We Will Now See How The Saviors Given Name Yeshua Became Jesus
In first century Judæa and Galilee, the name Yeshua was very common, and shared fifth place with Elazar in popularity as a name for Jewish men. The most popular male names at that time were Shimon , Yosef , Yehudah , and Yochanan .
In the Holy Land at the time of Messiah, Aramaic had replaced Hebrew in everyday conversation, although Hebrew remained Lishon HaKadosh , and was used in worship and daily prayer. The two languages were related, as close as Italian is to Spanish.
The modern day Hebrew alphabet is actually the Chaldean or Babylonian letters, which replaced the Paleo-Hebrew script after the captivity. .
Yeshua was the Aramaic version of the Hebrew name Yehoshua , and means Yahweh saves.
Throughout Messiahs lifetime in Galilee, Samaria, and Judæa, of course, the name Yeshua presented no problem for those who spoke Aramaic and read the Bible and prayed in Hebrew. But outside of the Holy Land, it became a different story as the Good News spread. Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language, or has heard foreigners speak English, knows how difficult it can be to pronounce a foreign language correctly.
Different languages have sounds that others do not have, such as the sh sound in English does not exist in Spanish, and Americans have difficulty learning how to roll their rrs in Spanish. The Gentiles of the Roman Empire spoke Greek and Latin, and simply could not pronounce Yeshua.
It contained sounds that did not exist in their language.
Lie #: The Jewish Identity Of Jesus Is Meaningless Because Hes A Spirit
Some look at Yeshua as having transcended or finished with His earthly identity. They see Him only as spirit and believe His Jewish identity is, therefore, irrelevant. However, the Bible tells us that His work is not finished. According to Matthew 23:39, Yeshua must return, and this wont happen until the Jews recognize Him as King, Messiah of Israel, saying, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
In Revelation 5, we see an amazing picture of Yeshua even before He returns. In it, He has retained His Jewish identity as He reigns in majesty in Heaven. He is proclaimed the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, and a Lamb . In this chapter, John is looking at his heavenly vision and weeping because no one is worthy to open the scroll. The elder identifies Yeshua the Lion of the Tribe of Judah as the One who is worthy. Yeshua, the Jew! John looks and sees Him as the Lamb of God!
In Revelation, we not only see a recognizable connection with Yeshuas Jewish heritage, but we also see a beautiful picture of His first coming as the Lamb of God who takes away our sin. Yeshuas first coming calls us to receive His gift of eternal life through faith in Him so that we may be prepared for His soon return as the Lion of Judah.
What Does Yeshua Mean
There are several definitions of Yeshua that can be found in Hebrew and Aramaic biblical text, taken from the Hebrew verb, yasha, that means to deliver, save, or rescue, and also stated as Yehoshua. Pronunciation of Yeshua, in Hebrew, can be read this way: Yod, Shin, Vav, Ayin. In Aramaic, the term, Yeshu, was transliterated from the Hebrew term of Yeshua, pronounced as Yeh-shoo, and missing the a.
Greek translations have Yeshua listed as Yesous, among first century Greeks, of which the name, Jesus, is derived.
The involvement of the Council of Nicea, within the Roman Catholic Church, as well as influence of the English language into biblical text changed the use of Yeshua to describe the Savior into Jesus. Yeshua can be found most in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts that are still referenced among those in the Jewish faith. Hebrew is still considered the holy language used primarily for worshipping and prayer to God.
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Original Name For Jesus
The English name Jesus derives from the Late Latin name Iesus, which transliterates the Koine Greek name Isoûs.
In the and other Greek-language Jewish texts, such as the writings of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, Isoûs is the standard Koine Greek form used to translate both of the Hebrew names: Yehoshua and Yeshua. Greek or Isoûs is also used to represent the name of Joshua son of Nun in the New Testament passages Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8.
During the second Temple period , Yeshua first became a known form of the name Yehoshua. All occurrences of Yeshua in the Hebrew Bible are in I Chron. 24:11, II Chron. 31:15, Ezra, and Nehemiah where it is transliterated into English as Jeshua. Two of these men are mentioned in other books of the Hebrew Bible where they are instead called Yehoshua .
The earlier form Yehoshua did not disappear, however, and remained in use as well. In the post-exilic books, Joshua the son of Nun is called both Yeshua bin-Nun and Yehoshua . The short form Yeshua was used for Jesus ben Sirach in Hebrew fragments of the Wisdom of Sirach. The earlier form Yehoshua saw revived usage from the Hasmonean period onwards, although the name Yeshua is still found in letters from the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt .
Where Did The Controversy Of Yeshua Vs Jesus Start
What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
To say the Bible and Ancient Greek culture rubbed each other the wrong way is an understatement. From the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes IV to the Sadducees absorbing one too many Hellenistic traditions, those in Jesus day and beyond had a sore spot when it came to Hellenization.
Jesus name from Yeshua Hamashiach got Hellenized from the Greek word IZEUS or son of Zeus. This, of course, would be a far cry from proper theology if we took Jesus name to mean Son of Zeus. After all, Antiochus Epiphanes IV desecrated the temple by putting a statue of Zeus within it.
The idea that Jesus name came from anything related to the Greek pantheon wouldve been repugnant to Jews and Christians alike.
Of course, Jesus name may also have been a transliteration. After all, they wrote the New Testament in Greek, and so not all names will translate using the same letters across alphabets of different languages. The Latin transliteration took the Greek IESOUS and changed it to IESUS, where we get the English version Jesus.
Its important to note the distinction between a translation and transliteration. In Spanish, my first name is Esperanza . If we were to transliterate my name, it would probably be Jop .
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Bring The Name Of Yeshua To Lives In Israel
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Why Do People Call Yeshua ‘jesus’
The name “Jesus” comes from the Latin Iesus, which comes from an Anglicized form of the Greek name Yesous. What this means is that the Greek name Yesous was altered as it was adopted by the English language. In the 1st century, the Greek name Yesous represented the Hebrew name Yeshua, which was a shortened form of the Hebrew name Yehoshua. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no historical or linguistic basis in any biblical texts for other modern forms of the name Yeshua, such as Yahshua, Yahushua, Yeshu, or Y’shua. The name ‘Jesus’ did not yet exist during the time that Jesus Christ was on Earth, approximately 4 BC to 29 or 34 AD. It did not come into existence until it was configured by the Council of Nicea of the Roman Catholic Church in the 4th century.
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Bible Verses That Prove Yeshua Is Not Elohim The Creator
the Ketuvim Netzerim says
There appears 85 verses that says son of man.There appears 46 verses that says son of God.There appears 3 verses that says Messiah.There appears 530 verses that says the Christ.There appears 2 verses that says the Holy One of GodThere appears 0 verses that says that Yeshua is Elohim .
1. Bible says that there is only one God
Hear, O Israel: Adonai our God is one Deuteronomio 6:4
Tell ye, and bring them near yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me a just God and a Saviour there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
2. Bible says that Elohim is not man or a son of man
Elohim is not a man nor a son of man
I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am Elohim, and not man the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city
3. Nobody can see Elohim
No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
4. The Bible says that Elohim is greater than Yeshua
My Father is greater than I
My father is greater than all.
For there is one Elohim, and one mediator between Elohim and men, the man Christ Yeshua
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
The Days Of The Week And The Months In The Bible
We shall not throw the Julian/ Gregorian calendar away.But we need to learn Gods Calendar and use His days and ways to worship, honor and draw close to Him.It is the same Calendar which Yeshua used.The lack of knowledge of His calendar has led to so many misunderstandings and mistakes in our walk with Him.
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So Generally Speaking Yeshu
When I say this, I want to emphasize that I am speaking in general terms. With names there are always exceptions. What I am saying is that generally speaking the form Yeshu is the one used in Ivrit today. And that leads to another observation, namely that the so-called Jewish “Heimholung” of Jesus, the reclamation of Jesus, the scientific attempt to bring Jesus back to the Jewish people, does not generally include a reclamation of the name of Yeshua. But as already mentioned there are exceptions where Ivrit-writing Jewish scholars use the form Yeshua.
What Research And Science Can Tell Us About Jesus
In 2001, the retired medical artist Richard Neave led a team of Israeli and British forensic anthropologists and computer programmers in creating a new image of Jesus, based on an Israeli skull dating to the first century A.D., computer modeling and their knowledge of what Jewish people looked like at the time. Though no one claims its an exact reconstruction of what Jesus himself actually looked like, scholars consider this imagearound five feet tall, with darker skin, dark eyes, and shorter, curlier hairto be more accurate than many artistic depictions of the son of God.
In her 2018 book What Did Jesus Look Like?, Taylor used archaeological remains, historical texts and ancient Egyptian funerary art to conclude that, like most people in Judea and Egypt around the time, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. tall, the average mans height at the time.
While Cargill agrees that these more recent images of Jesusincluding darker, perhaps curlier hair, darker skin and dark eyesprobably come closer to the truth, he stresses that we can never really know exactly what Jesus looked like.
What did Jewish Galileans look like 2,000 years ago? he asks. That’s the question. They probably didn’t have blue eyes and blond hair.
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How Yeshua Became Jesus
Its hard to pinpoint exactly where the Jesus spelling came from, although some historians speculate that version of the name originated in Switzerland.
In Swiss, the J is pronounced more like an English Y, or the Latin Ie as in Iesus. When the Catholic Queen, Bloody Mary I took the Engish throne in 1553, droves of English Protestant scholars fled, and many ultimately found refuge in Geneva. It was there that a team of some of the brightest English minds of the day produced the Geneva Bible that used the Jesus Swiss spelling.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Geneva Bible helped to bring about the popularization of the Jesus spelling.
The Geneva Bible was an enormously popular translation and was the version of the Bible quoted by Shakespeare and Milton. Eventually, it was brought over to the New World on the Mayflower. By 1769, most English translations of the Bible were using the Jesus spelling popularized by the Geneva Bible.
Thus, the name used by English-speakers today is an English adaptation of a German transliteration of a Latin transliteration of a Greek transliteration of an originally Hebrew name.
Yeshua Yehoshua And Yeshu In The Talmud
In the Talmud, only one reference is made to the spelling Yeshua, in verbatim quotation from the Hebrew Bible regarding Jeshua son of Jozadak . The Talmud does refer to several people named Yehoshua from before and after Jesus . In references to Jesus in the Talmud, however, where the name occurs, it is rendered Yeshu, which is a name reserved in Aramaic and Hebrew literature from the early medieval period until today, solely for Jesus, not for other Joshuas. Some scholars, such as Maier , regard the two named “Yeshu” texts in the Talmud to be later amendments, and not original.
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What Was Jesus Real Name
Wikimedia CommonsThe Greek transliteration of Jesus real name, Isous, and the late Biblical Hebrew version Yeshua.
Of course, neither English nor Spanish were around in their modern form when the real Jesus was actually alive, or for that matter, when the New Testament was written.
Jesus and his followers were all Jewish and so they had Hebrew names although they would likely have spoken Aramaic. The J sound used to pronounce Jesus name does not exist in Hebrew or Aramaic, which is strong evidence that Jesus was called something entirely different by his contemporaries.
Most scholars, therefore, believe that the Christian Messiahs name was actually Yeshua, a fairly common Jewish name around the time Jesus was alive. Archaeologists have actually found the name carved into 71 burial caves in Israel, dating from the time the historical Jesus would have been alive. This leads to the question of why, if there were evidently so many men named Yeshua running around at the time, the name Jesus came to be unique.
An Essential Part Of The Principle Of Tithing Is A Willingness To Give
In fact, giving is one of the principle messages of the entire Bible. Its the most important, overarching message, a thread sewn throughout the Scriptures.
In the beginning, God gave. He gave light, and life.
He gave His covenant to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to the Hebrew nation, and to David.
He gave His prophets.
And, finally, He gave His Son, the Messiah Yeshua.
He gave His Holy Spirit, along with the various gifts of the Spirit.
And, eventually, He will also give eternal life.
Having a giving heart is so important. It goes beyond what we do with our money. But what we do with our money shows so much of whats in our heart.
Theres an episode in the book of Mark I think we should look at before moving on to the writings of the early believers.
And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.
Yeshua says we also need to be careful about how we give.
While we cant say giving money to a congregation is fulfilling the Biblical tithe, it think its safe to say that it is in keeping with the principle of the tithe.
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Reasons People Use The Name Yeshua Hamashiach
Many denominations and Messianic Jews will use the name Yeshua Hamashiach in conversation and in prayer. Why do they choose to use this powerful name for God?
First, the name does highlight the fact that Jesus came to earth as a Jew. It preserves his cultural background and reminds us that Jesus ministry was to the Jews . The Gospel message reached the Gentiles after Jesus ascension.
Theres a historicity in the name of Yeshua Hamashiach that the name wouldve been the one Jesus contemporaries used when addressing him.
Second, and previously mentioned, the name Jesus does have some connotations with the Greek god Zeus, if we dont believe that Jesus is a transliteration.
Even if this is not the case, we do know that Jewish history did have a fraught relationship with Hellenization, especially with that of Antiochus Epiphanes IV and his placement of a Zeus statue in the Jewish temple . The name Yeshua Hamashiach doesnt have those same possible Hellenized connotations.
Finally, the name reminds us of salvation. A shortened form of Joshua, whose name means the Lord saves, Yeshua Hamashiach reminds those who use the name of our Messiahs original purposeto save the lost.