Its All in the Name

IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

Etymology is the study of word origins and how those words change in meaning and pronunciation in history. In a Hebrew mind set, a name was never a random combination of sounds. A name was meant to convey the nature, essence, history, and reputation of the thing named. This is best illustrated when Moses asked God what His “name” was. God told Moses He was the God of his ancestors and that He would save His people from bondage. God said, “I am that I am” (which sounds like “Yahweh” or “Ya-Ho-Vay”). God then said “This is my name forever, this is my name for all generations”

The basic root name of Jesus comes from the Hebrew name HO-SH-U-A (Joshua) meaning “Salvation.” But “salvation” was only half the essence of his name. The full essence of the name Jesus comes from the story of Twelve Scouts when Moses gave Hoshea his new name “Yeho-shua,” meaning “Yahweh-is-Salvation”

When the Greeks wanted to change a Hebrew name into a Greek name there were two ways to do it. They could translate the name and try to retain the meaning of the name; this would end up with a different sound and different spelling. Another way was by transliteration; this attempts to retain the sound of the Hebrew name, but loses the meaning of the name. In other words if you directly translate a name from one language to another you end up with a different sound but both mean the same thing. Example is in Hebrew Yeshua would become Savior in English. When you transliterate a name, swapping letter for letter in attempt to retain the sound, you end up with a different meaning or no meaning. That is what happened with Yeshua, we ended up with a word with no meaning at all, which became by this process, an alias. The definition of “alias” is as follows:

Alias, assumed name, false name
A name that has been assumed temporarily.

Therefore, Jesus is an alias, and I assure you that in Heaven we will not be running around calling Him Jesus. Jesus is then a temporary alias derived by transliteration.

Let’s look at the most probable history of how the Hebrew letters in the name Y’-Sh-U-A (Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin) were transliterated into Koine Greek.

1. The first Hebrew letter YOD has a “YE” sound. The Greek language does not have a letter or a diphthong that has the “Y” sound as in YET! The Greek method was to pair the two letters IOTA and ETA to produce the sound “EE-AY” which was deemed to be close enough to the Hebrew sound “YE.”

2. The second Hebrew letter SHIN has the “SH” sound. This presented a greater problem because the Greeks have no “SH” sound. The Greeks simply employed the “S” sound as in the letter SIGMA.

3. The third Hebrew letter Vav has a “U” sound. The Greek OMICRON-UPSILON is an exact match because it has the same “OO” sound.

4. The fourth Hebrew letter AYIN sounds like “AH”. In Greek grammar, masculine names never end in a vowel sound, and if they do, the name should be closed with the letter “S” whenever possible. The Greeks dropped the final “AH” sound and closed out the name with an “S.”

These four steps produce the Greek name “Iesous” which is pronounced “EE-AY-SOOS.”

I believe that the entire New Testament was written in Hebrew and translated to “Koiné” or common Greek. As the gospel spread into areas where Greek was not spoken, scholars translated the Old Testament and many of the new emerging Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament to languages such as Coptic, Slavic, and Latin. By the end of the second century many different Latin versions were in circulation. After Constantine made Christianity the national religion all the books of the Bible, including the Gnostic books were translated into Latin. In 382 Jerome translated a standardized Latin Bible called the “Vulgate,” or common Bible. The Vulgate transliterated the Greek name of Jesus by using all of the Greek sounds in his name. His name was written as “IESUS.” The Latin spelling differed from the Greek because the two alphabets are not the same. The way the Romans pronounced His name was still identical to the Greek “ee-ay-soos.” Jerome’s Latin Vulgate soon became the undeclared “official” text of the Roman Church. The Council of Toulouse in 1229 made the Latin Bible official by expressly forbidding its translation into vulgar tongues. Only the priest of the Church were allowed to own and read the Bible so the masses were forced to accept the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church including how to pronounce the Name of God and Yeshua. It is recorded in 1234 of the Council of Tarragona: “No person except a cleric may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments and if anyone is found to possess them he must be turned over to the local bishop so that he may be burned at the stake”. The Latin spelling and pronunciation of Iesus dominated the Western Christian world for almost 1,000 years.

William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the Norman introduced the letter “j” to England. The sound of the letter did not exist in the Old English language until the early 1200’s. Over the next 300 years the hard “J” sound started to replace male names that began with Y or I because it sounded so masculine. Names like Yames became “James,” Yakob became Jacob, and Yohan became “John.” During the time the letter J was starting to gain acceptance, John Wycliffe became the first person to translate the New Testament from Latin into English in 1384. He preserved the Latin spelling and pronunciation of IESUS but his translation was unread by the common man because only a few hand-written copies of his Bible were produced which were quickly banned by the Church.

In 1455 the Latin Vulgate Bible was the first book to be printed on Gutenburg's new printing press. The next to be printed was the German Mentel Bible of 1466 followed by Martin Luther's Bible in 1522.

After William Tyndale was unable to print his English Bible in England he went to Worms for Martin Luther to help get it published in 1525. Tyndale had 18,000 copies printed in Worms and snuck them into England. There are only two copies known to exist today. He reprinted a revised Testament in 1534, which led to his capture in Belgium. He was tried for heresy by order of the Roman Catholic Pope, and was strangled to death in 1536 and his body was burned at the stake in the church courtyard.

By the time the King James Bible was translated in 1611 the letter “J” was officially part of the English language. Pronunciation guides for all proper names like Jehovah, Jesus, Jew, Jeremiah, Jerusalem, Judah, and John were provided. The half-brother of our Lord, “Yakob” was not translated to Jacob, but was completely changed to honor the King. His name was changed to James. The Hebrew name Yeshua was written as Jesus and every English translation until modern times used this alias.

During one of my assignments while in the Army, I served under a very macho red headed General. In his college days he played football for Alabama and got the nickname or alias of “Red-Dog”. I’m not a football player but red-dog has something to do with the way a ball is ran around the end. Not in my most drunken wildest dreams would I entertain the thought of going into his office and address him as Red-Dog. I would not attempt to be so familiar with my commander. I had too much respect for him as my superior and as a man. I respected his authority, his position and his rank. I always addressed him as General McDONALD or Sir. I hold even greater respect for my God. Now that I have learned that Jesus is just an alias, it would not show proper respect to throw this name around like it means something. Remember Yeshua in Hebrew means “Savior”. When you use the name, Yeshua, you are recognizing who He is and what He is. In the name Jesus, we are only recognizing the man in a too familiar way.

However, we must remember that for two thousand years, millions upon millions have come to know Him, have come to accept Him as their Lord and Savior, in spite of using another name for Him. There are millions all over the world at this very moment that use His alias to end their prayer not knowing His real name. Does this mean that their prayer will be any the less answered than mine? I don’t think so. But, if they have learned different and they know that Jesus is not His proper name and they blatantly insist on using this name because they want to do it their way, that kind of disrespect may bring repercussions or a non-answer. I cannot say what God would do or not do in this case, but for me, I would not take the chance of trying to be so familiar. My advice is let us honor our God by calling Him what He said to call Him, Yahweh. Let us honor His Son by calling Him what Yahweh told Mary to call Him, Yeshua.