 a "spirit" vs. the "Spirit", and applied "nomina sacra" only to the latter (at times necessarily revealing an exegetical choice), although later scribes would mechanically abbreviate all occurrences.Scholars have advanced a number of theories on the origin of the "nomina sacra".Larry Hurtado has suggested Greek numerals as the origin of the overline spanning the "nomen sacrum", with , the ordinary way of writing "18", being taken as reminiscent of a suspended form of ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (Jesus).