Is Jesus a "pagan" name?

The Greek version of The Wisdom of Jesus benSira was recovered from Qumran. BenSira is called Joshua in the Talmud. It is proof that the name Jesus is a transliteration (even if a poor one) of Joshua.

Perhaps this page will help:

http://www.amfi.org/mailbag/Zeus.htm

I hope AMFI is not offensive.

The word Jesus has a long etymological history. Off the top of my head:

It starts out in the Hebrew, "Yehoshua" which means "YHWH Saves."

In Aramaic, instances of the tetragrammation lose their Heys, so it is transformed into "Yeshua`" which can either mean "YHWH saves" or "He will save."

Later when it was translated into Greek, there had to be some phonetic re-arrangements, as the Greek alphabet is insufficient for reproducing all of the sounds of the Semitic.

Y e SH U a ~
I E S O U S

There is no "Y" sound in the Greek alphabet, so the Yood was transliterated an Iota, followed by the Rbotso (the "EY" vowel in Aramaic) translitterated directly to an Epsilon. There is no unvoiced post-velolar fricative in Greek ("SH") so Sigma was employed in place of the Sheen. We know that this transliteration was in use, because other words in the Greek NT where Aramaic is transcribed employ it (shvaqtonee to sabachthani for example). The combination Omicron-Upsilon replaced the Wau, as the only way to obtain an "OO" sound in Greek is with a dipthong. The `E is dropped altogether, as the Greek alphabet has nothing even CLOSE to something like sound that precedes vomiting, and it is theorized that in some dialects of Aramaic, `Es were silent like modern Hebrew's Aiyn. It is alternatively theorized that the Upsilon was used to translitterate the `E instead, but this would lead to a voweling of the word that is nowhere on record. Finally, to make the word masculine, as Jesus -was- a man, a terminal Sigma was added to signify the Masculine Singular.

Next, the name went through Latin, where it was translitterated, dropping the omicron, as the "OO" sound is reproducible by the Latin letter U, giving us IESUS.

In later church Latin, initial I's were changed to J's, a new letter on the block, today, less than 500 years old, giving us "JESUS" (pronounced "YAY-SOOS"). I believe that this convention was created in Germany, where in German J is pronounced much like the English Y, but have yet to confirm this for the language at that time. This, if I am correct, is where we get initial Js for all of our Biblical words beginning with Yoods, as most of our modern Bibles went through Germany with Martin Luther and his contemporaries. To this day, the vast majority of Aramaic and, I think, Hebrew study comes from Germany.

Finally this Germanized Latin was transmitted directly into English, where all rules for pronunciation change.

- First, J has a different pronunciation. Instead of a closed frontal vowel ("EE"), J is a voiced palatial approximant ("JUH").

- Due to it's position in the word, the E is pronounced long ("EE" as opposed to "EH" or "EY").

- The first S, in its position sandwiched between vowels, gets voiced (so the first S sound like "Z"); and

- The U, due to it's position in the word, is pronounced short ("UH" as opposed to "OO"), giving us our modern English spelling identical to the Germanized Latin, but the pronunciation now as:

"JESUS" (JEE-ZUS)

Jesus in the end is not pagan, but an English Greco-Latinized Semitic word with German influence.

WHAT a game to telephone to play through 6 languages over 2000 years!

Shlomo,
(Peace)

Gad is a common noun found in the Hebrew language. It is also the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Did God not forsee this naming happening? He spoke to the prophets of old, surely He could have worked something out if this name was an abomination in His eyes

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It isn't about 'finding something similar', but instead pointing to why a particular word was historically chosen. " g o d " was chosen specifically because of its pagan heritage and connection.

I have heard this argument as well, but the bottom line is that 13 million Jews use the Name Adonai, which is translated as Lord. baal is translated as lord [small l] or master. Adonai is translated as Lord [capital L].With this in mind translate baal shem tov [the kabbalists name] into english.It appears that Jews were not afraid of these names.

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Yes, I understand quite well what translation is currently used today. I am not so dumb.

However, I was examining what specifically are the origins of this translation. Why was a translation used instead of a transliteration? And why would a particular word be chosen as the translation?

There is a history behind everything.

We would be wise and discerning to discover this history.

Shalom,
Yafet.

simchat_torah said:

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I am not so dumb.

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Anything but, IMO. I just had to say so.

Thadman,

While you're here, I was wondering if you could shed any light on the subject for us. In your opinion, how does one derive Iesous from ܝܶܫܽܘܥ (yeshoo' - Aramaic) ?

I have read in numerous places that the 's' was added to denote masculinity, but what I fail to see is where the semetic 'ayin' (

) went to from the Hebraic language? If this was a true transliteration the Ayin would have remained intact, nu?

Anyway, that was just an afterthought.

Shalom,
Yafet.

simchat_torah said:

Thadman,

While you're here, I was wondering if you could shed any light on the subject for us. In your opinion, how does one derive Iesous from ?????? (yeshoo' - Aramaic) ?

I have read in numerous places that the 's' was added to denote masculinity, but what I fail to see is where the semetic 'ayin' (

) went to from the Hebraic language? If this was a true transliteration the Ayin would have remained intact, nu?

Anyway, that was just an afterthought.

Shalom,
Yafet.

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I already have in my previous post here. `E/`Ayin in some dialects of Aramaic was silent like it is in most dialects of modern Hebrew, hence it was not transcribed. This is also why some manuscripts read Jesus words as "talitha koum" instead of "talitha koumi": In some dialects of Aramaic (like Modern Western Syriac), terminal Yoodhs are silent, where in others they are voiced (Modern Eastern Syriac, Chaldee, etc.).

Shlomo,
-Steve-o

oh sorry, I must have overlooked that.

simchat_torah said:

oh sorry, I must have overlooked that.

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Perfectly alright I did kinda ramble on a bit, as the etymology of "Jesus" is really long and convoluted. When one works with any translation it gets difficult, but when you're working with translations of translations, it gets even more tricky.

Moryo `amokh,
(Lord YHWH be with you,)
-Steve-o