Forthcoming in The Journal of Theological Studies: Moses as a Symbol of the Crucified Jesus? An Early Reference to the Staurogram?

Early on in my studies, I came across Larry Hurtado's book The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins. It was deeply informative and fascinating to learn of all the features that were characteristic of Christian books; the codex, readers aids, and the nomina sacra (among other distinctives). I used his work as the basis for a detailed adult Sunday School class that I gave at my home Church over a period of several weeks that covered the information found in The Earliest Christian Artifacts. I had the opportunity to share this with Hurtado one time at SBL and he was thrilled. He said that one of his goals for writing that book was to inform the every day Christian of the rich heritage of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. 

Hurtado was also well known for his work on the staurogram, to which he dedicated a chapter in his book. I too became fascinated with the nomina sacra (thanks to Hurtado), and in particular this curious tau-rho ligature. I was convinced by Hurtado's arguments that this device was used as a sort of crude pictogram of the crucified Jesus. Eventually this curiosity led to me writing an article on the origin of this device. After an earlier draft version was rejected by JBL, I submitted my manuscript to The Journal of Theological Studies and I recently learned that it was accepted for publication. I wish that Hurtado was still with us because I would love to talk about the staurogram with him over a cup of coffee.

I am not sure when the article will appear in print. Until that time, here is the title and an abstract to whet your appetite.

Moses as a Symbol of the Crucified Jesus? An Early Reference to the Staurogram?

Abstract:
This article investigates the origins of the Christian use of the staurogram, a ligature formed by the superimposed Greek letters tau and rho, as a symbol of the crucified Jesus, in three early New Testament gospel codices; P66, P75, and P45. Evidence is presented from the Epistle of Barnabas 12.1-3, which interprets Moses’s outstretched arms during the battle against Amalek as a prefiguring of Jesus’s crucifixion, demonstrating that the veneration of cruciform imagery was already present within the imagination of some Christian communities. This suggests that all the necessary ingredients and catalysts were present for the appropriation of the tau-rho ligature at the beginning of the second century. The presence of the staurogram in the Beratius Nikatoras inscription, several Christian gemstone rings, Codex Sinaiticus, and the “Jung Codex,” and the nomen sacrum evidence from a recently discovered Frankfurt Silver amulet, are used to construct a chronological framework for the adoption of the staurogram in the New Testament gospel papyri. This article argues that there is good reason to believe staurograms could have appeared in manuscripts of the canonical gospels as early as the end of the second century and were adopted as standalone pictograms by the fourth century

Key words: staurogram, nomina sacra, Epistle of Barnabas, Ephrem the Syrian, Frankfurt Silver Amulet, P45, P66, P75, Codex Sinaiticus