A particular form of abbreviations found in early Christian Greek manuscripts for divine names and titles. Little is known about why or when the practice began and found such wide spread use. While abbreviations save space on precious manuscript, space saving did not seem to be the most significant reason. Though there are variations, most consists of two letters of the name or title spanned by an overline.According to NT scholar Larry Hurtado, the earliest forms of nomina sacra were found for words of 'God,' 'Lord,' 'Jesus,' and 'Christ.' Here are some ommon examples of nomina sacra (sg., nomen sacrum (when they form the subjects only):
ΘΣ (theos, God),
ΚΣ (kurios, Lord),
ΙΣ (iesous, Jesus),
ΧΣ (christos, Messiah/Christ), and
ΔΑΔ (dauid, David).
Nomen sacra for Jesus, from IesouS.
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