His name is Yeshua, should we, knowing this, continue to call Him Jesus?

[RushMAN]

The difference is that the context that would make it appropriate to use Hebrew is not here, and never will be here barring some sort of influx of native Hebrew speakers, so it comes across as a Protestant form of name-worshiping, which really isn't better any than the original version.

Or coming off as better than others because they use the Hebrew name

 

[thecolorsblend]

Thecolorsblend is correct. This definitely does not belong in the Traditional Theology subform, as it's actively against the tradition of the Christian Church.

Imitating the Jews is really silly at best, and theologically suspect at worst. If you don't speak first century Galilean Aramaic natively -- and you don't -- there's no reason to use anything other than Jesus in the English language. Whenever I see someone here on CF use "Yeshua", "Hamasiach" or any of this other stuff, I don't think "Wow! How reverent to be using an approximation of these names and terms in faux-Aramaic/Hebrew!", I think "Oh, here's another person who disregards the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem (found in the NT itself, in the Acts of the Apostles), in which Judaizing was condemned from the mouth of the Church herself."

It's like shorthand for "I don't know my history, and because my form of Christianity likely has no apostolic roots itself (NB: You don't see Orthodox or Catholics or the more historically-rooted protestants like traditional Lutherans or traditional Presbyterians advancing this kind of thinking), the only culture I can identify with in the Bible is the Jewish culture, so I think it's somehow more holy or something to act like Judaism is somehow a salvific way of life, hence I ought to imitate the Jews."

No. No you shouldn't. Ministering to Jews is no different than ministering to anyone else, in that Jews are not some kind of special population such that someone who is a Jew and has never believed in Christ and whose religion commands that he or she not do so is to be treated better or differently than anyone else for whom the same is true, e.g., the Muslim, the Shintoist, etc. I do not care if some 'Messianic Jew' says otherwise, because that's not traditional either (Messianic Judaism does not significantly predate the 1960s), and 99.999% of people who describe themselves that way are just run of the mill Protestants of this or that variety who got bored one day and decided to pretend that they're special because they can pronounce "Hanukkah" correctly.

Hymn on Unleavened Bread XVII by St. Ephrem the Syrian (Edmund Beck transl., 1964)

1. Nisan that renews every plant
could not revive the aged People.

Refrain: Blessed is he who rejected the People and their matza
Since their hands were defiled with precious blood!

2. For when the People went forth they bore
leaven of idolatry along with matza.

3. In Egypt Moses forbade them to knead yeasted dough
together with(1) his matza. (Exod 12.15)

4. By this means he taught them not to hide
Egyptian leaven within their mind.

5. Matza is a symbol of the bread of life;
those of old ate the new mystery.

6. Moses disclosed the symbol of the One who renews all
and gave it to gluttons who craved flesh.

7. Meat from the earth weighed them down –
their mind stooped to greed.

8. The earthly ones ate heavenly manna (Exodus 16 etc.)
They became dust on the earth through their sins

9. Spiritual bread flew lightly away
The Gentiles soared up and settled in the midst of Paradise.
…

14. Matza’s nature is heavy
Symbolising the People that cannot fly.

15. Elijah ate from the pitcher and jug (1 Kings 17.14)
the light symbol that flew through the air

16. It was not a Daughter of Jacob who provided the symbol:
Elijah ate it through that Daughter of the Gentiles (i.e. the widow of Zarephath)

17.If the [mere] symbol of [Christ’s] bread made [Elijah] fly like that (2 Kings 2.11)
How much more may it transport Gentiles to Eden?

+++

St. Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) is venerated in basically every tradition which has kept alive some idea of the communion of saints -- i.e., Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the Church of the East/Nestorians, and the Anglican communion (probably others too, but this is as listed on wiki). His views were not outside of the mainstream of Christianity in his time nor afterwards, and have only become distasteful to Christians for whom the modern secular state of Israel and a very non-traditional eschatology has overwhelmed their desire to actually follow Christianity (hence they identify with and care more for the Jews and their own eschatological vision than for anything like traditional Christianity and Christians), or for those who want to just get along with everyone and hence find such talk to be worthy of an apology to the Jews. That's very much against the holy scriptures, however, and traditional Christians (including some whose churches unfortunately follow this tendency of "let's apologize to the Jews", as below) see nothing to apologize for in what the NT says:

Please note that none of this means that we ought to treat Jews badly for being Jews, but we certainly should not imitate them. The Christian Church has already baptized everything that can be baptized (read: brought into the Church) of Jewish belief and practice, so those who advocate for more on any basis are quite simply wrong to do so.

It has long been recognized by scholars and laymen alike that the most outwardly 'Hebraic' of all Christian traditions -- that of the Ethiopians and Eritreans who follow the traditional Orthodox Tewahedo churches of their homelands -- nevertheless contains strong rebukes of the Jews as written into their liturgical prayers, as during the preparatory prayers of the liturgy they do proclaim "Therefore let us not be circumcised like the Jews, for we know that He Who had to fulfill the Law has come" (by which they mean Jesus, of course).

Besides, those Christians whose languages are closest to the Aramaic of Jesus (still not the same, but since Palestinian Aramaic is no longer spoken, it's the closest you'll get) -- those Christian traditions which keep alive some form of Neo-Aramaic and use Syriac in their liturgies (the Syriac Orthodox, the small number of Eastern Orthodox Assyrians in Russia, various Catholic Syriac people, and the Nestorians) -- don't even do this. In their languages, He is 'Isho Mshiho or 'Isho Mshiha, not Yeshua Hamasiach or whatever.

Prayer in Eastern Syriac pronunciation (i.e., either Chaldean or Nestorian) that uses His name properly. (In the Indian Syriac churches, you can find something like Yeshua, but that's likely first language interference, not a proper pronunciation of the Syriac form of His name. Indians usually can't get the pronunciation of certain sounds in Syriac, like the pharyngealized sounds, or the "th" sounds which become "s" more often than not. This is why I chose a Chaldean or Nestorian above, as they presumably grew up around a modern form of the language in their communities, while the Indian Syriacs usually speak Malayalam, which is totally unrelated to any form of Syriac or Aramaic.)

...

Wow.

I mean, this is probably the most comprehensive take-down of "Messianic Judaism", Yeshua name-dropping and virtually every other hipster trend I've ever seen. Very well done.

Informative video and it shed light on a lot of things.

For my own part, I usually point to the First Century (AD, not CE!) as the real division between Christianity and Judaism. To start with, Christians were recognized by Rome as a sect of Judaism. As Judaism was exempt from emperor-worship, so were the early Christians. At first, anyway.

But the Jewish authorities eventually persuaded Rome that Christians were not members of their community. They knew that Rome would withdraw the exemption and that Christians would be persecuted unto death. Which is exactly what happened.

So from a legal standpoint, it looks to me like the breaking away took place relatively early on. Cultural practices carried over but that was the real dividing line. Not sure if you agree with that either but figured I'd throw it out there anyway.

I don't agree with everything in the above video, but no matter what anyone thinks about that question, it is not debatable that it was before the 1960s, when 'Messianic Judaism' was birthed out of Protestantism.

This is an important point because it seems pretty trendy among the MJ's to insist that the early Christians spoke native Hebrew, were fully Torah-observant and only bad evil wicked mean Constantine came along and messed everything up blah blah blah.

I'm not aware of a single credible historian or scholar who believes those things. But a lot of sects of the faith seem utterly immune to historical studies.

 

[The Liturgist]

where the adaptation and translation is a made up word that we attach a meaning to, if that makes sense.

That doesn’t make any sense to me, because the Gospels are written in Koine Greek and give the name of our Lord as Jesus.

Also, there are multiple Aramaic dialects, and the closest Hebrew translation for Jesus would actually be Joshua. Jesus and Joshua both mean “YHWH Saves”

The correct answer is to respect the traditional form of the name of our Lord in use in the different churches around the world, ranging from the Spanish pronunciation “Hey-soos” to the West Syriac Aramaic “Isho.”

 

[The Liturgist]

I appreciate lots of things that I don't go around inserting into perfectly understandable and not-LARPing English conversations. It's why I don't introduce my posts with traditional Coptic-language formulae or whatever else that's appropriate in its own context, but not here.

The difference is that the context that would make it appropriate to use Hebrew is not here, and never will be here barring some sort of influx of native Hebrew speakers, so it comes across as a Protestant form of name-worshiping, which really isn't better any than the original version.

I have to confess I have never fully understood the heresy of Imiaslavie and what it is all about. If I post a thread on that subject, do you think you and some other Orthodox members might be able to explain it to me?

 

[The Liturgist]

Thecolorsblend is correct. This definitely does not belong in the Traditional Theology subform, as it's actively against the tradition of the Christian Church.

Imitating the Jews is really silly at best, and theologically suspect at worst. If you don't speak first century Galilean Aramaic natively -- and you don't -- there's no reason to use anything other than Jesus in the English language. Whenever I see someone here on CF use "Yeshua", "Hamasiach" or any of this other stuff, I don't think "Wow! How reverent to be using an approximation of these names and terms in faux-Aramaic/Hebrew!", I think "Oh, here's another person who disregards the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem (found in the NT itself, in the Acts of the Apostles), in which Judaizing was condemned from the mouth of the Church herself."

It's like shorthand for "I don't know my history, and because my form of Christianity likely has no apostolic roots itself (NB: You don't see Orthodox or Catholics or the more historically-rooted protestants like traditional Lutherans or traditional Presbyterians advancing this kind of thinking), the only culture I can identify with in the Bible is the Jewish culture, so I think it's somehow more holy or something to act like Judaism is somehow a salvific way of life, hence I ought to imitate the Jews."

No. No you shouldn't. Ministering to Jews is no different than ministering to anyone else, in that Jews are not some kind of special population such that someone who is a Jew and has never believed in Christ and whose religion commands that he or she not do so is to be treated better or differently than anyone else for whom the same is true, e.g., the Muslim, the Shintoist, etc. I do not care if some 'Messianic Jew' says otherwise, because that's not traditional either (Messianic Judaism does not significantly predate the 1960s), and 99.999% of people who describe themselves that way are just run of the mill Protestants of this or that variety who got bored one day and decided to pretend that they're special because they can pronounce "Hanukkah" correctly.

Hymn on Unleavened Bread XVII by St. Ephrem the Syrian (Edmund Beck transl., 1964)

1. Nisan that renews every plant
could not revive the aged People.

Refrain: Blessed is he who rejected the People and their matza
Since their hands were defiled with precious blood!

2. For when the People went forth they bore
leaven of idolatry along with matza.

3. In Egypt Moses forbade them to knead yeasted dough
together with(1) his matza. (Exod 12.15)

4. By this means he taught them not to hide
Egyptian leaven within their mind.

5. Matza is a symbol of the bread of life;
those of old ate the new mystery.

6. Moses disclosed the symbol of the One who renews all
and gave it to gluttons who craved flesh.

7. Meat from the earth weighed them down –
their mind stooped to greed.

8. The earthly ones ate heavenly manna (Exodus 16 etc.)
They became dust on the earth through their sins

9. Spiritual bread flew lightly away
The Gentiles soared up and settled in the midst of Paradise.
…

14. Matza’s nature is heavy
Symbolising the People that cannot fly.

15. Elijah ate from the pitcher and jug (1 Kings 17.14)
the light symbol that flew through the air

16. It was not a Daughter of Jacob who provided the symbol:
Elijah ate it through that Daughter of the Gentiles (i.e. the widow of Zarephath)

17.If the [mere] symbol of [Christ’s] bread made [Elijah] fly like that (2 Kings 2.11)
How much more may it transport Gentiles to Eden?

+++

St. Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) is venerated in basically every tradition which has kept alive some idea of the communion of saints -- i.e., Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the Church of the East/Nestorians, and the Anglican communion (probably others too, but this is as listed on wiki). His views were not outside of the mainstream of Christianity in his time nor afterwards, and have only become distasteful to Christians for whom the modern secular state of Israel and a very non-traditional eschatology has overwhelmed their desire to actually follow Christianity (hence they identify with and care more for the Jews and their own eschatological vision than for anything like traditional Christianity and Christians), or for those who want to just get along with everyone and hence find such talk to be worthy of an apology to the Jews. That's very much against the holy scriptures, however, and traditional Christians (including some whose churches unfortunately follow this tendency of "let's apologize to the Jews", as below) see nothing to apologize for in what the NT says:

Please note that none of this means that we ought to treat Jews badly for being Jews, but we certainly should not imitate them. The Christian Church has already baptized everything that can be baptized (read: brought into the Church) of Jewish belief and practice, so those who advocate for more on any basis are quite simply wrong to do so.

It has long been recognized by scholars and laymen alike that the most outwardly 'Hebraic' of all Christian traditions -- that of the Ethiopians and Eritreans who follow the traditional Orthodox Tewahedo churches of their homelands -- nevertheless contains strong rebukes of the Jews as written into their liturgical prayers, as during the preparatory prayers of the liturgy they do proclaim "Therefore let us not be circumcised like the Jews, for we know that He Who had to fulfill the Law has come" (by which they mean Jesus, of course).

Besides, those Christians whose languages are closest to the Aramaic of Jesus (still not the same, but since Palestinian Aramaic is no longer spoken, it's the closest you'll get) -- those Christian traditions which keep alive some form of Neo-Aramaic and use Syriac in their liturgies (the Syriac Orthodox, the small number of Eastern Orthodox Assyrians in Russia, various Catholic Syriac people, and the Nestorians) -- don't even do this. In their languages, He is 'Isho Mshiho or 'Isho Mshiha, not Yeshua Hamasiach or whatever.

Prayer in Eastern Syriac pronunciation (i.e., either Chaldean or Nestorian) that uses His name properly. (In the Indian Syriac churches, you can find something like Yeshua, but that's likely first language interference, not a proper pronunciation of the Syriac form of His name. Indians usually can't get the pronunciation of certain sounds in Syriac, like the pharyngealized sounds, or the "th" sounds which become "s" more often than not. This is why I chose a Chaldean or Nestorian above, as they presumably grew up around a modern form of the language in their communities, while the Indian Syriacs usually speak Malayalam, which is totally unrelated to any form of Syriac or Aramaic.)

I love the hymns of St. Ephrem. I very much wish someone would arrange them for use in the Western churches; if we could, within a typical Western Protestant church, completely dispose of all of the Praise and Worship rubbish, that would make way for the introduction of a huge numner of Patristic hymns and metrical homilies by the likes of St. Ephrem, St. Jacob of Sarugh, St. Romanos the Melodist, and others.

One thing I really like about Choral Evensong and Mattins in the Anglican tradition is that it consists of Psalms, Canticles and in the case of Mattins, a few Patristic hymns (namely, Te Deum Laudamus). An extra chorale, such as one of the nicer works of Charles Wesley, can be added for congregational participation.

 

[dzheremi]

I have to confess I have never fully understood the heresy of Imiaslavie and what it is all about. If I post a thread on that subject, do you think you and some other Orthodox members might be able to explain it to me?

My understanding of it is that it's a conflation of the name of God with God Himself, though an Eastern Orthodox person would be able to explain it much better.

It is interesting and informative to me that this arose among the Slavs and not any of the speakers of (Neo-)Aramaic or Syriac, where you might expect it to be more popular given those languages' and peoples' closer link to the actual language of Christ. Maybe the Syrians with that sort of impulse are all too busy making Aramaic primacy arguments for the NT texts to move on to other things.

 

[Sabertooth]

"Jesus" is an English attempt to say <Ἰησοῦς>,
which is a Greek attempt to say the Hebrew <יְהוֹשׁוּעַ>.

"Yeshua" is an English attempt to say the Hebrew <יְהוֹשׁוּעַ>.

 

[The Liturgist]

"Jesus" is an English attempt to say <Ἰησοῦς>,
which is a Greek attempt to say the Hebrew <יְהוֹשׁוּעַ>.

"Yeshua" is an English attempt to say the Hebrew <יְהוֹשׁוּעַ>.

That’s a bit uncharitable I think. It is more of how those names are properly pronounced in a Hellenic Jewish dialect and an English accent, respectively.

Like how Thomas is pronounced Toe-masz in some Nordic languages, or how Cicero is traditionally pronounced Tzitzero by German speakers not using Ecclesiastical or reconstructed classical Latin pronunciation.

 

[Sabertooth]

It is more of how those names are properly pronounced in a Hellenic Jewish dialect and an English accent, respectively.

How is that different than what I wrote...?

 

[The Liturgist]

How is that different than what I wrote...?

Well simply that “attempt” seems to me to imply a failure where none exists.

 

[Sabertooth]

Well simply that “attempt” seems to me to imply a failure where none exists.

Different languages (even different dialects) incorporate their own set of phonemes. By "attempt," I meant transliterating from one set of phonemes to another. (That is the basis for accents in the first place.

)