Nomina Sacra
From A collection of short essays. Project references reflect the source essay; see our current status.
Nommy what? Oh, it’s Latin and it means ‘Sacred Names’ and they’re a not-very-well-known feature of our earliest Greek manuscripts. We need a photo here:
Mark begins with: The_beginning of_the good_message of_Yaʸsous messiah, son of_god. 2 As it_has_been_written in the Aʸsaias the prophet: Behold, I_am_sending_out the messenger of_me before the_face of_you, who will_be_preparing the way of_you. 3 The_voice of_a_shouting one in the wilderness: Prepare the way of_the_master, be_making the paths of_him straight. (Mark 1:1-3, OET Literal Version)
The bolded words are marked as nomina sacra in the manuscript and the two sets of boxes match in the same order. If you look carefully at the highlighted letters in the Greek manuscript, you’ll notice that they all have lines above the Greek letters. They are actually abbreviations of the Greek words Ἰησοῦ (Iēsou=Jesus) Χριστοῦ (Ⱪristou=Christ/Messiah), Θεοῦ (Theou=God), and Κυρίου (Kuriou=boss/master/lord). Each of those Greek words which are 5-7 letters long, is abbreviated to just two Greek letters with an overline. In the earliest manuscripts, this appears to indicate that the scribes believed the words to refer to God. (We know this, because when the same the Greek word obviously refers to ‘a god’ or ‘a false god’, it’s not marked as nomina sacra.)
Most English translations, even very literal ones, don’t mark the words that the scribes marked as nomina sacra, however, the Open English Translation marks them in the text in bold, as we aim to advance the art of Bible translation.
Top of leaf 157r of Codex Washingtonianus (dated around 400AD) viewable from https://GreekCNTR.org/manuscripts/images/m20032/m20032-157r.jpg.
