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Evolution of the Name Jesus
The
Evolution and Renaissance Invention of the Name Jesus
Let us
begin by stating that we are not among
those who consider themselves Sacred Name proponents. We call the Savior by his
name Yeshua, because that it what our scriptures teach us. But
we take no offense at those who desire to call him “Jesus” or
any other name of honor and respect. The name by which
you call him is far less important than the feeling in your
heart when you call to him.
Speaking
of this in the Revelation Bible, Yeshua’s original Apostles
said, “As a child, he was called
Yeshua and this was the name by which he was known by his family
and friends, save a few who called him Yeshu. But in
Galilee,
the land of his holy ministry, Greek prevailed among many of the
people, since the time of Alexander of
Macedonia.
Under that influence, he came to be known throughout the land as
Iesous of
Nazareth.
In other tongues Yeshua was called still differently and it
matters not; for it is enough that a believer calls upon him
with the name by which they know him and with a humble spirit,
and by that name, he will answer; for though he is called by
many names, in many tongues, it is not because of the name, but
because of the spirit of the heart that seeks him that he
answers; and by no other name except one spoken with a contrite
heart and a true desire for truth, will he answer.
Revelation Bible; Nexus 2:10-12
Nevertheless, a review of the evolution of the Savior’s name is
important as billions of Christians spell his name as Jesus or
some translated version of that name, and many seem to take
offense at anyone who dares to call him something different, not
understanding their own etymological ignorance.
Speaking
plainly of the identity of the savior the New Testament says,
“Be
it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom
God raised from the dead, even by him does this man stand here
before you whole.
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Acts
4:10,12
Given the magnitude of importance this verse places upon the
name of the savior, that “there is no other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved”, it would seem
fairly necessary to have the right name.
This is further emphasized by an appearance of an angel in
separate instances to both Joseph and Mary, the earthly parents
of Jesus. To Joseph, speaking of Mary, the angel said, “she
shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name JESUS: for
he shall save his people from their sins”. Mt. 1:21 And to
Mary, the Angel Gabriel appeared and told her, “Behold, you
shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall
call his name JESUS.” Lk. 1:31
Certainly,
most people, even non-Christians, would agree that if an angel
of God appeared beside you and told you a specific name that you
must name your unborn child, it would merit enough amazement,
wonder and renewed faith, that you would not even consider
naming your child anything else.
In that
same vein, would his disciples in ancient times, or his
followers in modern times, call him by a name different than
that which angels of God had powerfully stated (all capital
letters) his name should be?
It is most
curious then to grasp the fact that the letter “J” was
the last letter created for the English alphabet, and didn’t
come into use until around 400 years ago. Nor did the letter
“J” exist in any ancient language, including
Latin, Greek or Hebrew. To this day in Israel, the land of the
Saviors birth, there still is no “J” or “J” sound in the Hebrew
language, and the city that English speaking people know as
Jerusalem,
is known as Yirusalem by both Jews and Muslims.
(See Encyclopedia References to the letter “J” and the evolution
of the name “Jesus” at the end of this article)
Most
Christians would also probably be surprised to know that the
original 1611 King James Bible was actually the King Iames Bible
and spoke of Iesus the Savior because the letter “J” had not
yet been incorporated into the English language. Beginning in
1629, as the letter “J”, a cross-channel import from France
where it had recently become popular, came into vogue in
England, the King James version began using it in place of “I’s”
for people and place and names. Over the next 100 years as the
letter “J” caught on with the general population, the spelling
and pronunciation Iesus shifted to the altered spelling and
pronunciation of Jesus that Christians continue to use today.
If
deforming of the saviors name was simply the use of the modern
letter “J” in place of a more ancient letter usage it might be
easily dismissed as inconsequential, but the fact is that the
spelling, pronunciation and the meaning of the saviors name have
all been dramatically altered from the original name that was
given by the angels to Joseph and Mary (Yosef and Miryam), which
certainly wasn’t “Jesus”.
To get a
proper perspective, it is helpful to understand how important a
persons name was in the ancient Hebrew culture. To the ancient
Hebrews, a child’s name was not just something the parents
thought was cute or had a nice ring to it. The very sounds and
pronunciation had importance, and were intended to convey
significant meanings such as desired personal traits, family
lineage, and the nature and essence of the child.
Exodus
3:11-15 indicates how important a name is when in response to
Moses query as to what his name was, God told him, “I AM”,
and said, “This is my name forever, this is my name for all
generations.” In this instance, Moses wasn’t asking by what
name he should call God, but more importantly asking, “who are
you; what are you like; what have you done”? God’s simple but
powerful response of “I AM” was meant to convey his eternal and
omnipotent nature.
So how did
we get the name “Jesus”? It came about through a series of
transliterations from one language to another and finally by the
changing of the first letter from “I” to “J”, which even further
changed the pronunciation as well as the spelling.
First, it
is useful to begin with “Yeshua”, and look backwards. This name
was derived from “Ho-sh-u-a” in the Old Testament; an ancient
Hebrew name meaning “salvation”. But this was only half the
meaning. The Old Testament records added meaning being given to
the name when in the story of The Twelve Scouts Moses
gave Hoshea a new name of Yehoshua, which is most often
interpreted to mean “Yahweh is Salvation” or “Yahweh Saves”,
with Yahweh being one of the names used for God.”
In the 5th
Century BC the name Yehoshua was shortened to Yeshua and we see
biblical evidence of this is Neh. 8:17.
Now begins
the transliteration process. Hebrew and Aramaic are both quite
different in letters and sounds than Greek. Whenever Greeks
converted a name from Hebrew or Aramaic, they had to decide if
the best course was to translate it, where they would try to
capture the meaning of the word, without regard for the sound,
or to transliterate it, where they would try to capture the
sound, without regard to the meaning. One of the best
explanations we have seen of the Greek transliteration process
is with the name Y’shua, another
version of the Savior' original name,
researched by Daniel Gleason, herein quoted:
“Let's
look at the most probable scenario of how the four Hebrew
letters in the name Y'-Sh-U-A (Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin), were
transliterated to Koine Greek.
-
The
first Hebrew letter YOD
has a “YE” sound. Unfortunately, the Greek language does not
have a letter nor a diphthong that has the "Y" sound as in
YES! The Greek solution was to pair the two letters IOTA-ETA
to produce the sound “EE-AY” which was deemed to be close
enough to the Hebrew sound "YE."
-
The
second Hebrew letter SHIN
has the "SH" sound. This was an even bigger problem because
the "SH" sound does not exist in Greek. The Greek solution was
to employ the "S" sound made by the letter SIGMA.
-
The
third Hebrew letter Vav
has a "U" sound. The Greek diphthong "" OMICRON-UPSILON is
an exact match because it has the same "OO" sound.
-
The
fourth Hebrew letter AYIN
has the "AH" sound. According to the Greek rules of grammar,
masculine names never end in a vowel sound, and when they do,
the name should always be closed with the letter "S" whenever
possible. The Greek solution was to drop the final "AH" sound
and close out the name with an "S."
-
These
four steps produce the name “Iesous” which is pronounced
"EE-AY-SOOS." The name Jesus now has an isopsehia value of
"888" units which conjured up the "888" power structure of the
whole Greek alphabet.”
A slightly
different explanation for the name Yeshua can be found in the
Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
“The name was common - the
Hebrew
Bible mentions ten individuals
with this name. It is derived from the three-letter root
yod-shin-`ayin which has the meaning of "to save", but the name
is not identical to the word "salvation" (y'shu`ah) or to any
verb form such as "he will save" (yoshia`). It does not contain
part of the name of God
YHWH as the name
Yehoshua` (Joshua) appears to
do, although this name (yod-he-vav-shin-`ayin) could be
considered a third person imperfect
hiph`il verbal form of the same yod-shin-`ayin
root.”
The early
translations of New Testament texts into Latin, Coptic, Slavic
and other languages, were all taken from “Koiné” or common Greek
manuscripts.
Within two
hundred years after Yeshua’s resurrection there were several
competing Latin translations of the New Testament texts
including many that are not part of the modern Bible, even as
there were many widely divergent Christian sects that no longer
exist today.
By the
beginning of the 4th Century, the Catholic Church had
become the sanctioned Christian church of the Roman Empire and
their rules and religious decrees became the only ones that
counted in the Christian world.
In 382 AD
a Catholic priest by the name of Jerome translated the Latin
Bible into a work known as the “Vulgate”. It became the
canonized version of the Catholic New Testament. Jerome
transliterated the Greek “Iesous” by writing a Latin version of
“IESUS”, thus bringing across all of the Greek sounds. The
spelling differed only because the two alphabets were not
identical. However, the Latin pronunciation remained the same
as the Greek, which was “ee-ay-soos”.
By the end
of the 4th Century, the Emperor Theodosus had
declared the Catholic sect of Christianity to be the official
religion of the Roman
Empire
and Jerome’s Vulgate soon became the official New Testament text
of the Roman Catholic church. Subsequent rulings by the
Catholic Church such as the Council of Toulouse in 1229, made
the Latin Vulgate the only authorized version by “expressly
forbidding it’s translation into vulgar tongues.” (any other
language).
If that
wasn’t bad enough, the 1234 Council of Tarragona made owning a
Bible a capital punishment offense when they declared, “No
person except a cleric may possess the books of the Old and New
Testaments and if anyone is found to possess them he must be
turned over to the local bishop so that he may be burned at
the stake."
Needless
to say, with rules like these, the spelling and pronunciation of
the Latin “Iesus”, was the only way anyone dare speak the name
of the Savior in continental Europe for over 1000 years.
For many
centuries the common people of England defied the Catholic edict
that the name of the Savior must be “Iesus”. According to the
Oxford Dictionary, in the 1400’s his name was “Healand” (Old
English), then “Iefus” (Middle English) during the 1500’s, and
finally “Jesus” in modern English.
However,
early translations of the Catholic Vulgate into English,
retained the Latin name “Iesus”, presumably to give scholarly
credibility.
In 1384,
John Wycliffe was the first person to translate the Catholic
Latin Vulgate into English and he preserved the Latin spelling
of “Iesus”. Even though each copy was hand-written they became
treasures of the people lucky enough to obtain a copy. It was
the first time people other than priests could read the texts.
Of course, the Wycliffe Bible was immediately banned by the
Catholic Church.
The first
book printed on Gutenburg’s fanstatic new invention, the
printing press, was the Catholic Vulgate Bible in Latin.
Subsequent printings of the Mentel Bible in 1466, and the Martin
Luther Bible in 1522, continued to use the Latin “Iesus”.
William
Tyndale was the next Englishman to come forward with a
translation of the Catholic Latin Vulgate into English. He
completed his work in 1525 after a visit to Martin Luther, and
used the Latin “Iesus” in his translation. He smuggled 18,000
copies into England but only 2 are known to exist today. In
1534, he was captured in Belgium and tried for “Heresy” in a
Catholic court, by order of the Pope, and subsequently ordered
put to death by strangulation, followed by a burning of his body
at the stake. It was obviously a very big deal to the Catholic
Church that their Bibles not be allowed into the hands of anyone
except Catholic clergy, or translated into any other languages
except Latin. An interesting modern digression is that
heavily Catholic
Spain kept
a law on the books banning anyone except Catholic priests from
owning a Bible until 1968.
By the
middle of the 1600’s the letter “J” was coming into common use
in English and many other European languages. Subsequent
editions of the King James Bible as well as other translations
rendered “Iesus” as “Jesus’.
Today
there are entire denominations of Christanity labeled “Sacred
Name” sects that base vital tenets of their faith on their
followers only saying the name of Yeshua/Jesus in the form that
they feel is correct. However, there are different
interpretations among the various sects as to which is the
correct form of his name.
Regardless
of their reasoning in determining their “correct version” of the
Saviors name, understanding their motivation to have it correct,
based upon the points of the Bible and the importance of names
in the ancient Hebrew culture pointed out in this article, it is
easy to understand why saying the Saviors name as closely as
possible as it was spoken while he was on Earth, is meaningful
to many people.
Encyclopedia and Scholarly References
“The form of ‘J’ was unknown in any alphabet until the 14th
century. Either symbol (J,I) used initially generally had the
consonantal sound of Y as in year. Gradually, the two symbols (J,l)
were differentiated, the J usually acquiring consonantal force
and thus becoming regarded as a consonant, and the I becoming a
vowel.
.
It was not until 1630 that the differentiation became general in
England.”
Encyclopedia Americana
“In ancient Latin Jesus is spelled Iesus, in ancient
Greek (I-ee-sous), ad. late Heb. or Aramaic yeshua,
Jeshua, for the earlier y’hoshua, Jehoshua or
Joshua.”
Oxford English Dictionary
“In Late Latin Jesus was original spelled Iesus; In Greek it was
spelled Ièsous; and in ancient Hebrew spelled
“yÈshÙa,” which is a contraction of yehÖshÙa (Joshua), help
of Jehovah < yÀh, Jehovah + hÖshïa, to help.” Webster’s
New World Dictionary
“J,
the tenth letter of the English alphabet, is the youngest of the
26 letters. It is a descendant of the letter I and was not
generally considered a separate letter until the 17th
century. The early history of the letter J is the same as the
history of the letter I. I is a descendant of the ancient
Phoenician and Hebrew letter yod and the Greek letter iota”
New Book of Knowledge (Vol. 10, 1992 ed.).
“Jesus”. The word is the Greek rendering of a well-known Hebrew
name. It was Yahoshu first, then by inner Hebrew
phonetic change it became Yoshua, and by a still northern
dialectal shift, Yeshua. The first element, Yahu
(=Yahweh) means ‘the Lord,’ while the second comes from shua
‘To help, save.’ The most probable meaning is ‘O Lord, save.’”
Anchor
Bible
(note on Matthew 1:1) (Vol. 26, p.2)
“Christ (Christos) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew
Messiah, meaning anointed.”
Classic Bible Dictionary
His
personal name; ‘Christ’ (Gk. Christos, ‘anointed’) is the title
given Him by His followers…”
(p.531).
“Jesus Christ [Gr. Iesous] (a transliteration of the Aramaic
Yeshua, from the Heb. Yehoshua, ‘Joshua,’ meaning ‘Yahweh is
Salvation’), Christos (a translation of the Heb. Mashiach,
‘Messiah,’ meaning anointed or anointed One).] The English form
‘Jesus’ comes from the Latin.”
SDA Bible Dictionary, page 565
"Jesus" transliterates the
Greek Ιησους [Iēsoûs], itself a transliteration from Aramaic
or
Hebrew (ie: Yeshua). "Christ" is a theological title,
transliterating the Greek Χριστός [Christos], in turn a
translation derived from the Hebrew Mashiach [Messiah], meaning
"anointed" or "the anointed one and his anointing."
Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
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