It doesn't make linguistic sense for the derivitive ("Christian") to preceed the source ("Christ"). Spiros Zodhaites (
the Complete Word Study Dictionary) notes concerning "Christ," "
Christos: Anointed, a term used in the OT applied to everyone anointed with the holy oil, primarily to the high priesthood (Lev.4:5, 16). Also a name applied to others acting as redeemers."
Of "Christian," he says, "
Christianos" A name given to the disciples or followers of Christ, first adopted at Antioch. It does not occur in the NT as a name commonly used by Christians themselves. The believers first became known as Christians as an appellation of ridicule." Thayer adds: "The name [Christian] was first given to the worshippers of Jesus by the Gentiles, but from the second century onward was accepted by them as a title of honor."
As far as the placeholders used in the earliest manuscripts are concerned, we have no evidence that these words were not in common usage. Quite the contrary: "developing the word Christ from placeholders," as you phrased it, is a bizarre concept indeed. The definitive source for the use of these placeholders is, of course, the invaluable reference work
The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts, edited by Comfort and Barrett. They note:
Quote:The early Christian scribes uniformly developed a system of special contractions, or abbreviations, for divine names (called nomina sacra) and other words that appear often in Scripture (e.g., ουρανος, Ιεροσολυμα/Ιερουσαλημ). In their manuscripts these abbreviations were written in all capital letters with a horizontal line above the letters to identify them as contractions
Since they recognize them as "special contractions or abbreviations," I feel we would be overstepping our bounds to assign any more significance to them than this. Specifically, assuming that the word "
Christos" didn't exist in Koine Greek because it was abbreviated in the earliest NC manuscripts is a leap of logic I would be unwilling to make.
kp
