A little " horn " VS " the little horn "

I've oft seen " the little horn " of scripture discussed, ( Most often in Christian eschatology as the antichrist ) but never the little " horn " that is used in Greek manuscripts and written over all nomina sacra

Curious if the board here has already discussed such a thing ?

Onoma said:

I've oft seen " the little horn " of scripture discussed, ( Most often in Christian eschatology as the antichrist ) but never the little " horn " that is used in Greek manuscripts and written over all nomina sacra

Curious if the board here has already discussed such a thing ?

Click to expand...

I don't think I've heard of this on the board here. What little horn is used in Greek manuscripts... you mean like in margins or what?

OK, a little more clarification

As per my opening post, it's " written over all nomina sacra "

It's used to signify sacred names / places / objects in Greek manuscripts

Basically it's a literary mark that refers to divinity, a line drawn over abbreviated words

It's called variously a " titlos " ( Latin ) " tittle " ( Bible, English from Greek ) " titlo " ( borrowing from the Greek τίτλος, "title"

in the Biblical concordances it's known as : keraia: a little horn

Strong's Greek: 2762. κεραία (keraia) -- a little horn

Found for example, in the Gospels:

Luke 16:17 " And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail "

Matthew 5:18 " For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled "

Also mentioned in the following verses:

John 19:19 " And Pilate wrote a title, ( Titlos - τιτλος ) and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS

John 19:20 " This title ( Titlos - τιτλος ) then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin "

τιτλος titlos {tit'-los} of Latin origin- a title, an inscription, giving the accusation or crime for which a criminal suffered

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Onoma said:

OK, a little more clarification

As per my opening post, it's " written over all nomina sacra "

It's used to signify sacred names / places / objects in Greek manuscripts

Basically it's a literary mark that refers to divinity, a line drawn over abbreviated words

It's called variously a " titlos " ( Latin ) " tittle " ( Bible, English from Greek ) " titlo " ( borrowing from the Greek τίτλος, "title"

in the Biblical concordances it's known as : keraia: a little horn

Strong's Greek: 2762. κεραία (keraia) -- a little horn

Found for example, in the Gospels:

Luke 16:17 " And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail "

Matthew 5:18 " For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled "

Also mentioned in the following verses:

John 19:19 " And Pilate wrote a title, ( Titlos - τιτλος ) and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS

John 19:20 " This title ( Titlos - τιτλος ) then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin "

τιτλος titlos {tit'-los} of Latin origin- a title, an inscription, giving the accusation or crime for which a criminal suffered

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Click to expand...

The examples you give are not examples, they are just English words. Title means just that, it was a sign that that was written above a crucified person that showed what crime the person had committed.
Tittle just means a tiny part, so not even a tiny part of the law would pass from the law.
I don't think the practice you refer to exists these days but I have, in posts, seen some Jews do something similar when writing God or Lord as G-d or L-d or some such thing. The reason they do this may be out of respect for the title. In the Hebrew scriptures the name of God was shorted to the Tetragrammaton, 4 letters of the name without the vowels, YHWH. This was out of respect for the Name and so that nobody would take God's name in vain.
It is for this reason that we do not know for sure how the Name is pronounced, even though it seems some Jews say they do know this.
The name which is thought to be the closest in Yahweh.

Interesting, thanks

So anyway

It's rather alarming that there are 15 listed nomina sacra, yet there are 16 in the manuscripts, with the 16th being the number / name 666

Perhaps the academic Metzger just decided to omit that one for convenience, even though technically it's not supposed to omitted ?

*shrugs* Maybe we could chalk it up to academic bias

It's also alarming that for all the " end times " experts I've encountered, not one seems aware of the fact that the number / name ( 666 ) associated with the " little horn " of Daniel ...has a " little " horn over it

Onoma said:

Interesting, thanks

So anyway

It's rather alarming that there are 15 listed nomina sacra, yet there are 16 in the manuscripts, with the 16th being the number / name 666

Perhaps the academic Metzger just decided to omit that one for convenience, even though technically it's not supposed to omitted ?

*shrugs* Maybe we could chalk it up to academic bias

It's also alarming that for all the " end times " experts I've encountered, not one seems aware of the fact that the number / name ( 666 ) associated with the " little horn " of Daniel ...has a " little " horn over it

Click to expand...

Interesting if 666 was ever abbreviated, it would be 6-6. Hardly an abbreviation, and if it ever became really common nobody would know what the middle number was.
It certainly is not a divine title.
Overall I think you may be confusing the little horn mentioned in some apocalyptic literature in the Bible (eg Revelations and parts of Daniel) with a literary tool which has a similar name, but which has nothing to do with the little horn mentioned in the Bible in that type of literature.

Brian2 said:

Interesting if 666 was ever abbreviated, it would be 6-6. Hardly an abbreviation, and if it ever became really common nobody would know what the middle number was.
It certainly is not a divine title.
Overall I think you may be confusing the little horn mentioned in some apocalyptic literature in the Bible (eg Revelations and parts of Daniel) with a literary tool which has a similar name, but which has nothing to do with the little horn mentioned in the Bible in that type of literature.

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well brian, I can see you're a little confused, but that's OK

numbers aren't abbreviated

Words are abbreviated, and nomina sacra are...well, Brian, they're words...and they're abbreviated

And what what what...horn what ?

Wrong friend, but I can clearly see you haven't bothered with Greek studies, so I'll just skip that

thanks for ...whatever that was

Lets see whether or not they are truly related, at least according to the academic sources most folks use

I tend to use the concordances, personally


κεραια ( keraia ) - " tittle " ( Strong's Greek 2762 ) is derived from - κερας ( keras ) - " horn " ( Strong's Greek 2768 )

This is the same " horn " in verses like : Revelation 13:11, " And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns κερας ( keras ) - " horn " ( Strong's Greek 2768 ) like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon "

In the Hebrew cognate, we have " qeren " קרן - ( Strong's Hebrew 7161 ) used variously as: horn, hill, of strength (figurative), flask (container for oil), horn (as musical instrument) , horn (of horn-like projections on the altar), of rays of light

" qeren " in turn is from קרן " qaran " ( Strong's Hebrew 7160 ), used variously as: shine, has horns, to shine, to send out rays, to display or grow horns, be horned

Generally, afaik, " horns " in the scriptures are associated with divinity and divine office, which in turn is what the " little " horn " notation is used for, signifying divinity, over the following abbreviated words:

God, Lord, Jesus, Christ, Son, Spirit, David, Cross, Mother, Father, Israel, Savior, Man, Jerusalem, Heaven, and 666

As far as '" abbreviated numbers " and " words "...well, technically, since both Hebrew and Koine Greek are polysemic, letters actually serve as numbers, since the graphemes used to represent " Hindu-Arabic " numerals weren't in use

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Now, phonetically, we can see they're actually pretty close

κεραια ( keraia ) - " tittle "
κερας ( keras ) - " horn "
קרן " qeren " - horn, hill, of strength (figurative), flask (container for oil), horn (as musical instrument) , horn (of horn-like projections on the altar), of rays of light
קרן " qaran " - shine, has horns, to shine, to send out rays, to display or grow horns, be horned


There's an earlier Sumerian / Akkadian cognate as well as Egyptian, but that's for another post

Onoma said:

well brian, I can see you're a little confused, but that's OK

numbers aren't abbreviated

Words are abbreviated, and nomina sacra are...well, Brian, they're words...and they're abbreviated

And what what what...horn what ?

Wrong friend, but I can clearly see you haven't bothered with Greek studies, so I'll just skip that

thanks for ...whatever that was

Click to expand...

Yes I don't really know enough about the ancient languages and what you are referring to to make much sense in this thread.

So perhaps the most interesting thing about " horns " that I have discovered while studying Mesopotamian and Egyptian history, is that the " horn " was actually a unit of measurement used by priests for astronomy measurements, which in turn shows the connection to sacerdotal duties ( divine office )

This was also known as a " finger " or a " digit " in the antiquities

This gives us the earlier Babylonian / Akkadian / Sumerian cognates:

Sumerian: si ( horn / finger ) ( Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early, middle & Old Babylonian )
Akkadian: qarnu ( Closest to Hebrew, phonetically )

The cognate in Egyptian would be Tebā

Under Sumerian and Akkadian conventions, the width of the finger, held up at arm's length, represented 1° ( 1.5° became the norm during the Seleucid period )

We actually still to this day, use those same ancient measures for approximations in astronomy

Onoma said:

So perhaps the most interesting thing about " horns " that I have discovered while studying Mesopotamian and Egyptian history, is that the " horn " was actually a unit of measurement used by priests for astronomy measurements, which in turn shows the connection to sacerdotal duties ( divine office )

This was also known as a " finger " or a " digit " in the antiquities

This gives us the earlier Babylonian / Akkadian / Sumerian cognates:

Sumerian: si ( horn / finger ) ( Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early, middle & Old Babylonian )
Akkadian: qarnu ( Closest to Hebrew, phonetically )

The cognate in Egyptian would be Tebā

Under Sumerian and Akkadian conventions, the width of the finger, held up at arm's length, represented 1° ( 1.5° became the norm during the Seleucid period )

We actually still to this day, use those same ancient measures for approximations in astronomy

Click to expand...

Does it all mean anything in the interpretation of the Bible or is it just of interest if you are into languages and where words originated etc?