(read
from right to left). The English name “Jesus,” which later employed the
letter “J,” is a derivation from Greek “Iesous” and the Latin
“Iesus” version.How
Did the Name Jesus Originate?
By Dr. Lee Warren, B.A., D.D. Edited by Dr. Michelle Huff
Introduction
Today
many Christians and others assume that the Greek name Jesus was the original
name of the Savior who was Hebrew.
If one does the research, one finds out that it is impossible for the
Savior’s name to be Jesus.
What
is the intent of this article?
The
intent of this article is to investigate the origin of the Greek name Jesus and
its erroneous transliteration of the Hebrew name of our Savior Yahshua.
Our Saviour’s Name in Hebrew is
(read
from right to left). The English name “Jesus,” which later employed the
letter “J,” is a derivation from Greek “Iesous” and the Latin
“Iesus” version.
This
name “Jesus” commonly used in Christianity today did not exist and would not
be spelled with the letter “J” until about 500 years ago. This article will
also discuss the grammatical errors involved in the transliteration of Yahshua
into Greek and Latin, which radically changed the form of Yahshua’s name.
Another
error that will be discussed in this article is that
“Yahshua’s name was not known to most translators at the time. Jewish
Masoretic priests, around the 6th century A.D., created the name Jesus by
changing the vowel point from the letter “a” to “e” in the
Tetragrammaton YHWH. This resulted in changing the pronunciation from Yah to Yeh.
The
priests continued the tradition, which was in effect at the time of the Messiah,
of teaching the people that the name “Yahweh” was too sacred to pronounce,
and to speak this name was blasphemy and punishable by death.
Most people and lower level priests were initially taught to say
“Adonai” when they saw the name “Yahweh” or the tetragrammaton written.
Does
the Letter “J” exist in Hebrew, Latin or Greek?
The
answer to this question is no. In fact, there was no letter ‘J’ in
any language prior to the 14th century in England. The letter did not
become widely used until the 17th century.
The
Encyclopedia Americana contains the following quote on the J: “The
form of ‘J’ was unknown in any alphabet until the 14th century. Either
symbol (J,I) used initially generally had the consonantal sound of Y as in year.
Gradually, the two symbols (J,l) were differentiated, the J usually acquiring
consonantal force and thus becoming regarded as a consonant, and the I becoming
a vowel.
It
was not until 1630 that the differentiation became general in England.” Note
in the original 1611 version of the King James Version of the Bible there was no
“J” letter in this Bible for because it did not exist. James was spelled
Iames. Jesus was spelled Iesous.
In
the Hebrew alphabet there is no J letter or sound and it is shown follow: Read
form right to left.”
The
Greek alphabet shows that there is no letter J or sound.
Now
the Oxford English Dictionary shows the derivation of the name
“Jesus” as follow: “In ancient Latin Jesus is spelled Iesus, in
ancient Greek (I-ee-sous), ad. late Heb. or Aramaic yeshua, Jeshua,
for the earlier y’hoshua, Jehoshua or Joshua (explained as
‘Jah (or Jahveh) is salvation’: cf. y’shuah ‘salvation,
deliverance’, and Matt. 1.21”
Here
we see that in the ancient Latin and Greek languages “Jesus” was spelled
with the letter “I” for there was no “J” in either of these languages.
In Hebrew we know there is no J letter. So Jesus was originally spelled Yeshua,
and y’hoshua. Note: Here the Messiah’s name was spelled in Hebrew two
different ways due to the tradition of the Masoretic priests. They did not want
to pronounce the sacred part of Yahweh’s name, so they changed the ‘Yah, to
‘Yeh, which will be discussed later in this article.
“In
Late Latin Jesus was original spelled Iesus; In Greek it was spelled Ièsous;
and in ancient Hebrew spelled
“yÈshÙa,”
which is a contraction of yehÖshÙa (Joshua), help of Jehovah < yÀh,
Jehovah + hÖshïa, to help.”
Did
the angels speak in Hebrew?
In
the so-called New Testament of the Bible there were two instances where an angel
and the spirit form of the Messiah appeared to humans and spoke to them in
Hebrew. First, Gabriel spoke to Mary regarding her unborn son. Since Mary was
Hebrew of the tribe of Judah (Lk. 1:27), Gabriel had to communicate to her in
the Hebrew tongue, her native language, not Chinese or Greek, for she would not
have been able to understand him. “And the angel said unto her, Fear not,
Mary: for thou hast found favour with Elohim (God). And, behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS (Luke
1:30-31).” As shown in the Hebrew alphabet, there is no J in Hebrew (see
alphabet on p. 8). So the question is what did the angel Gabriel say that the
baby would be named?
It was impossible for him to say Jesus because Jesus is Greek for Yahshua.
In
another instance, the Messiah appeared in spirit form and in a vision, to the
Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-7) and spoke in Hebrew.
Paul described what happened. “And when we were all fallen to
the earth, 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 (Acts 26:14).”
Paul
asked this spirit, “Who art thou, Lord (Acts 26:15)?” The Messiah
replied, “I am Jesus [in the King James Bible and most English Bibles] whom
thou persecutest.”
One
thing is clear. The Messiah knows His name and as was stated and repeated
throughout this article it is impossible for him to have said Jesus as it is
translated since Yahshua spoke to Paul in the Hebrew tongue.
Pontius
Pilate wrote the name of the Messiah in Greek, Hebrew and Latin above His head
on the cross (Stake) when the Messiah was crucified.
Luke wrote the following:
“… an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS (Lk 23:38-39).”
Traditionally,
most crucifixes (especially Roman Catholic)
have the Latin initials of the Messiah as follows “INRI,” which means
“Iesus Nazarenus, Rex, Iudaeorum”. [Note: there is no letter J (for it did
not exist at this time.)
This is translated into English and means “Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews.”]
The
French philosopher, historian, and religious scholar Ernest Renan stated in his
book, The Life of Jesus, that the Savior was never called Jesus in His
lifetime. Renan based his conclusion on his archaeological trips to the Holy
Land in searching for inspiration and materials on the Savior.
What is the derivation of the name “Jesus”?
Any
good dictionary will show the derivation or the history of the translation of
Jesus through the various languages. All agree that the word “Jesus is a
transcription or a copy of the Greek name … which is a derivation of the
Hebrew Ieshoua, a common Jewish name” according to the book The
Names and Titles of Jesus by Leopold Sabourin, S.J.
Is
there an explanation of the error Yeh from Yah?
Now
that it is clear that the Messiah’s name was not spelled with the letter J,
there is another error that must be addressed.
Many misspell the Messiah as “yÈshÙa,” (which is a contraction for
“yehÖshÙa.”).
The error is that it does not have the “Yah” part of the Father’s
name in the translation.
In
the King James Version of the Bible,
Psalm 68:4 clearly reveals
that the shortened
form of the Father’s name is “Jah.”
King David writes: “Sing to God, sing praises to His name; Extol Him
who rides on the clouds, By His name JAH…” Since there is no j in Hebrew
then “Jah” should be spelled Yah or Iah. So yehÖshÙa should be spelled yahÖshÙa.
The
error of changing Yah to Yeh is due to the manmade tradition of the Jewish
priests. Their reverence for the holy name caused them to believe that it was
too sacred to pronounce.
So they changed the vowel points from a to e in the Tetragrammaton YHWH.
This changes the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. The letter “a” was the
correct vowel to be inserted between the YH obtaining YaH. This is short form of
the sacred Name is in Yahshua.
To
prevent this pronunciation, the priests changed the vowel points from an “a”
to the “e” obtaining YeH.
This is how the letter “e” came to be in the Savior’s name
“Jesus,” resulting today in the Jews spelling his name YEHshua.
Now
the same error is explained in the Biblesoft’s Strongs New Exhaustive
Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary.
It spelled Yahshua’s name with the letter e Yehowshuwa‘ (yeh-ho-shoo’-ah);
or Yehowshu‘ a (yeh-ho-shoo’-ah); from OT:3068 and OT:3467 OT:3091;
Jehovah-saved; Jehoshua (i.e. Joshua), the Jewish leader: -Jehoshua, Jehoshuah,
Joshua. Now the ancient Greek use their alphabet to write and pronounce the
“IE” as the shortened form of Yahweh’s name “Yah.”
What
is the Importance of “ous” or “us” in Jesus’ name?
Now
the “ua” ending in Yahshua’s name in Hebrew when transliterated into Greek
is feminine singular, which presents a problem.
Thus, it necessitates a change when transliterate into Greek (so the
reader in Greek could determine the gender of this name).
What
most people do not understand is the ending “us” of Jesus name was setup to
denote this in the transliteration into Greek and Latin. The “ous” and the
“us” ending in the Greek name “Iesous” and the Latin name “Iesus,”
respectively, denote the masculine singular gender in Greek and Latin
respectively.
Only
the letters “Jes” in “Jesus’ name has any relationship to the Hebrew
name Yahshua for the letters “us” denote gender.
This
transliteration that observes Greek and Latin grammer further adds confusion to
other errors in the transliteration of the name Yahshua.
Latin and English had
already seen
the results of the Jewish Masoretic priests changing the vowel points.
Finally,
it also should be noted that Greek has no “sh” sound as in Yahshua Hebrew
name.
To denote this “sh” Hebrew sound in the Greek, the letter “s” is
used.
Thus,
this article has examined all five of the letters in “Jesus” name and showed
their derivation from Hebrew, Greek Latin and English.