What are ‘nomina sacra’ abbreviations in Greek New Testament manuscripts?

Nomina sacra (the Latin for sacred names) are a common system of abbreviations used, mainly, but not only, for sacred names in some New Testament manuscripts.

The main ones are as follows, where the abbreviation gives the first and last letter of the word – usually ending in -S for nominative case, and -Y for genitive case, ‘of”:

There are others – Spirit Πνεῦμα, Pneuma ΠΝΑ ΠΣ, ΠΝΣ, ΠΝΟΣ David Δαυίδ, Dauid ΔΑΔ Cross Σταυρός, Stauros ΣΤΣ ΣΤΥ Mother Μήτηρ, Mētēr ΜΗΡ, ΜΡ ΜΡΣ Father Πατήρ, Patēr ΠΗΡ, ΠΡ ΠΡΣ Israel Ἰσραήλ, Israēl ΙΗΛ Savior Σωτήρ, Sōtēr ΣΗΡ ΣΡΣ Human Ἄνθρωπος, Anthrōpos ΑΝΟΣ ΑΝΟΥ Jerusalem Ἱερουσαλήμ, Ierousalēm ΙΛΗΜ Heaven/Heavens.

The main significance of these abbreviations is that abbreviations lead to an increase in the likelihood of copying errors. One famous example being where some manuscripts of “only begotten son” in John 1:18 have been mistakenly copied as “only begotten god” where ΥΣ (son) is more similar to ΘΣ (god) in scribal handwriting than modern print fonts might suggest. Textual scholarship has to therefore be doubly careful where textual variants involve single letter copying errors in these abbreviations.