he-man
he-man
The problem can be illustrated from the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Greek word for "God," theos, in the pagan, polytheistic Greek context, meant one of the "gods" of the Greek pantheon. No word in Greek perfectly meshed with the Old Testament teaching about the one true God. When the Old Testament was originally translated from Hebrew to Greek, the translators had to decide what was the best rendering within the constraints of Greek vocabulary.
Nomina sacra [such as used in 2Co 4:4 for "God,"] are special abbreviations which appear in New Testament texts. Unlike most abbreviations, which are meant to save time (see Abbreviations in P46), nomina sacra are used to set certain, holy words apart from the rest of the text. This is clear from the fact that these words are abbreviated in their sacral usages but not in profane usages 'son' is contracted to when it refers to Jesus, the Son of God, but the same word is not contracted in other usages).
Because the last letter or two is retained, the grammatical case of the word is clear www.lib.umich.edu/pap/k12/reading/Paul/nominasacra.html
The early use of "nomina sacra" indicates a canon was recognized
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Just click on my new Avatar picture above to see the enlarged view of the Nomina Sacra
UnicalsThere are four kinds of Greek witnesses: papyri, uncials (or majuscules), minuscules (or cursives), and lectionaries. The first three are important enough to warrant some discussion here.
Papyri
These documents are written on the cheap writing materials of the ancient world that were roughly equivalent to modern paper. Literally thousands of papyrus fragments have been found of which approximately 100 contain portions of the New Testament. Actually, taken together, these 100 fragments constitute over half of the New Testament and all but four are in the form of codices (i.e., four are scrolls rather than the book-form [codex]).
All NT papyri were written with uncial or capital letters. They range in date from the early second century through the eighth century. About 50 of them are to be dated before the fourth century. Though many of them are somewhat fragmentary, and at times the copying was looser than one would like (i.e., they were done before the canon was officially recognized), they are nevertheless extremely important for establishing the text of the New Testament—if for no other reason than the fact that they represent some of the most ancient witnesses we possess. Six important papyri are illustrated in the chart below.
I find it interesting to note that the ones I have been quoting from are described as The most important uncials.
Uncials
There are approximately 300 uncials known to exist today that contain portions of the New Testament and one uncial that contains the entire NT. Like the papyri, these manuscripts were written with uncial or capital letters, but unlike the papyri they were written on animal skins or vellum.
For the most part they are beautiful manuscripts, elegantly written and routinely done in scriptoria and often for special purposes. Generally speaking, they range in date from the fourth through the ninth centuries. Our oldest complete copy of the NT is an uncial manuscript, Í (see chart below). The symbol for each uncial is either a capital letter (in Latin or Greek letters [though one ms has a Hebrew letter, Í]) or a number beginning with 0 (e.g., 01, 0220, etc.). The most important uncials cited in the NET NT footnotes are as follows:
Sinaiticus
4th century The entire NT
Alexandrian; best in epistles
Alexandrinus
5th century
Most of the NT
Important in the Epistles and Revelation
Vaticanus
4th century Most of NT except Hebrews 9:14ff, the Pastorals, Phlm, Rev
Alexandrian; best in Gospels
Ephraemi
Rescriptus
5th century
Portions of every book except 2 Thess and 2 John
mixed
Bezae/
Cantabrigiensis
5th century
Gospels and Acts
Western
Claromontanus
6th century
Pauline Epistles and Hebrews
Western
Augiensis
9th century
Pauline Epistles
Western
Boernerianus
9th century
Pauline Epistles
Western
Regius
8th century
Gospels
Often agrees with Vaticanus
Washingtonianus
early 5th century
Gospels
P45
Chester Beatty papyrus
3rd century AD
Gospels, Acts 4-17
Mark (Caesarean); Matt, Luke, John (intermediate between Alexandrian and Western texttypes)
P46
Chester Beatty papyrus
ca. AD 200
10 Pauline Epistles (all but Pastorals) and Hebrews
Overall closer to Alexandrian than Western
P47
Chester Beatty papyrus
3rd century AD
Revelation 9:10-17:2
Alexandrian; often agrees with Sinaiticus (Í)
P66
Bodmer Papyrus
ca. AD 200
John
Mixed text between Western and Alexandrian
P75
Bodmer papyrus
early 3rd century
Luke and John
Alexandrian, often agrees with B
Codex Vaticanus (B), since 1481, at least, the chief treasure of the Vatican Library, and universally esteemed to be the oldest and best manuscript of the Greek New Testament; 4th century. In the Gospels the divisions are of an earlier date than in Codex Sinaiticus.
Codex Sinaiticus found by Tischendorf at Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai and now in the British Library of London; 4th century. This is the only uncial which contains the New Testament entire. It also has the Epistle of Barnabas and part of the Shepherd of Hermas and possibly originally the Didache.
Probably the earliest system of chapter divisions is preserved in Codex Vaticanus, coming down to us from Alexandria probably by way of Caesarea.
James Barr's book The Semantics of Biblical Language and D. A. Carson's book Exegetical Fallacies are excellent texts operating on this level.
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and the Jews were experts on identifying personalities from the celestial world, just ask them about Jesus.
