‘Lord’ is not the name above every name

[John2]

I've never known what to make of Php. 2:9-11, but now it reminds me of Mk. 13:5-6.

Jesus began by telling them, “See to it that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am He,’ and will deceive many.

This gives me the impression that "my name" means Christ (or Messiah), with divine attributes as per Daniel's "son of man" figure. As 1 John 2:22-23 puts it:

Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.

So here confessing "the Son" means acknowledging that "Jesus is the the Christ," which seems similar to Php. 2:9-11 to me.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And since I think Josephus' reference to Jesus in the James passage in Ant. 20.9.1 is genuine, I think it's worth noting that Jesus is said to be "called Christ" there.

... the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ ...

So perhaps "Christ" (with divine attributes) is "the name above all names."

[John2]

That "Christ" is "the name above all names" seems obvious to me now.


Mk. 8:27-30:

Then Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way, he questioned his disciples: “Who do people say I am?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Christ."

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Mk. 9:35-41:

Then he had a little child stand among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not only me, but the One who sent me.”

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone else driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not accompany us.”

“Do not stop him,” Jesus replied. “For no one who performs a miracle in my name can turn around and speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us is for us. Indeed, if anyone gives you even a cup of water because you bear the name of Christ, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.

Mk. 14:61-62:

Again the high priest questioned him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”

“I am," said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

[GakuseiDon]

Combining the NS in the NT/OT was a conscious editorial decision for the XCs and means nothing more than those particular editors wanted IC to mean Jesus and implies nothing about what other XC groups called their IC and XC.

I think it does imply just that. My first thought when you and Jax introduced this interesting topic to me was "how did the name 'Joshua' get treated in the Greek version of the OT?" Andrew Criddle's link shows that IC = Joshua for the earliest Christians.

For the other groups using 'IC' and 'XC', did they consider themselves Christians following on from Paul and the other apostles? If so, then it is data that counts towards their 'IC' and 'XC' as being the same as the proto-orthodox view. From here:
https://www.academia.edu/62705949/Nomin ... di_Library

These texts are supposed to be out of the main-stream, at least to the extent that their acceptance within the broad Christian community was not general enough that they were regarded to be valuable “patristic” writings, much less that at least some of them - such as the various acts, gospels and letters - were even minor candidates for eventual inclusion within the New Testament. Indeed, many of them were controversial at the time; their authors (or “schools”) and their theologies were the focus of derisive treatises; they were subject to bans and systematic destruction. Many are considered to be definitional sectarian Gnostic documents authored and used by groups that would soon be branded and persecuted as heretics. And yet, they adhere to what certainly appear to be normative Christian scribal traditions to the point that they will not use nomina sacra for words that are identical in meaning to, but are merely in a language other than, Greek. One would think that, if some concept or some name is written with an abbreviation because of its special theological role, then abbreviation ought to occur no matter what language was used to write the text

If the nomina sacra was shared by groups calling themselves "Christian", heretical or otherwise, then it is reasonable to assume IC and XC meant the same thing across all the groups. Not PROOF, of course, but it's a reasonable assumption. My question is: are there any groups who don't trace their origin back to the first apostles that used IC and XC?

[GakuseiDon]

That "Christ" is "the name above all names" seems obvious to me now.

Yes, I agree, but I think the following passages show that invoking the name can be used to drive out devils, showing that "every knee will bow" at that name:

Mat 7:
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And you don't even need to be a follower of Jesus! You can just invoke the name:

Mar 9:
38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.
39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.
40 For he that is not against us is on our part.
41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.

And that may be the reason for the nomina sacra being used by Christians: if certain words have power, then speaking them while reading them outloud may invoke that power. So the solution would be to abbreviate them. (I have no evidence for this suggestion, it is just consistent with my theory of an early "magic" Christianity.)

[schillingklaus]

If the name could not be pronounced, it could not be heard. How, then, would "every knee" be able to bow before the name -- if it was never heard?

"The name" (ha-shem) was frequently used as an alias for the Jewish god, as were "glory" (kabod) and "Lord" (adonai); and these not-so-secret aliases helped to avoid that problem.

[Jax]

Combining the NS in the NT/OT was a conscious editorial decision for the XCs and means nothing more than those particular editors wanted IC to mean Jesus and implies nothing about what other XC groups called their IC and XC.

I think it does imply just that. My first thought when you and Jax introduced this interesting topic to me was "how did the name 'Joshua' get treated in the Greek version of the OT?" Andrew Criddle's link shows that IC = Joshua for the earliest Christians.

The problem with that link is that Hurtado was later to retract his statements about Iesous being written in place of IC in p46, which it is not, and as far as I know, the earliest example of Ieson being used in place of IC, IHC... is in the mid 4th century codex Sinaiticus which simply means that by then IC was being associated with Iesous.

[andrewcriddle]

Combining the NS in the NT/OT was a conscious editorial decision for the XCs and means nothing more than those particular editors wanted IC to mean Jesus and implies nothing about what other XC groups called their IC and XC.

I think it does imply just that. My first thought when you and Jax introduced this interesting topic to me was "how did the name 'Joshua' get treated in the Greek version of the OT?" Andrew Criddle's link shows that IC = Joshua for the earliest Christians.

The problem with that link is that Hurtado was later to retract his statements about Iesous being written in place of IC in p46, which it is not, and as far as I know, the earliest example of Ieson being used in place of IC, IHC... is in the mid 4th century codex Sinaiticus which simply means that by then IC was being associated with Iesous.

The specific point I was making is that the Septuagint papyrus Chester Beatty VI uses nomina sacra when writing the name of the OT figure Joshua. I was not making an argument about P46.
See https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... frontcover

Andrew Criddle

[Jax]

Combining the NS in the NT/OT was a conscious editorial decision for the XCs and means nothing more than those particular editors wanted IC to mean Jesus and implies nothing about what other XC groups called their IC and XC.

I think it does imply just that. My first thought when you and Jax introduced this interesting topic to me was "how did the name 'Joshua' get treated in the Greek version of the OT?" Andrew Criddle's link shows that IC = Joshua for the earliest Christians.

The problem with that link is that Hurtado was later to retract his statements about Iesous being written in place of IC in p46, which it is not, and as far as I know, the earliest example of Ieson being used in place of IC, IHC... is in the mid 4th century codex Sinaiticus which simply means that by then IC was being associated with Iesous.

The specific point I was making is that the Septuagint papyrus Chester Beatty VI uses nomina sacra when writing the name of the OT figure Joshua. I was not making an argument about P46.
See https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... frontcover

Andrew Criddle

Thank you Andrew for this. According to this then a early 2nd century Christian text CBBP VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Beatty_Papyri uses the abbreviated form IC for Joshua. So now we can at least say that by this point IC is being associated with at least Joshua.

I'm cool with this.

Lane

[mlinssen]

Combining the NS in the NT/OT was a conscious editorial decision for the XCs and means nothing more than those particular editors wanted IC to mean Jesus and implies nothing about what other XC groups called their IC and XC.

I think it does imply just that. My first thought when you and Jax introduced this interesting topic to me was "how did the name 'Joshua' get treated in the Greek version of the OT?" Andrew Criddle's link shows that IC = Joshua for the earliest Christians.

The problem with that link is that Hurtado was later to retract his statements about Iesous being written in place of IC in p46, which it is not, and as far as I know, the earliest example of Ieson being used in place of IC, IHC... is in the mid 4th century codex Sinaiticus which simply means that by then IC was being associated with Iesous.

The specific point I was making is that the Septuagint papyrus Chester Beatty VI uses nomina sacra when writing the name of the OT figure Joshua. I was not making an argument about P46.
See https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... frontcover

Andrew Criddle

Thank you Andrew for this. According to this then a early 2nd century Christian text CBBP VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Beatty_Papyri uses the abbreviated form IC for Joshua. So now we can at least say that by this point IC is being associated with at least Joshua.

I'm cool with this.

Lane

https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... ic-Opt.pdf

Page 11 of the book - this is pretty exciting!

[box=]The only other contraction used is IHC for IHCOUC (Joshua).
The name is written out in full only on the outside of the front cover.
A long superlineal line over the final letter of a line is used for N (1/13, 10/10, 14/20, 22/15, 66/4). Frequent use has been made of blank spaces to indicate new sections. They may be over half a line in length to less than an inch. The initial letter of a new section is at times spaced out slightly into the margin. The blanks usually but not invariably corre­ spond to the present division of the text into chapters and verses.[/box]

Please do note that the MS is in Coptic. There is a full superlinear covering the NS

[GakuseiDon]

According to this then a early 2nd century Christian text CBBP VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Beatty_Papyri uses the abbreviated form IC for Joshua. So now we can at least say that by this point IC is being associated with at least Joshua.

Would that imply that XC is also being used for 'Christ' at that point as well? Or is there evidence for a 'Joshua XC' that isn't 'Christ'? (I genuinely don't know).