lunate, or could we just shorten that to lunate? I'm not sure exactly what the protocol should be for changing, but if no one objects I think I'll change it myself in a week or two. Mitchell Powell (talk) 01:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I changed it, so now it is just called "lunate". Mitchell Powell (talk) 20:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

P or ${\mathfrak {P}}$

I was wondering whether it would be best to change all the P's (for Papyrus) to ${\mathfrak {P}}$, as used in each page for each Papyrus? (Stephen Walch (talk) 16:25, 6 November 2009 (UTC))

Documentation Needed

"Starting[citation needed] in the second century the nomina sacra were sometimes shortened by contraction in Christian inscriptions"

As this sentence reads, it suggests that in the first century there were Christian inscriptions that referred to Christ, God, Lord, Jesus, Spirit (in Greek) written out in full by Christians and that the nomina sacra abbreviations were only started in the 2nd century. Should this statement be clarified to something like "The earliest Christian inscriptions come from the second century. In those inscriptions the nomina sacra are already found." And some documentation is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EnochBethany (talk • contribs) 01:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

P17

According to the article, P17 has Θ.

Should that be ΘΩ?

Mendelo (talk) 20:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

You're right, it should be that. It should've also had the Nomina Sacra ΠΝΣ listed, which I've now corrected. I also need to add the Nomina Sacra for Papyrus 75 too. (Stephen Walch (talk) 10:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC))

Unclear caption reference to "Codex Vaticanus (B)"

The caption on the first image states that it is taken from "Codex Vaticanus (B)." The article Codex Vaticanus B, however, says that that document is about Aztec rituals:

Page from Codex Vaticanus B

Please clarify. Thanks.

Christopher Ursich (talk) 01:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Origin in special chanting

I read recently – and the problem is, I can't remember where – that one explanation for the origin of nomina sacra is that they might have been chanted distinctively in liturgical reading. Is this idea well enough attested in the scholarly literature to bear mentioning?—Jchthys 23:50, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

C instead of Σ

Capital Σ was not used during most of the byzantin period. At least sacra nomina in manuscripts and icons are written with latin C. Can someone correct all that table, please?--Skylax30 (talk) 09:14, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Hey Skylax30 - Please see the explanation in my undo of your edit. I'll repeat it here: Ancient Greek Sigma was written exactly like how the 'Latin' C looked/Looks; however we're using modern-contemporary Greek characters to represent the Nomina Sacra, as is usually done in many official transcriptions of the Greek NT (see for instance in Comfort and Barret's Text of the Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts). Technically, there was no such thing as "capital" or "lower-case" letters until around the 9th century CE Stephen Walch (talk) 23:49, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, but in palaeography books that they use C instead of Σ. For example here. This could be reflected in the article. --Skylax30 (talk) 06:16, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

That would be more applicable to the Wiki page on the history of the Greek writing style, rather than here on the Nomina Sacra page, which has been very much catered towards lay-persons, and for those that have been used to seeing contemporary Greek transcriptions of those manuscripts that have the Nomina Sacra :) Stephen Walch (talk) 19:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

But the description of the figure in the text uses: "Nomina sacra IC XC, from the Byzantine Greek ΙΗCΟΥC ΧΡΙCΤΟC (Jesus Christ). Detail from an icon at the Troyan Monastery in Bulgaria." 195.113.23.117 (talk) 16:39, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Well the "capital letter" Α and Ω weren't used during most of the Byzantine period either, and looked more like the "lower case" versions α and ω. "Palaeographical" books are inconsistent with their usage of Greek characters, and most transcriptions don't use the "capital Greek" letters to represent the Nomina sacra. As stated: this article (and most of Wikipedia) is geared towards the lay person, and most lay people will be far more familiar with how the modern Greek alphabet looks. There's no point in amending the entire article just for one letter to appease someone's rather insignificant sensibilities. Please also note that the books listed in the references section also use modern Greek letters when they write out the Nomina Sacra. I have amended the icon description to remove any ambiguity or confusion it may've caused. (Stephen Walch (talk) 11:53, 2 February 2019 (UTC))

𐌲𐌿𐌸

From wiktionary:𐌲𐌿𐌸:

As a nomen sacrum, this noun was always abbreviated when referring to the Christian god (although editions of the Gothic text, such as Streitberg's, typically write it and other abbreviated nomina sacra in unabbreviated form). The declined forms given below are essentially reconstructions, being never encountered in unabbreviated form in the manuscripts. The forms given below are inferred on linguistic grounds, but others have been proposed; e.g. the form 𐌲𐌿𐌸𐍃 (guþs) is sometimes given as the genitive singular behind the abbreviation 𐌲𐌸𐍃 (gþs).

Can something be said about how the use of nomina sacra has left us without the full form of this word (and others?)? --Error (talk) 19:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

μητρός = ΜΗΣ or ΜΡΣ, accusative and dative forms, and Θεοτόκος = ΘΚΣ?

Which is the correct form for μητρός? Considering that πατρός is ΠΡΣ, is μητρός ΜΗΣ or ΜΡΣ? The article listed it as ΜΗΣ but I changed it to ΜΡΣ. Also I've added the accusative and dative forms for each nomen sacrum, as seen in the manuscripts shown below the list, and I need someone to verify them. 24.55.120.239 (talk) 23:24, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

EDIT: Also, where did the forms ΘΚΣ/ΘΚΥ/ΘΚΩ/ΘΚΝ (all for Θεοτόκος and their respective declined forms) come from? None of them appear in any of the manuscripts listed that contain nomina sacra. 24.55.120.239 (talk) 23:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Correct form is ΜΡΣ. See John 3:4 in Codex Cyprius (K) on the CSNTM. As for the forms ΘΚΣ/ΘΚΥ/ΘΚΩ/ΘΚΝ - afraid I've never actually seen (or taken note of) a manuscript which uses these. These would probably only appear in manuscripts containing early church father commentaries, or likely some Eastern Orthodox iconography. As the list of nomina sacra is taken from a specific book which has no mention of Θεοτόκος (hence no source for the nomina sacra forms), I've removed it from the list. Stephen Walch (talk) 11:29, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. And also why where the dative and accusative forms (e.g. ΘΩ (θεῷ), ΘΝ (θεόν), etc.) removed? 24.55.120.239 (talk) 18:12, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

The list of Nomina sacra is taken from Bruce Metzger's Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, which doesn't list the dative/accusative forms, hence the removal. If you find a source similar to Metzger's which lists them all, will happily let it override Metzger's list. :) Stephen Walch (talk) 19:59, 3 January 2022 (UTC)