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HOUSMAIL
HM124
25 April 2005 THE NAME OF
JESUS There
are some quite vocal Christians, who insist that one must use the correct
Hebrew name of Jesus in order to be a true Christian. Some claim that the
name “Jesus” is derived from that of a pagan god, and that it is offensive to
God to apply it to His Son. Others go so far as to say that knowing and using
the correct Hebrew name is a part of the Gospel, and that those who use the
English name “Jesus” are not saved. I have even been told recently by one
person that the English name is actually the name of the antichrist! However,
it is interesting to note that there is quite a bit of disagreement amongst
them about which is the correct name! Some insist on using the form “Yashua”.
Others are equally insistent that it should be “Yeshua”. This
is not an unimportant issue. When it is insisted that one must pronounce the
correct Hebrew name of Jesus in order to be recognised by God, it is made a
part of the Gospel. Is it true or false? If it is false, then so is the
“gospel” which insists on it. The Scriptures contain serious warnings about
that. It
is my conclusion that these people are deceived. It
comes down to a question of proper use of language. Properly viewed, Jesus is
NOT a pagan name when it is applied to the Son of God. It is a “Christian
name”! It is simply how English speaking people pronounce a Hebrew name which
arrived in English via Greek. The
simple facts are these: 1.
“Jesus” is an
Anglicised form of the Greek name “Iesous”. This is the name of the Son of
God everywhere in the Greek New Testament. 2.
When Luke wrote his
Gospel, and Acts, (IN GREEK!) he used the Greek name “Iesous” for Jesus. 3.
When Pilate wrote the name of Jesus in the
Greek version of the title placed on the cross, the Gospel writers reported
it (IN GREEK) as “Iesous”. (John 19:19-20) Of course the Hebrew version of
the title would have used the Hebrew equivalent of “Iesous”, written in
Hebrew letters. But the Gospel writers didn't bother to tell us what that
was. Nor did they say Pilate got it wrong! 4.
“Iesous” is the Greek form of the Old
Testament Hebrew name “Joshua”. (Note here that the original Hebrew name is NOT pronounced
"Yeshua". Hebrew lexicons suggest that the correct pronunciation of
this name is actually something like yeh-ho-shoo-a.
The name Yeshuah is a shortened form of Yehoshuah,
which came into use amongst Jews, a few centuries BC) When
words are transliterated from one language to another, they are often
pronounced differently, or spelt differently, because of the differences in
alphabets, and even the sounds our mouths can make. eg
Japanese cannot pronounce the letter “L”. It is not in their language. So
they pronounce it “R” instead. Arabic speaking people have the same
difficulty with the letters “P” and “B”. In
the same way, there is no "sh" sound in
Greek! The nearest equivalent in the Greek alphabet is the letter
"sigma" which is the same as our English "s". The Greeks
HAD to change "sh" to "s" to be
able to write it and pronounce it! The addition of an "s" at the
end of the word is also necessary because of another peculiarity of the Greek
language. In
older English there was no "j" sound. So the first letter of the
name "Jesus" was actually written as an "i"
and pronounced as a "y". The letter "j" and its
associated sound did not arrive in the English language until the late middle
ages. CONCLUSION Understood
properly, "Jesus" is NOT a different name. It is the SAME Hebrew
name pronounced differently in another language. God
gave me His book in English! And in the English Bible He gave me the English
pronunciation of the name of His Son as JESUS. I don't think He gave it to me
wrong! To
suggest that those who use the name "Jesus" instead of
"Yeshua", are followers of antichrist, is a very serious
accusation. Personally,
I think it amounts to SLANDER against God to suggest that he would reject
people for using the name just as He gave it to them in their mother tongue! Allon |