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An Odd Nomen Sacrum in P.Bodmer XIV-XV (P75)

9/10/2013

7 Comments

 
This week I was looking at P.Bodmer XIV-XV (P75, Luke and John) and came across a very interesting phenomenon in the text of John 3:8 in P.Bodmer XV. John 3:8 reads: "The wind (πνεῦμα) blows (πνεῖ) where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but do not know from where it comes, and to where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The scribe of P.Bodmer XIV-XV writes both the noun "wind" and the verb "blows" as nomina sacra:
It was common for words that were used profanely (i.e., non-religious, as opposed to sacral) to be written as nomina sacra, especially when those words were also used as nomina sacra, like the word "wind" in this case. To cite another example, in Mark 1:26 Codex Sinaiticus writes "unclean spirit" (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἀκάθαρτον) as a nomen sacrum even when the referent is a demon! In the case of P.Bodmer XV above, the scribe likewise gives overlining to the verb "to blow," which is linguistically related to the noun πνεῦμα. This is very interesting. In the context of this verse, wind is a metaphor for the Spirit, and this is probably the reason the scribe marked the verb with overlining. I know of no other instance where this verb is marked with overlining and treated as a nomen sacrum.
7 Comments
Jeff
9/10/2013 06:31:23 pm

Interesting... and I just looked at the other 6 usages of πνεω in the NT, and it doesn't seem to be treated as a nomen sacrum there either. I wonder... since the verb is not really abbreviated (i.e., no letters are missing), I wonder if the line is an indication that the scribe mistook the verb πνει as nomina sacra for the noun πνευματι (=πνι)?

OTOH, you do sometimes see a verb like σταυροω abbreviated as nomina sacra... since the noun σταυρος normally is. But I've never seen κατακυριευω treated as nomina sacra... maybe it is somewhere, but I've never seen it.

Interesting.

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Brice C. Jones link
9/11/2013 12:54:43 am

Thanks for these comments, Jeff. It's hard to know exactly what prompted the scribe do this. The question is whether it was deliberate or accidental. Perhaps it was late and he was extremely tired and took the verb as πνευματι, as you mention. I'd like to think it was deliberate but I guess there is no way to know.

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Brice C. Jones link
9/11/2013 03:13:32 am

As a follow-up to your comment, Jeff, I just looked and found that there is no attestation of πνει being used as a nomen sacrum, even as a mistake. So perhaps this increases the probability that that is not what is going on here.

Timothy Mitchell link
9/11/2013 11:56:25 am

Would it be safe to assume that the scribe of P75 copied the Nomina Sacra from the exemplar?

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Brice C. Jones link
9/11/2013 12:40:13 pm

Hi Timothy,
No, we definitely cannot assume this. A study of this scribe's habits may result in our leaning one way or the other, but we are always working with probabilities when it comes to lost exemplars.

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Rick Imlay
6/8/2014 11:42:17 am

Hi Brice,
Phil Comforts books "Encountering the Manuscripts", and "New Testament Text and Translation Commentary," talk about p75 and John 3:8.

Reply
Danny Yencich link
9/6/2015 08:19:30 pm

Interestingly, Comfort does not note that πνει is written as a nomen sacrum in his very recent _A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament_ (Kregel, 2015), even though the nomina sacra are a focus throughout the commentary.

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