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To: Buggman; William Terrell; 1000 silverlings; DAVEY CROCKETT; Dr. Eckleburg; HarleyD; ladyinred; ...
The word by which His Father, stepfather, mother, brothers, sisters, disciples, and friends all called Him is Yeshua.

Well, not exactly. The only infallible record we have of Jesus's name is of the Greek Iesous. In fact no one knows for sure if His Hebrew/Aramaic name was Yehoshua or Yeshua or something else.

This being the case there is no reason to believe that, for example, the apostle Paul -- a fluent Greek-speaker -- felt is necessary to transliterate the name of Jesus to Aramaic for his Greek-speaking audience and disciples. Even many of the Jews of Jesus' day called Him Iesous in their native tongue since a large number of them were Jews born and raised in a Greek-speaking culture (cf. Acts 6:1; John 7:35; 1 Peter 1:1).

But allowing for the disputed theory that a small portion of the NT was originally penned in Aramaic/Hebrew, the majority was authentically written in Greek by folks like Paul to a Greek audience who used the name Iesous to refer to Our Savior.

Obviously Paul and the other NT writers were not as hung up on the Hebrew name as folks in the modern day "Jewish roots" movement. They are just trying to be "more Jewish" than Paul. Or is it "Saul"?

46 posted on 09/20/2006 1:40:59 PM PDT by topcat54
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To: topcat54; William Terrell; 1000 silverlings; DAVEY CROCKETT; Dr. Eckleburg; HarleyD; ladyinred
Well, not exactly. The only infallible record we have of Jesus's name is of the Greek Iesous. In fact no one knows for sure if His Hebrew/Aramaic name was Yehoshua or Yeshua or something else.

It's true that there is some debate about the pronunciation of Yeshua's Name, as the Greek Iesous can be used for either of two names. It is now generally accepted that Y'hoshua (Yoshua or Yehoshua, usually rendered Joshua in English) was the early Biblical pronunciation, but that the late Biblical name Yeshua (Jeshua) had come to replace it. Why? Simply because it was in the late Biblical period that the practice arose of not pronouncing the Tetragrammaton or even its shortened version Yah. Since pronouncing the name Y'hoshua classically (Yah-ho-shu-ah) would require pronouncing the Ineffible, Yeshua was the variant in common use during the Second Temple period.

In addition, the existant Aramaic NTs that we have, the Old Syriac and Peshitta, use the equivalent Aramaic letters of yod-shin-vav-ayin, not yod-heh-vav-shin-ayin as we would expect if Yeshua's Name were commonly rendered Y'hoshua.

Mind you, if someone wants to use the older form of the name, I certainly have no objection. Yeshua was always understood to be exactly equivalent to Y'hoshua anyway. But that's why I believe that "Yeshua" is indeed the correct pronunciation.

Wikipedia has a nice series of articles on the issue. Start here and then hit all the links to get all sides of the debate.

This being the case there is no reason to believe that, for example, the apostle Paul -- a fluent Greek-speaker -- felt is necessary to transliterate the name of Jesus to Aramaic for his Greek-speaking audience and disciples.

Partially true, though there is some evidence that even many Greek believers insisted on pronouncing it correctly. (I'll have to see if I can dig up the article for you sometime.) But in any case, that's why I don't object to anyone saying Jesus or get caught up in the Sacred Name nonsense--if the Apostles had no problem with transliterating Yeshua's name to keep it from sounding like a girl's name to their Greek audience (by ending in an "ah" instead of a male "us"), then why should I object to my fellow believers doing the same?

But by the same time, why should my fellow believers get their undies in a wad that I deliberately choose to use Yeshua's original name out of respect and emphasis of His Jewishness as a matter of personal custom?

Obviously Paul and the other NT writers were not as hung up on the Hebrew name as folks in the modern day "Jewish roots" movement. They are just trying to be "more Jewish" than Paul. Or is it "Saul"?

They were also dealing with an entirely different set of circumstances than we are: They didn't have to deal with people mistaking Jewish men for Calvinists.

51 posted on 09/20/2006 2:22:47 PM PDT by Buggman (http://brit-chadasha.blogspot.com)
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To: topcat54

So, you think that Jewish parents, that were strong adherents to the Judaic principles and lived in a Jewish contextual setting would give their son a Greek name?


140 posted on 09/23/2006 1:15:26 PM PDT by ET(end tyranny) (John 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a MAN that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God:)
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