you may be missing my point here.. Satan is a perfect transliteration.. but Jesus sounds nothing like Yeshua. There is no 'J' in hebrew and its only a few hundred years old in english. (wafflehouse)
1. The point I am making not only encompasses your attempt to make some kind of statement, but goes way beyond.
1.a. Only paleographers now read the Hebrew in which the Old Testament Bible was written.
1.b. The sounds of the Hebrew language are now rendered in the squarish Aramaic letters, a transition brought into the Jewish culture by Ezra after the return from the Babylonian exile. I suppose the residence in exile resulted in enough assimilation into the foreign culture led to the commonality of the Aramaic language and spelling.
1.c. So all the 'Hebrew" you read today has already been transliterated into Aramaic spelling.
1.d. Even in Biblical times, there were variations of pronunciation of Hebrew words. (Would you say "sibboleth" or "shibboleth"?)
1.e. In order to get the pronunciation correct, the current vowel pointing was introduced about 600 AD, for which the Qames-Hatuph pointing under the shin and the teth would give the pronunciation "saw-tawn" in, and only assuredly in, today's Ashkenazian/Tiberian accepted use.
1.f. As for the American English pronunciation, which is "say-ten," it is _not_ a transliteratiom of the original Hebrew word for Satan. It is a translation, giving the word for the designation of the Devil in our language. Found several times in Job (perhaps the oldest book of the Bible), no one really knows how exactly how it was pronounced then. You need to go look up the difference between transliteration and translation. Jewish scholars are still debating pronunciation. If so, how do you know the right _transliteration_?
1.g. So your position that "Satan is a perfect transliteration" is a greatly overconfident claim that betrays your ignorance in this matter.
2. Does a greater difference in pronunciation of "Yeshua" and "Jesus" create any lack of assurance about whom the translation of the Bible refers?
2.a. The letter J in 'Jesus' sounds like 'dzh' in American/British English; but sounds like Y in German. Does the transliteratiion make any difference in whom we are talking of, in translation to English or German? No.
2.b. Moses (translated from Mosheh) renamed his chief general from Oshea (O-shay-ah) to Jehoshua (translated as Joshua with J sounds as 'dzhy') (in Hebrew sounds as yeh-haw-shoo-ah); otherwise spelled as you have, Yehoshua (Num. 13:16)(Heb. 4:8)
2.c. Translated to Greek, that would be iota, epsilon, sigma, omicron, sigma -- sounds like ee-ay-soos, but translated in English letters: Iesus (actually same in Latin). Since Greek has no "shh" sound, and since the "hoo" sound was dropped, it comes out Iesus translated into English.
2.d. When _translated_ (not transliterated), in English His Name is Jesus (sounds like dzhee-zuhs).
2.e. When _translated_ so, does it make any change in the sense of a passage to an English speaker/reader? No.
3. But what is your underlying point or assumption? What are you trying to show? Hard to guess. Why don't you just come out and say what your 'hot button' is?
3.a. The article in view in this thread is one proposing a theme of "How to Study the Bible." To what purpose are your meandering assertions bringing us in addressing the value of the author's thesis, which is the importance of hermeneutics (interpretation) to understanding Scripture -- not tramslation. Any?
3.b. You have just shown that you do _not_ understand what you are talking about -- that is, not very deeply.
3.c. When I said it in shorter form, my point of the insubstantiality of your thrust to anything contributing to the discussion was made.
Do you then understand what Hebrews 4:8 says, as from Koine translated into KJV English? (imardmd1)
i know the direction things are going in the beginning of Hebrews, but im not familiar with that section. I shall study it. (wafflehouse)
I just showed you above -- why couldn't you either (a) say you didn't understand (which is the great insight of the article: the response of a wise man); or (b) simply look at the verse to see that there the name Jesus refers to the Joshua/Yehoshua of the OT, not the Lord Jesus Christ?
They can't, and don't. And neither could Galilean fishermen. The were offered the opportunity to learn how to understand the Bible from a master teacher and took it. If you haven't, you might. So did the ancient sheep herder(s). (imardmd1)
I think you are sorely mistaken. They can and did. The Galilean fishermen werent Torah scholars, but they certainly understood it. Jesus, in bringing the word of God to earth in a personified fashion did not bring a new message. EVERYTHING Jesus taught is in the Old Testament, several times over. (wafflehouse)
Don't be silly. you argue against yourself. The Jews assumed that Jesus was unlettered (Jn. 7:14-15), being a Galilean (Mt. 26:73, Lk. 22:50), and were amazed that He dared to teach in the temple, with authority (Mt. 21:23-27). That was not their customary expectations from ordinary laborers and farmers. Of the twelve disciples, were the fishermen schooled? Not likely, although their training in practical arts and memorization of verbal Scripture was probably far superior to anything seen today. Jesus taught them (and the multitudes) orally -- mouth-to-mouth -- the same way He as the preincarnate Yahovah spoke to Moses and the prophets. He didn't generally communicate details by writing. So were they illiterate? Some, but we don't know or need to know in this phase. But Levi, an official, was likely schooled in keeping records, as were the antagonistic religious adversaries.
In Matthew 13, Jesus told thousands of people secrets that The Godhead had hidden since Creation. But the people could not understand, lest they be converted without The Faith. To the disciples He had to explain these parables as if to second or third graders. Yet, contrary to your idea that they understood the Scriptures, why was it absolutely required that Jesus needed to reveal its meaning to them? To interpret them as a Master, a Didaskala?
(Also, it is clear that memorization is only the prerequisite for the meditation that brings understanding.(Psalm 1) So, the disciples probably had a grasp of the Scriptures, read again and again in synagogue, although much of it they did not understand)
Even the didskaloi of the Sanhedrin did not understand some very basic precepts (ex.: Jn. 3:1-21). And the concepts introduced by Jesus, hidden in the Tanach, but revealed in His novel interpretations and applications, highly offended the scribes, Tzaddukim, and Pharusim so that they conspired to kill Him. His message _was_ new, both in kind and in covenant. Have you never heard that God's revelation was always progressive and everunfolding? Not to account for that is to miss His entire plan for redemption.
Why would I continue to respond to your silly claims? Only to get you to turn for discipling to someone trained for it, as both the fishermen and Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did. Even young Josiah needed Shaphan to read/teach the meaning of such Holy Scriptures as The God had yet revealed. And under the New Covenant, new believer-disciples needed Paul, John, Peter, James, Jude -- all the apostles and elders -- to explain to them the interpretation of the meaning of the New Covenant, subsequent to the fulfillment of the Old Covenant by Jesus and His ordination as The Eternal High Priest. Remember, He taught them post-resurrection facts in His 40-day time with them. They were the only primary officers commissioned by the Risen Christ to do so.
While the New Testament is hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament revealed in the New; there is more than the Old that is the completion of the final content of the New out to about 100 AD. One of the concepts is the law of double reference. (Unbelieving Jews have never seemed to understand that The Suffering Servant and The Glorious Messiah were both the very same person described in the Tanach.)
But now, Christ's way of building His Church is not much by talking heads engaging in fruitless Sunday 20-minute homilies; but rather in disciplers personally supervising other believer-disciples into maturity, the same way they themselves were trained.
The fruit of the Spirit is the character of Christ formed in the regenerated believer-disciple, but the fruit of a true disciple is more disciples. If one is not a converted and regenerated disciple-believer committed to this life of eternally following The Christ, one is not fit for the outward sign of water-baptism that gives a public testimony of the inward new birth.
So much for now ---