And I thought they were just conserving paper...

Over on Larry Hurtado's blog, Dr. Hurtado has a nice idea about the nomina sacra, which is the abbreviation of sacred names in early Greek manuscripts. He describes the nomina sacra as words...

written in a unique abbreviated form with a curious horizontal stroke placed over the abbreviation. The earliest and most consistently treated words are the Greek words for “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” and “Christ. These words are written as nomina sacra in the earliest clear instances of them in Christian manuscripts, which take us as far back as the second century CE.

Here is an example of the nomina sacra in action. This is John 1:1-2 from Codex Sinaiticus...

Here is the translation, with the circled words in bold: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with GOD and GOD was the Word. The same was in the beginning with GOD."

The word theos (or theon in the accusative case, as in the two circled words on the right) is here abbreviated to ths. Since I first saw this about a year and a half ago, I just thought it was a smart way to conserve paper, which wasn't as easy to come by 2000 years ago as it is today. However, Dr. Hurtado suggests that this was a sign of reverence the early Christians had for the divine name(s). Perhaps it compares to the Jew's reluctance to pronounce YHWH (the "tetragrammaton"). In other words, perhaps Christians felt that God's name is too great even to be written!

I'm a latecomer to the nomina sacra debate, but Hurtado's point makes sense, especially considering that the name of God, Jesus, and Christ are the ones usually abbreviated. However, I have not read enough Greek manuscripts to develop an educated opinion, nor have I read other arguments on the matter, so I'll just file this away in my mind and on my blog as very feasible.