Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

UNCIAL

A rounded form of Greek or Roman majuscule (capital) letters. Although some scholars derive the word “uncial” from Lat. uncus, “hook” (a reference to their form as hooked or bent capitals), most trace it to uncia, “a twelfth part,” a term used by Jerome in the introduction to his translation of Job to refer disparagingly to Greek manuscripts that used ostentatious letters “an inch wide.” Both Greek and Latin texts from the 3rd through 9th centuries c.e. were written in uncial script; after this time, the smaller, connected minuscule characters almost completely replaced uncials.

Uncial letters were used to write early lectionaries and papyrus manuscripts, but the term “uncial” often refers to those manuscripts of the OT and NT written in uncial characters on parchment. More than 300 uncial manuscripts, mostly fragmentary, are extant. Among the more important are the codices Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus.

James R. Adair, Jr.

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

UNCIAL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)