Why were many Biblical names changed to English?

[Aussie Pete]

Well, I personally know a lady named Maryam. Other people call her that - never just Mary.

Peter is Pietro in Italian and Pierre in French. I would expect the Hebrew name to begin with P too.

Is the j in Elijah silent? For a long time I thought it is, but now I am not so sure if that matters.

I don't think it matters. Ivan is Russian for John, Ivor is Welsh. They start with "I".

 

[GodLovesCats]

I don't think it matters. Ivan is Russian for John, Ivor is Welsh. They start with "I".

And John starts with J, so that does not transliterate to English.

 

[timothyu]

Funny, right?

It has always been that way hasn't it. People of other backgrounds come to e predominantly English speaking area and they are often given nicknames to have them better fit in.

 

[dqhall]

The Bible has both English spellings of Hebrew names and English names that did not originate from any of the Biblical languages. Many human names in the Bible can't be what they were because of their usage in English, while others are not changed from Hebrew or Greek. It is clear English translators were being selective.

It has Rebekah (not the English spelling Rebecca), but Yeshua is changed to Jesus, not Jeshua. Ava, which means life, became Eve. It has the nickname Mary instead of whatever her real name was. It has Esau, so one twin's name is correct, but Jacob? It has Moses right, but Aaron? They got Lazarus correct, but Elizabeth, Mary, and Martha? Why didn't the English Bible translators stick with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek names for all of the characters?

Mary may be from a shortened version of Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron.

Mary Magdalene is like Mary from Magdala, a town on the shore of the NW corner of the Sea of Galilee, Lake Tiberias. I sometimes pondered if Mary from Magdala was the sister of Lazarus and Martha.

Early Hebrew was written without vowels, thus some of the exact pronunciations may have been lost. Without the vowels Joshua and Yeshua are similar as the J used to be pronounced as i or y. Yeshua is a version of “Yahweh is salvation.” The Greek translation is Iesus. Time changed the English pronunciation to Jesus.

 

[HARK!]

MOD HAT ON

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Sabertooth]

And John starts with J, so that does not transliterate to English.

John is an Anglicized transliteration of Y'owchanan, a nickname for Yehowchanan.

Many Biblical names that start with Jo- (in English) derive from Y'ow- < Yehow-.

• Jo-Anne
  
• Joel
• Jonathan
• Joseph
• Joshua, etc.

Yeh'shuwa is an alternative nickname for Yehowshuwa.
(Since I used the Latin alphabet, these are all obviously transliterations...)

 

[timothyu]

In Romans 6:23 he is called "Christ Jesus."

Yes, the proper position for a title.

 

[GodLovesCats]

It has always been that way hasn't it. People of other backgrounds come to e predominantly English speaking area and they are often given nicknames to have them better fit in.

I know someone from Chile whose first name was Mariamagdelena. When she moved to the U.S. she had it legally changed to Maria, but everyone calls her Maggie.

 

[timothyu]

she had it legally changed to Maria, but everyone calls her Maggie.

Hmmm.. so the Magdalena stuck

 

[GodLovesCats]

Hmmm.. so the Magdalena stuck

Only the "mag" stuck.

 

[J_B_]

Why didn't the English Bible translators stick with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek names for all of the characters?

Why didn't they stick with Hebrew period, including the Hebrew alphabet? Because they wanted people to read the Bible in their native language. Even "Yeshua" is an Anglicization.

In college I knew many foreign students. When we would first meet there was always this awkward attempt to learn each other's names. After stumbling around for awhile, it usually ended with "close enough". The person I remember being the most frustrated was a student from Norway. When Americans tried to say his name, they pronounced it like the Norwegian female equivalent, which always embarrassed him.

It's just the way it is. People try to make things familiar. Why is that wrong?

It's not just English. Everyone does it. I once had this fun little quest with the name John (Hebrew:יוֹחָנָן‎), which in languages around the world is rendered as: Jean, Juan, Ian, Johann, Ivan, Jan, Chon, ... and then I found this page, which far outdid me.

If anything, it's testimony to the impact the Gospel has had on the world. All languages speak Christ's Word.

 

[timothyu]

Only the "mag" stuck.

Ah.. a nickname, like chip off the ol' block (a pebble of the foundation rock of God's truth) Peter instead of Simon.

 

[Sabertooth]

I know someone from Chile whose first name was Mariamagdelena. When she moved to the U.S. she had it legally changed to Maria, but everyone calls her Maggie.

"Mary-Madeline" would have been the Anglicized version.

 

[timothyu]

Rod Stewart would have called her Maggie Mae

 

[Aussie Pete]

And John starts with J, so that does not transliterate to English.

I=J in those languages. There are many examples of this. Giuseppi Verdi translates to "Joe Green" in English. Not nearly as imposing.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The Bible has both English spellings of Hebrew names and English names that did not originate from any of the Biblical languages. Many human names in the Bible can't be what they were because of their usage in English, while others are not changed from Hebrew or Greek. It is clear English translators were being selective.

It has Rebekah (not the English spelling Rebecca), but Yeshua is changed to Jesus, not Jeshua. Ava, which means life, became Eve. It has the nickname Mary instead of whatever her real name was. It has Esau, so one twin's name is correct, but Jacob? It has Moses right, but Aaron? They got Lazarus correct, but Elizabeth, Mary, and Martha? Why didn't the English Bible translators stick with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek names for all of the characters?

That's just the nature of how names work when they pass from one language into another.

The Aramaic name Yeshu(a) (which is probably fairly close to what Mary would have called Jesus in their native Galilean Aramaic dialect) is from the Hebrew Yehoshua/Yeshua. But in the Greek of the New Testament Jesus' name is written as Iesous. This isn't unique to Jesus Christ. This is how Yehoshua/Yeshua was rendered into Greek. So in Greek the man who succeeded Moses was Iesous the son of Nun.

Not all languages contain the same sounds. Greek, for example, does not contain a /sh/ sound, and there is no way to write that sound using Greek letters. So instead the Semitic /sh/ sound becomes /s/ in Greek. As /s/ is the closest approximate sound in Greek to the Hebrew and Aramaic /sh/ sound.

Understanding this helps us understand the development of names and name pronunciation in multiple languages.

So Hebrew/Aramaic Yeshua/Yeshu becomes Iesous in Greek. Why?

Firstly, like noted Greek lacks a /sh/. It also lacks a distinct consonant sound for /y/. Instead to get this sound in Greek requires use of the /i/ sound. That alone gets us to Iesou

Secondly, names are modified in Greek to follow Greek grammar, and that means a male name should have a masculine declension. Basically it means they added an /s/ at the end. Thus Iesou -> Iesous.

When Iesous was then brought into Latin it became Latinized, and thus written in ancient Latin as IESVS.

Why IESVS? Because Latin didn't have lowercase letters until much later (neither did Greek). Also ancient Latin did not have the letter 'U', instead it only had 'V' which was used to make both the sound /v/ and /u/. This is also true of the English alphabet, and even during the time of the American Revolution there was still no clear cut distinction made between the letters 'U' and 'V' in the English alphabet, though both letters existed at the time.

With the invention of lower-case type in the middle ages, IESVS became Iesvs. In the middle ages a new letter was invented, it was a special 'I' with a tail, and it eventually became its own separate letter of the alphabet, we call it 'J'.

With the invention of the letter 'J' Iesvs becomes Jesvs. And finally as 'U' becomes used to make the /u/ sound and 'V' the /v/ sound, standardized spelling results in "Jesus".

This may sound really complicated, but it's actually a fairly straight forward example.

More difficult is to understand how the Hebrew Yakov became "James" in English. The short answer is blame the French, as a lot of English weirdness can be attributed to the Norman Conquest and the imposition of Norman French on English which has resulted in all manner of oddities in our language.

If the above is too long to read, here's the Cliff Notes version: Names undergo changes in pronunciation and spelling as names enter into new languages and are adopted by new cultures. So for example the Hebrew name pronounced Yəhōnatan became: John, Jonathan, Ivan, Sean, Juan, Johan, Hans, Jean, Evan, Giovanni, Joana, Jan, etc. Even the name "Jack" is derived from it through another quirk of English.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Bonus name weirdness:

For example, names derived by shortening names and creating a rhyming slang.

Robert -> Rob -> Bob
William -> Will -> Bill
Richard -> Rick -> Dick

Jack comes from Jankin (or possibly derived from Jacques), but was used as a nickname for those named "John"; so that John -> Jack. Hence why John F. Kennedy was often called "Jack" Kennedy.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Sabertooth]

So for example the Hebrew name pronounced Yəhōnatan became: John, Jonathan, Ivan, Sean, Juan, Johan, Hans, Jean, Evan, Giovanni, Joana, Jan, etc. Even the name "Jack" is derived from it through another quirk of English.

Of your list, only Jonathan comes from Yəhōnatan.
John et al. comes from Yəhōchanan.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Of your list, only Jonathan comes from Yəhōnatan.
John et al. comes from Yəhōchanan.

Fair. Though these are variations of the same name, the way that Yəhōšūa and Yēšūa are variations of the same name.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[GodLovesCats]

If the above is too long to read, here's the Cliff Notes version: Names undergo changes in pronunciation and spelling as names enter into new languages and are adopted by new cultures. So for example the Hebrew name pronounced Yəhōnatan became: John, Jonathan, Ivan, Sean, Juan, Johan, Hans, Jean, Evan, Giovanni, Joana, Jan, etc. Even the name "Jack" is derived from it through another quirk of English.

It was not too long for me to read at all.

Actually, I read we should blame the French for Jack being a nickname of John, but totally forget how that happened.