Revision as of 21:13, 20 March 2009

OSIS Book Abbreviations

Introduction

What follows is a list of abbreviations for books of the Bible, for use with OSIS as standard book IDs. The basis for most of these works is the SBL Handbook of Style^[1]. The intent of this list is to provide abbreviations for all texts considered by any extant Jewish or Christian sect to be a part of the Bible and for all texts included within significant historical works considered Bibles. Texts that are essentially sectarian in nature are not be included in this list, though a work with recognized antiquity separate from the community that currently uses it may be included in this list even if only one sect currently recognizes it as biblical. For the purposes of this list, historical works considered Bibles includes works of which there are numerous copies, such as the Vulgate or LXX, as well as important manuscripts, such as Codex Sinaiticus. While the SBL Handbook of Style provides most of the data included here, there are some ambiguities and omissions in its presentation. Ambiguities are clarified here primarily on the assumption that first mention is primary and preferrential. Omissions are filled in by following practices illustrated in abbreviation of other books included by the SBL Handbook of Style and by reference to abbreviations in use by other parties. The decisions about what books should be considered canonical were made largely on the basis of Hans Peter Rüger's "The Extent of the Old Testament Canon"^[2].

The sections marked with a *, consisting of the Old & New Testaments, Apocrypha, and additional texts found in Rahlfs' LXX and the Vulgate, are the most common texts and those most likely to be encountered in documents, especially documents produced within Western church traditions. Books marked with a † are absent from the SBL Handbook of Style, so their abbreviations are synthesized.

Exhaustive though this document attempts to be, there are inevitably omissions which may be addressed in future versions. Lists of IDs for other, extra-biblical, books (pseudepigrapha, NT apocrypha, Apostolic Fathers, etc.) may be found elsewhere and may serve as an additional resource for Bibles with books not included here.

Abbreviations

References

1. ↑ Alexander, Patrick H. et al., eds., The SBL Handbook of Style: for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and early Christian studies, (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999), 74-84.
2. ↑ Rüger, Hans Peter. "The Extent of the Old Testament Canon," in The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective (ed. Siegfired Meurer; Reading: United Bible Societies, 1991), 151-60.
3. ↑ In the case of the book of Esther, the same abbreviation, "Esth", should be used for both versions from the Hebrew tradition and from the longer Greek text.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4} The traditions and schemes of naming the books of Ezra/Esdras/Nehemiah are complicated and will not be disambiguated here. Books should be identified according to their own naming schemes. Thus Bible.LXX:2Esd = Bible.Vulg:1Esd + Bible.Vulg:2Esd = Bible.NRSVA:Ezra + Bible.NRSVA:Neh. Modern book names 4-6 Ezra do not refer to these works as biblical books, but as pseudepigrapha, hence the equivalent names 2, 4, & 5 Esdras are given priority as they refer to biblical books within certain Latin ms traditions.
5. ↑ These additions focus on the Narrower Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; it's Wider Canon adds, besides the books listed here, 8 books to its New Testament only for the purpose of having an 81-book canon and are not included in any actual printed "Bibles". This list is based largely on: Mikre-Sellassie, G. A. 1993. "The Bible and Its Canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church." TBT 44/1:111-123. [1]