Short answer:
The
English name “Jesus” is just one of the many transliterations of the original
Hebrew name of the Savior. He was born a Jew and, like most Jews, He has a
Hebrew name. Our spiritual salvation depends a great deal on the power of His
Name. “He that believeth on him is not
condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
The
confusion stems from the fact that the Savior is named “Jesus” in the Bible. The
angel Gabriel had told both Mary and Joseph what name to call the Son of God even
before the child was born. He also revealed the prophecy in the name: “he shall save his people from their sins.” Yet
that prophecy is no longer discernible in the English form “Jesus”.
The
original Hebrew name of the Messiah can be found in the Old Testament, but transliterated
in English as “Jehoshua”.
Detailed explanation:
|
|
The
name of the Son of God was an enigma even in the time of King Solomon, who
posed the following riddle in the book of Proverbs. “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the
wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established
all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if
thou canst tell?’ (Proverb 30:4).
Christ
is known today by most people in the world as “Jesus”. Is that His real name?
He was born a Jew, and most Jews had Hebrew names. In fact, the English name
“Jesus” is just one of the last versions of the many transliterations of the
original Hebrew Name in various languages.
English Bible name: “JESUS”.
The
confusion stems from the fact that Christ is named “Jesus” in the English Bible.
The English term “Christ” is not His name either; it is a transliteration of
the Greek christos, which is a
translation of the Hebrew mashiach,
transliterated in English as “Messiah”. Both Christ and Messiah mean “Anointed”.
Angelic instruction.
The
angel Gabriel had visited the virgin Mary: “And
the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt
call his name JESUS” (Luke 1:30-31).
The
angel also appeared in a dream to Joseph, the husband of Mary, and told him, “she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt
call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” So,
Joseph “…knew her not till she had
brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS” (Matthew 1:21,
25b).
“And when eight days
were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS,
which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21).
However, the verses we have just
read are English translations of the Bible’s New Testament, which was
originally written mostly in Greek.
Importance of the true Name.
Is
it important for us to know the true and original Hebrew name of the Messiah?
Absolutely, because, according to the Holy Scriptures, our spiritual salvation
can depend to a large extent on the power of His Name. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not
is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
Names have meanings.
In
the Bible, names were given for good reasons – as a prophecy of one’s role in
life or a description of circumstances surrounding that person, whether a
newborn child or even an adult.
Adam. The first man was called Adam,
because he was formed from the ground (adamah),
which has a generally ruddy or reddish color (adam). “And the LORD God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
Abraham. God changed the name of Abram
(“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of a multitude”) after He promised him he
would be a “father of many nations.” “Neither
shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a
father of many nations have I made thee (Genesis 17:5).
Isaac. God told Abraham to name his son
Isaac, because he and his wife Sarah laughed when they were told they were
going to have a child in their old age. “Then
Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child
be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety
years old, bear?” (Genesis 17:17). “And
Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And
Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with
me” (Genesis 21:5-6). Isaac means “laughter” in Hebrew.
Israel. Isaac’s son, Jacob
(“supplanter”/“following in the heels of another”), was renamed Israel by the
angel he wrestled with all night. “And he
said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast
thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). In
Hebrew, Israel means “having power with God” or
“ruler with God”.
Christ has a Hebrew name.
Like
them, Christ has a Hebrew name. This can be gleaned from the miraculous
incident that Saul (later known as the apostle Paul) experienced on his way to
Damascus to arrest and persecute early Christians. “I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest” (Acts 26:14b-15).
If
the voice spoke in Hebrew in that first century A.D. incident, then the name
could not have been “Jesus” (a much-later 17th century A.D. English form
of the Messiah’s Name). The name mentioned was most likely a Hebrew one.
Prophecy in the Name.
The
angel Gabriel had told Joseph the prophecy in the Messiah’s name before the Son
of God was born. “And she shall bring
forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people
from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Nelson's Illustrated
Bible Dictionary
gives us the definition or meaning of the name: “JESUS [GEE zus] (Jehovah is
salvation)” or “God saves”.
Now
we know why the angel told both Mary and Joseph to name the child “Jesus”. That
is because “he shall save his people from
their sins”. Yet, that meaning of the Name is no longer discernible in the
English form “Jesus”. It was probably clear in the Hebrew original. Why and how
did it change? To know that, let us trace the process of how the original Name
was gradually transformed to “Jesus” step-by-step.
English JESUS came from Latin
“IESUS”.
Author Webb Garrison, in his book Strange Facts About The Bible (p. 81), tells us: “In its English form,
‘Jesus’ goes back to the Church Latin Iesus…”
Writer David K. Bernard concurs in his article “Yahweh, Yashua, or Jesus?”
which appeared in The Pentecostal Herald
(July-August 1991, p. 7), with evidence from his research: “Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary clearly
shows that the English name Jesus came from the Latin Iesus…”
Inasmuch
as Latin became the official language of the Church in the centuries following
the acceptance of Christianity by Emperor Constantine in 312 A.D., Rome had
consequently adopted that Latin form of the Name of the Son of God – Iesus.
“Iesus”
is the “I” in I.N.R.I., the abbreviation of the title above the head of Christ
on the cross, written in Latin as: “IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM”. In the English Bible it says: “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the
cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John
19:19).
“I” became “J”. We read under the entry “J” in Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopaedia (1979,
Vol. 14, p. 94): “…in the King James Bible of 1611, for example, the words
Jesus and judge are invariably Iesus and iudge.” How did “I” become a “J”?
Under
“J” in the World Book we find: ”In
the late Middle Ages, when two ‘i’s’ were written together, scribes often added
a tail to the last ‘i.’ Then, in the 1600s, it was the ‘i’ at the beginning of
a word that was written with a tail (j).” Funk
and Wagnalls adds: The elongated form (“j”) was at first used simply as an
ornamental device. Next, as quoted in the booklet The Mistaken J (p. 4): “In the 17th century, the
development of the dictionary by Dutch printers demanded consistent spellings
for the alphabetical listing of entries.” “I” became a standard vowel, while
“J” became a consonant permanently, according to the World Book.
Latin IESUS came from Greek
“IESOUS”.
In
the book Strange Facts About The Bible, author
Webb Garrison explains: “Iesus… is a
transliteration of the Greek Iesous”.
The sign on the cross, above the head of Christ, was in three languages, the
Bible says. “And a superscription also
was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew…” (Luke
23:38). The Greek version was likely written as follows:
“IESOUS HO NAZORAIOS HO BASILEUS
TON IODAION”
(JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS).
The
Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament (Iesous, Vol. 3, pp. 284-293),
says that the Greek form of the Name of the Son of God might have been in use
in Judea for about 400 years – beginning from the time the Jews came under the
rule of Alexander the Great towards the end of the 4th century B.C.
Daniel
Botkin notes in his article “How Yeshua
Became Yeshu” (Petah Tikvah [“Door of Hope”], April-June 2016, p. 15): “People who
think Iesous was invented by pagans
to change the Savior’s name into a tribute to Zeus do not understand basic
linguistics and do not know history. The form Iesous existed in the pre-Christian Septuagint (Greek translation
of the Hebrew scriptures) about 200 years before the Savior was even born.”
We
further learn from the article “Iesous” in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: “…Iesous begins to drop out of the Greek sphere after the beginning
of the 2nd century A.D.”
Greek IESOUS had variant “IESOU”.
The
Greek form “Iesous” did not always have an “s” ending. Sacred Name researcher
K.M. Bean shares in his tract “Why Was Christ’s Name Changed?” (Grove City,
Ohio, p. 1): “The ORIGINAL King James
Version of the Greek New Testament had Christ’s name as IESU(S)… The Latin IESV
(from which the English word came)… is the ancient Greek IESOU.”
In
another paper (dated 9/7/07), K.M. Bean adds: “When Jerome translated the
Vulgate for the RCC (Roman Catholic Church), he correctly used IESV to
transliterate the Greek (IESOU)”.
The
letter “s” was first added in Greek. We find this in the previously cited
booklet The Mistaken J of Yahweh’s
New Covenant Assembly (p. 15): “The final ‘s’… is the Greek nominative
masculine singular ending… added to produce Greek-inflected Hebrew names:
Uzziah becomes Ozias; Hezekiah becomes Ezekias; Jonah becomes Jonas, etc.”
Daniel
Botkin said in his article “The Messiah’s Hebrew Name: Yeshua or Yahshua?” in
the January-March 2012 issue of Petah
Tikvah (p.18): “The ‘s’ sound at the end of the Greek name is a grammatical
necessity, to make the word declinable.” (In grammar, “declension” is the use
of different endings in nouns, pronouns, and adjectives according to their
case, number, and gender, or their relation to other words in the sentence.)
Bible
researcher B.E.A. notes in “The Star of Their God” (undated tract, p. 4): “Translators
refer to the Saviour’s name as ‘Iesou’ 25 times in the book of Matthew, and
‘Iesoun’ 14 times, and ‘Iesous’ 132 times.”
Iesous had an “s” only in the Greek
nominative masculine singular case. It had no “s” in the vocative, ablative,
genitive, dative, locative, and instrumental cases. The letter “s”, however,
stuck, according to K.M. Bean (“Why Was Christ’s Name Changed?” p. 2). “The S
which was used to identify the nominative singular ONLY, like in Latin, became
permanent”.
Greek IESOU came from Hebrew
“YESHU”.
Writer
Ian Wilson tells us in Jesus: The
Evidence (p. 66) that “the Greek ‘Iesou’ came from the Hebrew ‘Yeshu’, as Jesus would actually have
been addressed…”
For
his part, author Jacob O. Meyer (The
Memorial Name, p. 174) found in the Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament (Iesous, pp. 284-293) that “Jesus of
Nazareth is almost always called Yeshu
in Rabbinic writings… in the Talmud the singular form Yeshu appears.” It therefore appears that “Iesou” was just a Greek
transliteration of the Hebrew “Yeshu”.
“Y” became an “I”. The initial letter “I” used to
be a “Y” (yod, 10th letter
in the Hebrew alphabet). It is noted in an undated tract of The Oil Derrick
(“The 1560 Geneva Bible”) that “in Roman times, ‘I’ was used as a substitute
for yod (‘Y’). ‘I’ had the
consonantal sound of ‘Y’ (as in ‘year’). The 1560 Geneva Bible has ‘Iah’ for
‘Yah’ in Psalm 68:4…” Similarly, according to Funk and Wagnalls, in the 1611 King James Bible, other examples are
“Ierusalem,” “Iudah,” “Ieremiah,” which should have been “Yerusalem,” “Yudah,”
“Yeremiah.”
“Sh” became an “s”. “There is no ‘sh’ sound in
Greek, which accounts for the middle ‘s’ sound in Yesous”, explains Botkin in his article (“The Messiah’s Hebrew
Name: Yeshua or Yahshua?”). “The Greek letter with the closest sound to ‘sh’ is
the letter sigma (‘s’), so it was
used to transliterate the Hebrew letter shin
(‘sh’). The final ‘s’ in Iesous had
to be added for the purpose of declension, as it is in many other Hebrew names
transliterated into Greek. The KJV retains the final ‘s’ in many names in the
New Testament (Moses, Elias, Esaias,
Josias, Judas, etc., none of which have a final “s” in Hebrew)”, (“How Yeshua Became Yeshu”, Petah Tikvah,
April-June 2016).
Hebrew YESHU came from earlier
“YESHUA”.
The
Oil Derrick tract notes: “The Geneva Bible has a lot of interesting notes in
the margin… they (k)new the Saviour’s original name wasn’t Iesus… in the back
they have a list of Biblical names and what they mean. Iesus is not listed, but
they have Iefhua (pronounced Yeshua) with the text Matt 1:16 with Iesus way out
to the side in very small print” (“The 1560 Geneva Bible”).
It
becomes clear that “Yeshu” was the abbreviation of the earlier Hebrew form
“Yeshua”. Writer David K. Bernard wholly concurs: “Most scholars also agree
that in New Testament times, the Hebrew or Aramaic pronunciation of the name Jesus was Yeshua…” (“Yahweh, Yashua, or Jesus?” The Pentecostal Herald, July-August 1991, p. 22).
We
find this form of the name in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah: “And all the congregation of them that were
come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for
since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of
Israel done so” (Nehemiah 8:17). The form “Yeshua,” as spelled in modern
English, is “Jeshua”. However, it seems to be the contraction of a longer form.
The Oil Derrick tells us, “the shorter form ‘Yeshua’ was in use after the
Babylonian captivity…” (“The 1560 Geneva Bible”). What was that longer form of
the Messiah’s name before the Babylonian captivity?
YESHUA came from earlier “YEH’SHUA”.
Over
time, the first letter “H” (hey),
which was the second letter of “Yeh’shua”, was lost through syncope or gliding
over.
YEH’SHUA came from earlier
“YEHOSHUA”
The
second syllable (“-ho-“) of “Yehoshua”
was also lost during the 6th century B.C. captivity of the Jews in
Babylon. According to the New International Dictionary of New
Testament Theology: “Yesua (Joshua) seems to have come into general use
about the time of the Babylonian exile in place of the older Yehoshua” (Vol. 2, p. 330).
Writer
David Bernard thinks likewise: “Yeshua, in turn, is a contraction of the
original Hebrew name Yehoshua” (“Yahweh, Yashua, or Jesus?”). Gates of Eden writer-publisher Daniel
Botkin adds: “Strong’s confirms this pronunciation and tells us that there were
ten Israelites in the Bible who bore this name (#3442). Therefore the
shortening of Yehoshua to Yeshua predates the Christian era by at least 500
years…” (“The Messiah’s Hebrew Name: Yeshua or Yahshua?”).
The
Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament also confirms this: “The Greek form of a list of Old Testament
characters who in pre-exilic Hebrew are called (Yehoshua) and usually after the
Exile Yeshua… The high priest Joshua, the son of Yosedech, who returned with
Zerubbabel from the exile, is always called (Yehoshua) in Haggai and always
Yeshua in Ezra and Nehemiah… 2 Chronicles 31:15 calls a Levite under Hezekiah
Yeshua, and this form of the name is also found in the post-exilic priestly and
Levitical families… The LXX (Septuagint)
retained the later form Yeshua” (Iesous, Vol. 3, pp. 284-293).
“Yeshua”, as a contraction of the older Hebrew
variant “Yehoshua”, is rendered in the English Bible as “Jehoshua”. “These are the names of the men which Moses
sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua” (Numbers
13:16).
YEHO- originally “YAHU-”.
The
“Yeho-” in Yehoshua was actually “Yahu-” in the original form of the Messiah’s Name.
Sacred Name advocate Brian Allen reports from his researches: “Recent
archaeology finds… show that anciently Yahu
was at the beginning of names instead of Yeho,
which is now seen. In cuneiform it was found that the name Jehonathan was ‘Yahunattanu’ (see
SDA Bible Dictionary under Jehonathan); also Jehoahaz
in cuneiform documents was ‘Yauhazi’
(see The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius
Hebrew-English Lexicon)”, (Introduction to the booklet: ELIYAHU: How Long Halt Ye Between Two
Opinions).
Rabbi
Yeshayahu Heiliczer teaches: “The Peshitta
is an Aramaic text of the Bible used by Aramaic speaking Assyrians, Syrians and
Chaldeans… (who) became Christianized in the first century C.E. By the fourth
century (long before the Masorites of the ninth century) these people created
written vowels for the Aramaic text. When they added vowels to names that begin
with part of the divine name they got names like Yahushaphat rather than Yehoshaphat.
They did not do the substitution of the vowels from the word Eloah as the Masorites later did, but
correctly used the prefix Yah and Yahu” (“The Divine Name,” Society for
the Advancement of Notzrim Judaism, Dallas, Texas, June 1999; Messianic Home, Summer 1999, p. 20).
Most ancient Name of God: “YAHU”.
“According to Albright (Assyrian
Cuneiform scholar) and others, the most ancient form of the sacred name (of
God) (outside of Scripture) is ‘Yahu’. YHW or YHU are indicated by the same
letters (yod-hey-waw) in Hebrew”
(“The Mystic Symbol,” Indian Sabbath Trail, undated tract).
The
sacred Name of God that the first men knew was YAHU (YHW). Before God revealed
His Four-Lettered Name (Tetragrammaton/YHWH)
to Moses – Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as many other
Hebrew patriarchs, knew and called upon the Name of God as “YAHU”.
James
Montgomery, in the Journal of Biblical
Literature (1944), concludes: “The earliest form of the Name (of God) was
doubtless Yahu” (“The Hebrew Divine Name and the Personal Pronoun Hu,” Critical
Notes, Vol. lxiii, p. 162).
“YEHOSHUA” came from “YAHUSHUA”,
the real Name of Christ. The
sign on the cross, above the head of Christ, written in three languages, very
likely had “Yahushua” in the Hebrew title shown below (read from right to
left):
NJDFEJE HMOE IYWQE SFZFEJ
YAHUSHUA
HANATZARET HAMELECH HAYEHUDIM
(“Yahushua of Nazareth the King of the Jews”).
The
Hebrew name of the Messiah on the title placed above his head on the cross was therefore
“Yahushua” (SFZFEJ / yod-hey-waw-shin-waw-ayin), which means “Yahu saves” or “Yahu is
salvation,” clearly showing the prophecy spoken by the angel Gabriel to Joseph:
“he shall save his people from their
sins” (Matthew 1:21).
The true and original Hebrew name
of the Messiah, “YAHUSHUA”, is to be pronounced as Yahowshu`a
(yah-ho-shoo'-ah), based on Biblesoft's
New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew
Dictionary.
In
the light of the above, it becomes very clear why Christ declared: “I am come in my Father's name…” (John
5:43). The Name of the Father (YAHU) is part of the Name of the Son (YAHUSHUA).
When we call upon the Name of the Son, we are at the same time invoking the Name
of the Father!
“I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Amen!
Bible
quotations are from the King James Version (KJV) unless otherwise
indicated.
