Names of the Messiah and Hebrew construct

[Child of the Most High]

Many of the scholars in this movement have put forth that the name of the Messiah is Yahshua, Yashua, Y'shua, and other variations of these. The name Y'shua means different things to different people. Some will tell you that it is a shortened form of Yahshua. I believe that this is an error which is easily proven through simple Hebrew language rules that even a five year old sabra in Israel knows, and would like to discuss it for those who may have been misled by some of the movements 'scholars'.

I would first like to hear the opinion of Shmuel, who seems to have a working knowledge of Hebrew.

[Child of the Most High]

Okay, I guess I will start the ball rolling. The name Yahshua does not appear in the Hebrew scriptures. What you will find there is Yehoshua (#3091) and the shortened form Yeshua (#3442-#3443). Yehoshua is pointed with a shva, so it is pronounced as Yeh, not Yah. Yeshua is pointed with a tsese, which makes it Yeshua (yay-shoo'-ah ) not Yashua or Yahshua. These are the only two names that you will find in the Tenach. If someone wants to believe that the other manufactured names are valid, then they would have to prove that the scriptures have been tampered with, and that there is a secret hidden name that was only revealed to certain teachers, or that all Hebrew scholarship is wrong, and that they are right.

[shmuel]

I agree with most of what you say; however, while the classical pronunciation of tsere is "ie" as in "neighbor" or "ay" as in "may" in modern Israeli Hebrew the tsere and segol are both pronounced as "e" in "egg".

The vowel point under the ayin is called a furtive patach and is pronounced briefly before the ayin. It does not constitute a separate syllable and is not accented. Generally ayin is treated as silent in modern Hebrew (like alef), but anciently it was a guttural pronounced something like "ng" deep in the throat.

Yahshua is a name made up by the sacred name movement in the US around 1930. It has no Hebrew support. It is not used within the Messianic Jewish movement. Its useage indicates a lack of knowledge of Hebrew.

S

[Child of the Most High]

I agree with most of what you say; however, while the classical pronunciation of tsere is "ie" as in "neighbor" or "ay" as in "may" in modern Israeli Hebrew the tsere and segol are both pronounced as "e" in "egg".

No argument there.Referencing Biblical Hebrew and wanted to keep it simple, but thanks for the further elaboration on the modern sephardic pronounciation. I was waiting for you to post, but thought that you went away.


The vowel point under the ayin is called a furtive patach and is pronounced briefly before the ayin. It does not constitute a separate syllable and is not accented. Generally ayin is treated as silent in modern Hebrew (like alef), but anciently it was a guttural pronounced something like "ng" deep in the throat.

Yahshua is a name made up by the sacred name movement in the US around 1930. It has no Hebrew support. It is not used within the Messianic Jewish movement. Its useage indicates a lack of knowledge of Hebrew.

S

Nice elaboration, and yes, it is a made up name. So why are the supposed scholars promoting this error. Most claim that they are Jewish, when they are not, so it looks bad for the Jews.
:sigh:

[Sephania]

Speaking of the name, I believe it was Shmuel who pointed out the error of this in another post , of which I cannot find but may be of note in this thread.

Ha Yehudi m vMelech HaNazarei Yeshua
http://www.direct.ca/trinity/yhwh.gif
.....H ..W. H... Y

( Note I added the dots to make it match up, theirs was not totally in a pic field. )

shmuel, would you mind reiterating about why it is bogus to have added the vav before Melech in order to get this acostic?

thank you :)

[blessed2]

I'm suprised that someone who doesn't have a problem with him being called Jesus would have a problem with him being called Yashua or Yahshua.
What is your opinion on what name he should be called by or if what names he's called by matters and why.
Please use as simple language as possible as I'm still learning and not a scholar.
Thanks in advance.

[visionary]

Between you and the Lord, it is the nickname, or family name, just like Yeshua said "Abba" father. When you are introducing your best friend to someone else, you use the title and the proper name. So it is with God. If we are dealing with a situation where we need an advocate, then Yeshua, our High Priest is the one we are looking for. If we are looking to speak to the Father, we preface it with in His Son's name we are asking. If we are talking the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, then we are addressing Royalty and all due respect should be shown.

So depending on your purpose, does the name of your Lord and Savior is called. I do not think He is as concerned with what we call Him, as how often and why would be more important. I believe we need to recognise who we are talking to, and recognise all the authority and respect that is due Him. I believe that we should always rever His name. For Holy Holy is His name.

[Child of the Most High]

Here is a post that was on Messianic Apologetic:

While we are on the name issue, below are some statements that I have
heard many times over the years:

"The name of YAHshua has been replaced by the names of Jesus
(geezeus), Iesus, and Iesous (ea-zeus or healing zeus) which are
pagan."

"Now that we know that his real Hebrew name is YAHshua, we can't use
Jesus any more in good conscience."

First of all, the name YAHshua is not found in the Hebrew scriptures.
Many allege that if He came in His Fathers Name, then His Father's
Name would have to be a part of His name. If we examine the New
Testament Scriptures, we will find that in first century Judea, Jews
were known by who their father was, as demonstrated in this passage:

Matthew 16:17

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father which is in heaven.

Barjona = "son of Jonah"

Here are some other New Testament Aramaic names:

Bartholomew = "son of Tolmai"
Bartimaeus = "son of Timaeus"
Barjesus = "son of Jesus"

This is how the family name was noted in the Hebrew culture. Bar
means son in Aramaic, and in Hebrew it is "ben."

In the Hebrew Scriptures we are shown the same:

Joshua 15:8
And the border went up by the valley of the *son of Hinnom* (ben
Hinnom=son of lamentation) unto the south side of the Jebusite; the
same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain
that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end
of the valley of the giants northward:

The name YAHshua is not transliterable into a Biblical Greek name,
which should throw up some flags to those who believe that the Greek
New Testament is the inspired Word of The Almighty. I find the
prohibition against saying the name of Jesus a little absurd,
considering that the people who have imposed this prohibition, are
calling the Messiah by a name that is not found in anywhere in the
Hebrew scriptures. Most of their reasoning, is that Jesus is an
English rendering from a Greek name, and since all things Greek are
pagan, this name should not be spoken, and that no self respecting
Jew would have ever uttered a Greek name, and surely would not have
written any scripture in Greek. Many of these same people have used
selected passages from the Septuagint (LXX) in their new
translations, while referring to Iesous and Christos, the names that
were used as the transliterations of Yeshua and Mashiyach in the very
same Septuagint(LXX) as pagan.

Let's take a look a this controversy from a different perspective and
consider the following:

While the multi lingual disciples may have personally called Him by
His Hebrew or Aramaic name Yeshua, I doubt if they had any
reservation in referring to Him as "Iesous" when talking about Him to
the Greeks. The name Iesous was already firmly established in the
Septuagint at that time as the Greek rendering (equivalent) of His
name. Out of the twelve apostles, eleven of them were from Galilee,
also known as Galilee of the Gentiles, (Matt 4:15) and the Messiah
was also a Galilean (Matt 21:11). We are told in the Gospels that the
Messiah spoke with a Greek woman and cast out a demon from her
daughter (Mark 7:26), and that He healed the son of a Roman centurion
(Matthew 8:8). How did they address Him would be my first question,
since history tells us that Greek was the official language of the
Roman Empire, and had been established as such centuries before the
Messiah was on Earth. In the scriptures we are told of the Greeks
who traveled to Jerusalem for the feasts, who wanted to speak to
Messiah, and had asked the apostles if it were possible (John 12:20).
We should consider what would be the language that Andrew and Phillip
addressed them in, and while we are at it, maybe we should check the
language of origin for the names Andrew and Phillip. We are also told
in the scriptures that Matthew was a tax collector, so he would have
to be versed in the language of commerce which was Koine Greek, and
we know that Luke (Loukas) was a Greek physician. We can safely
assume that Paul addressed the Greek Stoics about the "unknown god"
in Greek (Acts 17:23) as that was the language of the educated
philosphers, and in scripture we are also told that he addressed the
Roman centurion in Greek (Acts 21:37).

If we examine the problems of trying to communicate various aspects
of the gospel to Greeks using a semitic language, we would first need
to examine the restrictions that might be caused by the differences
between the Hebrew/Aramaic, and the Greek language. Firstly, in
reference to his Name, the Greek language didn't have a true "Y"
sound for the yud, nor the "sh" sound for the letter Shin and so on.
Greek speakers were not practiced in vocal techniques such as
pharyngeal fricatives/velar fricatives/glottal stops/gutteral sounds
and other phonemes/allophones that are utilized in semitic languages,
but are not common to the Greek language. Loanwords often do cross
over into various other languages that might be spoken in a region
where multiple languages are commonly spoken, and in the case of
proper nouns, they can and sometimes do import phonemes from one
language to another. Because His Hebrew name contained phonemes that
weren't native to Greek doesn't rule out that they couldn't pronounce
it, but it may have been easier for them to use Iesous. And think
about this.....

If everyone knew Him only as Yeshua, there would be no need to write
His Name in its other transliterated forms of Greek and Latin on the
sign above Him.

John 19
19 And Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross. And having
been written, it was: JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
20 Therefore, many of the Jews read this title, because the place
where Jesus was crucified was near the city. And it had been written
in Hebrew, in Greek, in Latin.

The above statements are comprised of my opinions. If anyone has
proof to the contrary, please post it for correction.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/9565

[Child of the Most High]

I'm suprised that someone who doesn't have a problem with him being called Jesus would have a problem with him being called Yashua or Yahshua.
What is your opinion on what name he should be called by or if what names he's called by matters and why.
Please use as simple language as possible as I'm still learning and not a scholar.
Thanks in advance.

The name Jesus has an eytmological pathway that takes it back to Yeshua. It is an English name that came from the Greek, (some say Latin between them) which came from the original Hebrew, and doesn't claim to be anything more than that. Yahshua has no pathway, and is errantly promoted as the original Hebrew name, but can not be found anywhere in scripture. There are rules involved in language conversion. Jesus follows them, Yahshua does not.

[plum]

I've been wondering about the Jesus/Yeshua thing for a while now. Thanks for the discussion here. Sadly, I don't know enough to add anything :)

[Child of the Most High]

Many of the people who promote the name Yahshua, often try to say that Jesus is a pagan name derived from zeus.There was a discussion recently on another forum where Yahshua was the popular name used. One of the 'teachers' on that forum had written a book where he had stated that Jesus had the same component linguistically as zeus. This is a response that he got from a poster there:


"This explanation may be firmly rooted in linguistic superstition, but is not founded on Greek scholarship.

Iesou(s) (Ihsou) and Zeus (Zeu) are not related, and have two completely different spellings. The first letter zeta is vocalized with a 'dz' sound, and the dipthongs ou (Iesous) and eu (zeus) have a different vocalization. The final sigma on the end of Iesous is part of the standard transliteration from other languages (Hebrew) to Greek. Greek nouns and names almost always have case endings, so the sigma (s) is added at the end of the word to distinguish that the name is the masculine form, and also makes it declinable. There is absolutely no relation between these words, and scholarship can easilly prove this.

Secondly, in etymological circles, it is commonly recognized that the transliterated word carries the same meaning as the original word at the beginning of the process, so Jesus would have the same meaning as Iesous >Yeshua>Yehoshua.

You may want to consider revising your book."

[shmuel]

I would add that the sacred namers do not limit their silliness to linking the name Jesus and Zeus. They also try to link Jesus to a Greek goddess Iaso and to the Latin "sus" meaning "swine". I have been told by SNers that Jesus means "that pig" or "earth pig". No matter how often the SNers are corrected they continue to repeat their same absurd arguments. I have asked a number of SNers how they would transliterate Yeshua (yod-shin-vav-ayin along with the standard vowel points) into Greek. Everyone has declined!

No Messianic Jew uses the term Yahshua; however, a number of fringe Messianic teachers do or have in the past. Clearly the use of Yahshua indicates an ignorance of Hebrew!!!

S

[Child of the Most High]

I would add that the sacred namers do not limit their silliness to linking the name Jesus and Zeus. They also try to link Jesus to a Greek goddess Iaso and to the Latin "sus" meaning "swine". I have been told by SNers that Jesus means "that pig" or "earth pig". No matter how often the SNers are corrected they continue to repeat their same absurd arguments. I have asked a number of SNers how they would transliterate Yeshua (yod-shin-vav-ayin along with the standard vowel points) into Greek. Everyone has declined!

No Messianic Jew uses the term Yahshua; however, a number of fringe Messianic teachers do or have in the past. Clearly the use of Yahshua indicates an ignorance of Hebrew!!!

S

More good points Shmuel. Yahshua will not transliterate to a Greek scriptural name. Yeshua transliterates perfectly to Iesous using the rules that govern this process. Some teachers have stated that Yahshua means "Yahweh is our salvation" Where would the 'our' come from? In order to get Yahshua, you would need to have Yod/Hey/Shin/Vav/Ayin, which can not be found anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures. Yehoshua is Yod/Hey/Vav/Shin/Vav/Ayin or Yod/Hey/Vav/Shin/Ayin. This would be roughly translated as "He who is or will be saves". Don't know where the 'our' could possibly come from. I did a transliteration scheme from the Hebrew to the Greek, and Yeshua to Iesous works perfectly.

They should make this thread a sticky on this forum, and all other forums for that matter, so that people can see the silly pseudo scholarship that they are being misled by, that is propogated by many of this movements 'teachers'.

[Sephania]

Shmuel, will you be commenting on my post?

[Child of the Most High]

I would add that the sacred namers do not limit their silliness to linking the name Jesus and Zeus. They also try to link Jesus to a Greek goddess Iaso and to the Latin "sus" meaning "swine". I have been told by SNers that Jesus means "that pig" or "earth pig". No matter how often the SNers are corrected they continue to repeat their same absurd arguments. I have asked a number of SNers how they would transliterate Yeshua (yod-shin-vav-ayin along with the standard vowel points) into Greek. Everyone has declined!

No Messianic Jew uses the term Yahshua; however, a number of fringe Messianic teachers do or have in the past. Clearly the use of Yahshua indicates an ignorance of Hebrew!!!

S

Here are some excerpts from an article on the net:

"A. B. Traina is the father of the Sacred Name bible. His corruption of the King James Version was the first such bible. On page five of the preface of his bible are these words:

"The name of the Son, Yahshua, has been substituted by Jesus, Iesus, and Ea-Zeus (Healing Zeus)."

and

" Institute For Scripture Research, South Africa and Rhode Island, USA, is publisher of The Scriptures. This is one of the more recent entries into the ranks of Sacred Name bibles. This group continues to reproduce the Jesus/Zeus connection in print. As a consequence of their stand, it seems shameful that the words research and scripture are included in the name of the organization.
Here is a quotation from the Explanatory Notes section of their bible (1998 printing) under the article Jesus:

"Consider Iesous, rendered as 'Jesus' in English versions up to now. For example the authoritative Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott, under Iaso: The Greek goddess of healing reveals that the name Iaso is Ieso in the Ionic dialect of the Greeks, Iesous being the contracted genitive form! In David Kravitx, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology, we find a similar form, namely Iasus. There were four different Greek deities with the name Iasus, one of them being the Son of Rhea."

The full article can be found here:

http://www.sacrednamemovement.com/JesusZeus.htm

And don't miss the silly sacred name essays on the name Jesus:

http://www.sacrednamemovement.com/InvitationEssayPage.html

[shmuel]

Zayit

You are dealing with an old man with a bad memory. Although I believe I have heard this claim before, I don't recall commenting.

But here goes my take:

The vav represents the English word "and". There is no corresponding word in the Greek text of Jn 19:19. I understand the superscription to be composed of a name, "Yeshua the Nazarene", where the home town is a qualifier like a father's name and a title, "The King of the Jews". Adding a vav seems to convert it into a name, "Yeshua" and two titles, "The Nazarene" and "The King of the Jews".

My modern Hebrew version translates the Greek as

Yeshua miNatsrat, melekh haYehudim (Yeshua from Natsrat, The King of the Jews)

S

[Sephania]

Thanks Shmuel, I know it was a post on this forum recently (but I can't find it)about what Yeshua's crime was and they had said insurrection I belive to which I had quickly checked on line to see if I had the transliterated hebrew correct and just copied from the site and it was what I posted on page one of this thread and I thought it was you who said that was incorrect Hebrew, that the "vav" was added in to make it come out YHVH.

I think if this is what it obviously had said the Cohanim would have been screaming about a lot more than re-writing that "he said he was", don't ya think ? ;)

[Jasmine-FL]

The saddest part about this is not the clear linguistic error but the fact that some people claim that your salvation depends on calling "the right name" as if it was the name not the redeeming blood of Messiah that saved us.

[The Thadman]

In Aramaic, Jesus' name would have been "Yeshu`" (with or without a final vowel "a" due to dialect), as it is the masculine, third-person, perfect, singular of the verb "to save" making it "he will save." We can see in Matthew 1:20-21:

20 But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She shall bring forth a son. You shall call his name Jesus (yeshu` = "he will save"), for it is he who will save his people from their sins."

Peace,
-Steve-o

[blessed2]

The name Jesus has an eytmological pathway that takes it back to Yeshua. It is an English name that came from the Greek, (some say Latin between them) which came from the original Hebrew, and doesn't claim to be anything more than that. Yahshua has no pathway, and is errantly promoted as the original Hebrew name, but can not be found anywhere in scripture. There are rules involved in language conversion. Jesus follows them, Yahshua does not.

Sorry I took so long in getting back.
Thank you for sharing this with me.