The nomen sacrum ΙΣ in Justin's Dialogue with Trypho 75

[MrMacSon]

let's look at how the name of 'Joshua'/Iesous, the son of Nun, is rendered the first time it appears in Dialogue with Trypho in chapter 49.6

... how it appears in the manuscript Parisinus gr 450 p. 100:

Parisinus gr 450 p. 100 - Dialogue with Trypho 49 - UR.png (1.18 MiB) Viewed 1482 times

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... .item.zoom

In the fourth line of the left hand page the name 'Joshua'/Iesous (son of Nun) is rendered Iota-Nun overline [ ie. Ἰῦ ]

So now we have the name [Iesous] being rendered in the nominative, the genitive and the accusative as Iota-Sigma, Iota-Upsilon and Iota-Nun (all with overline)

Interestingly, two lines down has, just past half-way along, Ἰησοῦ for " Moses was commanded to lay his hands on Ἰησοῦ " ...

... same as in Dialogue chapter 61, see Ken's next post on p.3 of this same thread: viewtopic.php?p=133325#p133325

.

[mlinssen]

Dialogue with Trypho 61 is interesting because we see the name of the son of Nun in Parisinus gr 450 written out in the Greek (in the genitive) rather than abbreviated. (I'll skip the English and the critical text this time):

Parisinus gr 450 p. 114 - Dialogue with Trypho 61 - of Nun Joshua LL .png

Left hand page, sixth line from the bottom, about halfway, 'of nun Joshua' spelled Ἰησοῦ.

Best,

Ken

Very valuable! The association is clear, I think I'll have to read the Dialogue once again. Perhaps what we're looking at is a variant on Ἰηῦ where the underlying ligature is Ἰησ instead of Ἰσ.
All these conjugations and declensions are terrible of course, and ligatures are much more suited for a language that doesn't have them

Such a pity that all we have left of Justin is 11th / 12th CE at the earliest, evidently tainted by contemporary scribal habits

[Ken Olson]

Now let's look at Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho 62.4-5. This passage is a bit longer.

First the English translation:

4. “But this offspring, who was really begotten of the Father,
was with the Father and the Father talked with him before all
creation as the Word through Solomon clearly showed us, saying
that this Son, who is called Wisdom by Solomon, was begotten
both as a beginning before all his works, and as his offspring.
God has testified to this same truth in the revelation to
Joshua, the son of Nun. To be fully convinced, listen to these
words of the Book of Joshua:
5. “And it came to pass, when Joshua was near Jericho, he lifted up
his eyes, and saw a man standing opposite him. And Joshua went to
him and said: Are you one of our side, or of our opponents? And he answered:
I am the prince of the host of the Lord, and now I am come.
Joshua fell on his face to the ground, and said to him: Lord, what do
you command your servant? And the Lord’s prince said to Joshua: Take
off your shoes, for the place on which you stand is holy. Now Jericho was
shut down and fortified, and no one went out from it. And the Lord
said to Joshua: Behold, I have given Jericho into your hands, and its
king, and all its valiant men.”
(Trypho 62.4-5, translation Falls & Halton)

Note that 62.5 is a quotation of the Book of Joshua (5.13-6.2), as is acknowledged in the text.

Marcovich's critical edition of the Greek text:

Trypho 62.5 A - Marcovich.JPG (2.14 MiB) Viewed 1419 times

Trypho 62.5 B - Marcovich.JPG (1.61 MiB) Viewed 1419 times

Note that Marcovich restores a short bit of the Joshua 5.13 that is not in the manuscript - 'with a drawn sword in his hand' - nor in the English translation above.

The system won't let me attach more than three pics, so the two pics from Parisinus gr 450 will be in my next post.

Best,

Ken

[Ken Olson]

(Continuing from my previous post)

These two pics show how Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho 62.5 appears in Parisinus gr 450:

Parisinus gr 450 p. 115 - Dialogue with Trypho 62.5 begins.png (1.41 MiB) Viewed 1408 times

Parisinus gr 450 p. 116 - Dialogue with Trypho 62.5.png (1.27 MiB) Viewed 1408 times

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... .item.zoom

On the first page you can see the name Ἰησοῦ (Joshua/Jesus) written out with the genitive ending. (Right hand page, near the end of the third line from the bottom).

The second page is really interesting. It's easier to find your place here than in some of the other pages because it begins with the 'Book of Joshua' in the upper left hand hand corner of the left hand page. You can see the name of Ἰησοῦς (Joshua/Jesus) written out several times with the different case endings, BUT ...

(1) At the end of the fifth line Ἰησοῦς (Joshua/Jesus) is rendered Iota-Sigma overline (in 'Joshua fell on his face' from Joshua 5.14).

(2) The Hebrew word אִישׁ֙ (Ish, 'Man') is rendered with alpha nun omicron nun, which Marcovich renders (probably correctly) with ἄνθρωπον, the accusative form of the Greek word ἄνθρωπος ('man'). This appears to be an abbreviated form with the first two and last two letters of the Greek word.

So in this passage, Iota-Sigma underline is used to represent the name Ἰησοῦς (Joshua/Jesus), not the Hebrew אִישׁ֙ ('man').

The Hebrew-English Interlinear of Joshua 5.13 can be found here:

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/joshua/5-13.htm

Best,

Ken

[mlinssen]

Yes, ANON is a very common abbreviation for the singular accusative of anthropos

Interesting variations here Ken, even more irregular than the usual IS vs IHS and XS vs XRS that I'm familiar with. It reminds me a bit of the apostrophe in between ⲁⲅ`ⲅⲉⲗⲟⲥ and such; going by Codex II alone the only regulatory that I could find was that every other occurrence would contain the apostrophe and then the next one wouldn't - haven't done the exact math yet on that but it just stuck out

Going by the general NS in the texts it is equally hard to define a formula - but your findings here would seem to render a link between Hebrew and Greek not feasible

[Ken Olson]

Going by the general NS in the texts it is equally hard to define a formula - but your findings here would seem to render a link between Hebrew and Greek not feasible

Could you clarify what you mean by that?

I suspect you mean something along the lines of: the system of Nomina Sacra found in Justin and other Greek texts was not worked out based on the Hebrew text and then used by translators translating it directly. If so I agree (I doubt Justin or the author of this section of the Dialogue with Trypho if someone else, or the scribe(s) that may have been introducing the Nomina Sacra in the process of copying Justin were using the Hebrew text of the book of Joshua).

Or are you contesting the idea we can see what Ἰησοῦς, Iota-Sigma overline and ἄνθρωπος are being used to describe by looking at the Hebrew text? If so, I don't follow.

Best,

Ken

[mlinssen]

Going by the general NS in the texts it is equally hard to define a formula - but your findings here would seem to render a link between Hebrew and Greek not feasible

Could you clarify what you mean by that?

I suspect you mean something along the lines of: the system of Nomina Sacra found in Justin and other Greek texts was not worked out based on the Hebrew text and then used by translators translating it directly. If so I agree (I doubt Justin or the author of this section of the Dialogue with Trypho if someone else, or the scribe(s) that may have been introducing the Nomina Sacra in the process of copying Justin were using the Hebrew text of the book of Joshua).

That indeed I meant: the bold part

Or are you contesting the idea we can see what Ἰησοῦς, Iota-Sigma overline and ἄνθρωπος are being used to describe by looking at the Hebrew text? If so, I don't follow.

To some extent that too, or let me put it more succinctly: the fact that, when looking at the Hebrew and Greek text at the same time, for the particular situation and instance right here, we find a relatively large inconsistency, seems to emphasise that we are looking at an attempt to make sense of these three words that you mention - to put them into a context

What we see here is how the gospels work: there's always one of the four that will plead your case, not because they are different but exactly because they contradict each other at some points.
What Justin is doing right here is the exact same: associating everything in any way with Joshua son of Nun, so he can always quote some part of it for every occasion.
But to Justin the Hebrew text is irrelevant of course - and we can reach that conclusion precisely by looking at the Hebrew text

[Ken Olson]

To summarize: without initially presupposing what Iota-Sigma overline, Iota-Upsilon overline, and Iota-Nun overline mean in the surviving manuscript of Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, we can see that they are used to abbreviate the Greek name Ἰησοῦς, used of the Hebrew prophet יְהוֹשֻׁעַ֮, usually rendered 'Joshua' or 'Jesus' in English. They appear to be taking the first and last letters of the nominative, genitive, and accusative forms of the name Ἰησοῦς, omitting the middle letters, and adding an overline.

Best,

Ken

[Secret Alias]

... and ish for the seventy four chapters previous to this interpolation.

[mlinssen]

To summarize: without initially presupposing what Iota-Sigma overline, Iota-Upsilon overline, and Iota-Nun overline mean in the surviving manuscript of Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, we can see that they are used to abbreviate the Greek name Ἰησοῦς, used of the Hebrew prophet יְהוֹשֻׁעַ֮, usually rendered 'Joshua' or 'Jesus' in English. They appear to be taking the first and last letters of the nominative, genitive, and accusative forms of the name Ἰησοῦς, omitting the middle letters, and adding an overline.

Best,

Ken

Thanks Ken.
Looks like it's very similar to "the Joshua exercise" in Rahlfs 936 then:

viewtopic.php?p=132096#p132096

In related news, the 3 Oxyrhynchus copies of Thomas are all different: 654 exclusively uses ιης, 1 exclusively uses ις, and 655 has none of either because it's so very fragmented.
It would seem that Justin, in this very chapter, only had ις

Yet it would be fun to check all the Nomina Sacra in Parisinus gr 450 and line them all up (I'm not volunteering LOL)

Anyway, now we need a pre-Christian MS on Joshua. In Greek: no Hebrew of course, nobody ever gave a damn about that language. All of this is an entirely Greco-Roman affair and it is for good reasons that all of the Septuagint that we have is in the Christian hands / script with full scribal habits on display: I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it also is a product of the fiction factory. The Letter of Aristeas is an obvious fake of course - to no surprise

I'll line up books, chapters and verses on Joshua tomorrow, then do a search for early MSS