Defining the name Jesus

[Radagast]

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Yeshua, for yoshia his people from their sins

You can edit the New Testament all you like. The word of God is still the Greek original.

Matthew 1:21: τέξεται δὲ υἱὸν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

There was no Hebrew Matthew.

There was probably an Aramaic proto-Matthew, but it's long lost.

Hebrew versions of Matthew that exist today are translations from the Greek.

There actually was but I agree that todays were from the Greek

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

You can edit the New Testament all you like. The word of God is still the Greek original.

You don't get it. That is why we know there was a Hebrew Matthew...otherwise it would make no sense.

 

[Radagast]

You don't get it. That is why we know there was a Hebrew Matthew...otherwise it would make no sense.

No, it doesn't imply that there was a Hebrew Matthew. All it implies is that either (a) Gabriel was speaking in Hebrew, or (b) Gabriel was speaking in Aramaic, or (c) Gabriel was speaking in Greek and Mary knew what the name meant.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

No, it doesn't imply that there was a Hebrew Matthew. All it implies is that either (a) Gabriel was speaking in Hebrew, or (b) Gabriel was speaking in Aramaic, or (c) Gabriel was speaking in Greek and Mary knew what the name meant.

It absolutely does. How does Iesous render the meaning of "he shall save" in Greek? Yoshia in Hebrew does. How does Iesoun word play with "autos gar sosei"? So it would be Hebrew then the Greek or Matthew wrote 2 versions. All the Greek manuscripts we have are copies. Both Irenaeus of Lyons (180 AD) and Papias (130 AD) wrote of the Hebrew Matthew. Very doubtful Mary knew Greek. Most of the Apostles had to have scribes for Greek.

Irenaeus 180 AD
"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church."

 

[ViaCrucis]

What does the name Jesus mean? Is it a Greek word? Why do translators use this name? Where did it come from?

Our Lord was given the Aramaic form of the Hebrew name יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua), the Aramaic being ישוע, as I understand it we largely have to make an educated guess of how the name was pronounced in Jesus' Galilean dialect of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but perhaps something like Yeshu'.

There had already, for centuries, been a standardized way of Hellenizing this name, both the Hebrew and also Aramaic forms, such as can be seen in the Hellenization of both Joshua ben Nun and Jeshua the high priest mentioned in the Old Testament as found in the LXX. That is IHΣOYΣ/IHCOYC (the letter Sigma variously being either Σ or C, the latter known as a Lunate Sigma), and in modern Greek script, Ιησούς. The Greek pronunciation being close to Yay-soos.

When Latinized this became IESUS (Iesus).

In the late middle ages the Consonontal form of the Latin letter 'I' was slowly replaced by a new symbol, 'J', basically an 'I' with a tail to differentiate it from regular 'I'. As such the spelling Iesus was displaced by Jesus in Western European languages using the Latin Alphabet.

In English the 'J' symbol came to represent the imported French sound /ʒ/ (think the 'j' in the French word "bonjour", or the second 'g' in the English word "garage") as well as the harder /dʒ/ sound, as in the English "jump". And so "Jesus" came to be pronounced not with the soft Consonontal I sound, but that harder 'j' sound we are familiar with today.

That gives us the modern spelling "Jesus" and the common English pronunciation of "Jee-zuss" (and similar).

-CryptoLutheran

 

[W2L]

Our Lord was given the Aramaic form of the Hebrew name יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua), the Aramaic being ישוע, as I understand it we largely have to make an educated guess of how the name was pronounced in Jesus' Galilean dialect of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but perhaps something like Yeshu'.

There had already, for centuries, been a standardized way of Hellenizing this name, both the Hebrew and also Aramaic forms, such as can be seen in the Hellenization of both Joshua ben Nun and Jeshua the high priest mentioned in the Old Testament as found in the LXX. That is IHΣOYΣ/IHCOYC (the letter Sigma variously being either Σ or C, the latter known as a Lunate Sigma), and in modern Greek script, Ιησούς. The Greek pronunciation being close to Yay-soos.

When Latinized this became IESUS (Iesus).

In the late middle ages the Consonontal form of the Latin letter 'I' was slowly replaced by a new symbol, 'J', basically an 'I' with a tail to differentiate it from regular 'I'. As such the spelling Iesus was displaced by Jesus in Western European languages using the Latin Alphabet.

In English the 'J' symbol came to represent the imported French sound /ʒ/ (think the 'j' in the French word "bonjour", or the second 'g' in the English word "garage") as well as the harder /dʒ/ sound, as in the English "jump". And so "Jesus" came to be pronounced not with the soft Consonontal I sound, but that harder 'j' sound we are familiar with today.

That gives us the modern spelling "Jesus" and the common English pronunciation of "Jee-zuss" (and similar).

-CryptoLutheran

Sounds complicated.

 

[Radagast]

Our Lord was given the Aramaic form of the Hebrew name יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua), the Aramaic being ישוע, as I understand it we largely have to make an educated guess of how the name was pronounced in Jesus' Galilean dialect of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but perhaps something like Yeshu'.

But it is guesswork. The Bible doesn't actually tell us.

Which is interesting, given that it tells us both the Greek and Aramaic forms of Peter's name. It's almost as if God didn't want people making an idol of the "true pronunciation" of Jesus' name.

In the late middle ages the Consonontal form of the Latin letter 'I' was slowly replaced by a new symbol, 'J', basically an 'I' with a tail to differentiate it from regular 'I'.

Not really a new symbol; the "I with a tail" can be found in manuscripts going back to the 5th century (for example, in Roman numerals like xviij). Initially it just meant the same as "I," though.

 

[Radagast]

It absolutely does. How does Iesous render the meaning of "he shall save" in Greek? Yoshia in Hebrew does. How does Iesoun word play with "autos gar sosei"? So it would be Hebrew then the Greek or Matthew wrote 2 versions.

Nonsense. All it requires was an understanding of the meaning of the name. And every good Jew would have known that.

All the Greek manuscripts we have are copies. Both Irenaeus of Lyons (180 AD) and Papias (130 AD) wrote of the Hebrew Matthew.

Well, no, not quite. They tell us that Matthew wrote an Aramaic Logion, which others translated into Greek. That translated Logion forms part of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but those gospels were both composed in Greek.

 

[Radagast]

Sounds complicated.

History is complicated.

 

[Copperhead]

Good question.

I still cannot get a reasonable answer why people call the Messiah “Jesus” and the son of Nun “Joshua” when they are both Israelite men with the exact same name. Why are we calling the Messiah by a horrible transliteration that’s not even accurate?

“Jesus” is a relatively new name. It didn’t even exist prior to 600 years ago.

We have been influenced also by the German bible. "J" has a "Y" sound in German The psychologist Karl Jung for example. Jung is pronounced Yung. And the German Bible is the first to make it onto Gutenburg's printing press and it influenced other translations that followed it. Hence we get stuff like Jacob instead of Ya'acov, Jehovah instead of Yahweh, Jeremiah instead of Yirmeyahu, etc. And of course... Jesus instead of Yeshua or Y'hoshua (Joshua). Saying Yeshua as opposed to the longer Y'hoshua has a similarity to how one's name could be Richard but is commonly called Rich. Or a persons name is Michael but they are commonly called Mike.

And we know from the OT that the Messiah's name would more formally be called Y'hoshua from

Zechariah 6:11-13 (NKJV) Take the silver and gold, make an elaborate crown, and set it on the head of Joshua (Y'hoshua) the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. 12 Then speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying:
“Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH! (Yeshua is the Branch of David)
From His place He shall branch out,
And He shall build the temple of the Lord;
13 Yes, He shall build the temple of the Lord.
He shall bear the glory,
And shall sit and rule on His throne;
So He shall be a priest on His throne,
And the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”

 

[W2L]

History is complicated.

And its record is far from perfect

 

[Dkh587]

We have no way of telling exactly what the messenger from Heaven told His mother.

What we do know is what the Holy Spirit told us through the Scriptures; that Iēsous is His name.

If his name is Iesous, then why don’t you call him Iesous?

You can’t argue for Iesous being his name and then call him by the different name of “Jesus”.

 

[Copperhead]

If his name is Iesous, then why don’t you call him Iesous?

You can’t argue for Iesous being his name and then call him by the different name of “Jesus”.

This is why I like to call Him Yeshua. He is a Hebrew, A Judean, and was given a Hebrew name. Why not call Him by His given name? I don't make an issue of what we should call Him, but knowing what the name actually means give vibrancy to the name and how it describes Him.

 

[DamianWarS]

Below is the definition of transliteration. My question is how does the word Jesus help us pronounce the word Yashua? They sound nothing alike.


Transliteration is the process of transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another. Transliteration helps people pronounce words and names in foreign languages.
transliteration - Dictionary Definition

Transliterations may end up with different pronunciations because it will use the best fitting sounds known in the language and it will take on the grammar of the new language.

For example we say generally in Greek it's "Iesous" but in different grammatical forms it could be "Iesoun" or "Iesou". All are Jesus. Greek has no Hebrew shin sound (/sh/ sound) so it was replaced with a sigma (/s/ sound) and then the masculine singular ending was added (-s) to make the Greek name which already existed in the Septuagint during the time of Christ. This is an acceptable transliteration.

Iesous is transliterated into Latin and looks like Iesus it is passed to earlier forms of English in the same form (the 1611 KJV doesn't have a single "J" in it and Jesus is Iesus, it is in fact the "King Iames Bible"). English goes through changes and with "I"s that have a role of a consonant get an added tail to differentiate from a vowel "I". With French influence the sound that we know for "J" takes over this space with the "I"s with tails.

So Jesus in English is a proper transliteration from Latin which is a transliteration from Greek which is a transliteration from Hebrew but it has evolved with the language so looks a little different than it's Latin roots

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

ll it requires was an understanding of the meaning of the name. And every good Jew would have known that.

Well yeah, any good Jew WOULD know...but every GREEK would NOT...that was my point...

 

[MayYouBeBlessed]

What does the name Jesus mean? Is it a Greek word? Why do translators use this name? Where did it come from?

Originally Jesus was spelled Iesus in English (pronounced Ee-eh-soos). Look at this page from KJV 1611:

 

[DamianWarS]

Originally Jesus was spelled Iesus in English (pronounced Ee-eh-soos). Look at this page from KJV 1611:

You mean the "King Iames Bible" or from the "KIV". There isn't a single "J" in the whole thing

 

[MayYouBeBlessed]

You mean the "King Iames Bible" or from the "KIV". There isn't a single "J" in the whole thing

Right! Yames, Yesoos etc

 

[MayYouBeBlessed]

The oldest translation of the Bible into Old English (Anglo-Saxon).

No Jesus in the 11th century text - the name was translated as Haelend, which means Saviour