Ever wonder why we Call Jesus "Jesus"?

[jeolmstead]

Yeshua.com says:

The Bible was not written in English. What we read in English today are translations from other languages. The "New Testament" was written in Greek. Hence, the name "Jesus" is found nowhere in the Scriptures—it is a translation of the Greek name "Iesous" (pronounced "[ee]yeh-sooce"). "Iesous" came over into the Latin "Jesu" (pronounced "yehsoo") and finally into English as "Jesus." So in the most technical sense, saying "Jesus" is saying a twice-removed translation of the name we find in the "New Testament" Scriptures.
When we move backwards, we also find that "Iesous" is itself a translation of another name. According to Matthew 1:21, we find the meaning of the name that is translated "Jesus" in English. It says, "he will save his people from their sins." In the Hebrew, the name "Yehoshua" (translated "Joshua" in English) means "the Lord (Adonai) saves". Also in Hebrew, the word for "salvation" is "yeshuah'". Finally, we also find a contraction of "Yehoshua" in the Hebrew Scriptures in the form of "Yeshua," which means, "he will save" (just like in Matthew 1:21). We find this name in the Chronicles as well as Ezra and Nehemiah, usually translated in English "Jeshua".
So, here is the evolution of the name Yeshua:

Yeshua » Iesous » Jesu » Jesus
(Hebrew)(Greek)(Latin)(English)​

 

[Leah]

So what's the point you're trying to make, J?

 

[jeolmstead]

Oh, no real point. It just strikes me how we treat His name like the ultimate “Magic” word and the word we use is not even our Lord’s name.

John O.

 

[jeolmstead]

A Rose is a Rose I guess.....

 

[adimus]

I'm glad you weren't trying to say that "Jesus" is really a demon name coming from Zeus. LOL

 

[jeolmstead]

Worse then not getting His name right is missing it as to who He is.

There appear to be many “Jesus’s” proclaimed in the world today that have little resemblance to the One outlined in scripture.


It makes you wonder :

What does it really mean to call upon the name of the Lord?


John O.

 

[adimus]

It means infinitely more than getting the pronunciation right!

I believe it means to appeal to the God revealed in the Bible based on his demonstrated character. There.

 

[jeolmstead]

It means infinitely more than getting the pronunciation right!

I believe it means to appeal to the God revealed in the Bible based on his demonstrated character. There.

I agree.....

It also causes me to wonder about those who don't know the name because the've never heard it or read about Him.

The man who looks up at the heaven that declare His glory and says "I see you Lord displayed here, please save me"

Can such a man be saved like this?

John O.

 

[adimus]

I agree.....

It also causes me to wonder about those who don't know the name because the've never heard it or read about Him.

The man who looks up at the heaven that declare His glory and says "I see you Lord displayed here, please save me"

Can such a man be saved like this?

John O.

I can't see why not. But there is so much else involved. That is why no one can truly judge but God alone. Only God knows what light a person had and how they responded to it.

 

[StevenL]

Interesting.

I was muttering to the Lord one day about all the requests made "In the name of Jesus" that were obviously ignored or denied and how it made His "name" look bad, messed up people's faith.....blah blah.... and He said to me:

My Name is not JESUS.

He then took me through the real meaning of His Name:

I AM SAVIOR

Yeah, there's no magic in the "name" Jesus. There are millions of people named Jesus in the world.

Biblical names were a description of what the people did or their character. Not titles.

When a man calls for God to Save him, he's calling on the Name of the Lord.

And, I guess Jesus is more of a transliteration from the Hebrew through to the Greek. The translation is "I AM Savior."

 

[Simon_Templar]

To be technical its not a translation, its a transliteration.

When names pass through different languages often times they don't have the same phonetic sets or the same letters, and sometimes they have different rules too about names.

For example, in latin and greek there is no y. The closest thing to y is actually I and in both latin and greek the I served as a consonant and a vowel, just like y does in hebrew.
So when Yeshua was brought into greek, the "y" became an "i"
Ieshu.
However, the "sh" sound doesn't really exist in greek either so it became the next closest equivalent that greek has "s".
so then you have
"Iesu"

Then you have the "ua" the greek equivalent was an "oo" sound which was made by the letters "ou"

"Iesou"

Finally, in ancient greek it was convention that almost all male names had to end in "s". So whenever a foreign name was made greek, they always appended an s to the end.

So you have Iesous.

Then, in latin, the only change was that the "oo" sound in latin is made by a single letter "u" rather than two letters.

So Iesous, became Iesus. It was still pronounced "EE ay soos"

Eventually, during the medieval period, latin began to change and the letter J was added to take the place of the consonant use of I.. so
Iesus became Jesus. It was still pronounced "ee ay soos".

We actually owe our pronunciation of Jesus to Tyndale, because the name wasn't pronounced that way even in english until Tyndale translated the bible and didn't spell the name phonetically.

There are other examples of such name changes in the bible as well. Peter is an interesting example.

Peter of course was originally named Simon, (hebrew Shimon) We also know him as Peter.. and sometimes he is called Cephas too.. so why all the names?

Jesus changed his name to Peter right? actually Jesus didn't. Jesus called him "Kepha" which is Aramaic meaning "rock". This is where the biblical name "Cephas" comes from. When Kepha is brought into Greek it becomes Cephas. (note the s added on the end as conventional in greek).
Whats especially interesting about this is that the writers of the New testament not only transliterated the name Kepha to Cephas, they also made a point of TRANSLATING the name, to Peter, or in Greek Petros.

They did this because greeks would have no idea what Cephas meant, and the point of the name was not just that Peter was called Kepha.. the point of it was what the name MEANT. So it was important for the greek readers to not only know his name, but also to know the meaning of his name.

They did the same thing with the hebrew Ha Mashiach. They both transliterated it as "the messiah" and also translated as "the Christ" so that the greek readers would not only know the title, but also know what the title meant.

In both cases this was done because the meaning of the name was especially pertinant to the stories.

Sorry for rambling on from John's post, but I actually find this stuff interesting

 

[heron]

Yeshua » Iesous » Jesu » Jesus
(Hebrew)(Greek)(Latin)(English)

I think it was a great idea to post, especially because it builds an information base on the Web.

There are people who are quite offended when a latino-based family names their child Jesus. I've also seen Christians offended when friends come back from mission trips and use a foreign word for Jesus -- as if it's not his real name and they are making things up.

Surrounding countries use...

Исус

İsa​

يسوع

Ιησούς

ישוע

..and some of these are just a day's drive away from where he was born.

​

 

[ebia]

We actually owe our pronunciation of Jesus to Tyndale, because the name wasn't pronounced that way even in english until Tyndale translated the bible and didn't spell the name phonetically.

Didn't know this bit, I often wondered about it. Thanks

Slightly off topic, but most English translations and normal speech transliterate
Miryam as Miriam (fair enough) and
Maria as Mary (also fair enough), but why inJohn 20:16 when John swaps from Maria to Mariam do they still render it Mary rather than Miriam and deny English readers John's sudden allusion to the Exodus story?

 

[gratefulgrace]

I AM is his name.

Exd 3:14And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.


Jhn 8:58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

 

[gratefulgrace]

Yeshua » Iesous » Jesu » Jesus
(Hebrew)(Greek)(Latin)(English)

I think it was a great idea to post, especially because it builds an information base on the Web.

There are people who are quite offended when a latino-based family names their child Jesus. I've also seen Christians offended when friends come back from mission trips and use a foreign word for Jesus -- as if it's not his real name and they are making things up.

Surrounding countries use...

Исус

İsa
​

يسوع

Ιησούς​

ישוע​

..and some of these are just a day's drive away from where he was born.​

Yeah I think Rick Warren got into trouble on a CF thread for doing that in his prayer at the presidential inauggeration. gg

 

[Svt4Him]

The "New Testament" was written in Greek.

Really? I didn't think the disciples spoke Greek, therefore it wouldn't have been written in Greek, but translated into Greek.

Sorry, now back to your regular program.

Исус is similar to Iesous. Actually phonetically they are the same.

 

[ARBITER01]

Really? I didn't think the disciples spoke Greek, therefore it wouldn't have been written in Greek, but translated into Greek.

Sorry, now back to your regular program.

Исус is similar to Iesous. Actually phonetically they are the same.

Yes it was written in Greek, not any other language, the evidence is overwhelming. Unless you or anyone else can produce a 1st century manuscript that is written in Hebrew or Aramaic, you don't have a case otherwise.

Most folks like to produce opinions to somehow foster their own views in people, and that was all that quote was tryign to do that was included in the OP's threadstarter post.

 

[lismore]

Jesus is his name in the English family of languages. Makes sense people would call 'Jesus' what his name is in their language.

 

[LJSGM]

I love this song

"Jesus, lover of my heart..."

lalalalala

 

[Simon_Templar]

Really? I didn't think the disciples spoke Greek, therefore it wouldn't have been written in Greek, but translated into Greek.

Sorry, now back to your regular program.

Исус is similar to Iesous. Actually phonetically they are the same.

Most of the new testament was written in Greek, Matthew's gospel may originally have been Hebrew or Aramaic.

The language situation at the time was that the common every day language of the area was Aramaic. Thats what Jesus and his disciples spoke when they talked to each other in daily conversation.

Greek was the trade/international language so most people especially those who were involved in business or travel of any kind spoke Greek. Greek then was a lot like English today where you can go almost anywhere in the world and you will find most people speak at least a little bit of English. Also, Greek was the language of most of the governments as well.

Hebrew was mostly a religious scholarly language at that time. Kind of like Latin today, or maybe more like Latin 100 years ago. Only Jewish men who went to a certain level of education would speak Hebrew.

In fact, evidence suggests that the septuagint (greek) version of the Old Testament was in wide use among Jewish communities at the time of Jesus because many of them did not speak hebrew, but did speak greek. There is evidence in scripture that Jesus and the disciples used the septuagint, as well as the hebrew text.