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Yahshua,
Yehoshua, Y'shua, Yeshua, Iesous, Iesus Or Jesus
The Sacred
Name or True Name
There has been much
controversy about what the True Name or Sacred Name of the Messiah is, with
all sorts of speculation and conjecture being taught as fact.
Below are some statements that I have heard over the
years:
"The name of YAHshua has been
replaced by the names of G-zeus (Jesus), and Ea-zeus meaning
healing zeus (Iesus, and Iesous) which are pagan in origin."
"Now that we know that his real Hebrew name is YAHshua, we
can't use Jesus any more in good conscience."
"I prefer to use the Hebrew
name YAHshua, instead of His Gentile nickname Jesus."
"As true believers we need to refuse
the blasphemous talmudic moniker of Yeshua and use his true
name YAHshua."
“The name Baal means “Lord” in
Hebrew. The church translators replaced the true name of the
Messiah, YAHshua with the title “Lord”. When people use that
title, they are unknowingly worshiping a pagan idol, and that
is why it is so important that we restore the true Hebrew name
YAHshua back into the English translations.”
"Jesus" is nothing more than a pseudo
substitute for the true name YAHSHUA."
"You should not use the name Ge-sus because the Ge means earth
or soil in Greek, and the sus means swine or pig in Latin, so
you are saying "earth pig".
"Jesus is a corrupted name derived
from the Greek IESOUS. Ies, or iysh in Hebrew means man, while
sus -soos means horse, so when you speak that name, you are
referring to the Messiah as “man horse” or “man beast”."
"The name IESOUS or “hey-soos” means
“hey horse”. Just look at this example: Ps.33:17, “An horse
(Heb. hey-soos/Grk. Iesous/ Eng. Jesus) is a vain hope for
safety; neither shall he deliver any by its great strength.”"
Many in the Hebrew roots and sacred
name circles have continually and fervently expressed the
sentiment outlined in the above statements. Some of the popular
sacred name bibles have even reinforced the Jesus/zeus fallacy
by supplying supposed scholarship to demonstrate this in the
explanatory notes section of their translations.
It has been stated by some that the
Name Jesus is a false Hellenic (Greek) name that was
conspiratorially created by the early church, in an attempt to
give glory to zeus and the Greek goddess Iaso while
intentionally censoring the "true name" of Messiah which they
say is YAHshua. Some have said, that since the Name of Jesus
shares the same letter sigma (V) or "s" from the end of the
Greek god zeus' name, that at the very least, it constitutes a
pagan connection with the Name of Jesus.
This would be the same as saying that
all Greek masculine nouns, that have the added sigma as a case ending
are somehow related to zeus. If this were factual, which it is
not, it would make for an incredibly long list of supposedly
pagan names. One excellent example would be John 1:1 where
Theos (God) and logos (word), which are both masculine nouns end with a
final sigma. We should also note that when the name Iesous is
rendered in the genitive form of Iesou there is no final sigma,
so in this case according to the theory, would the pagan
connection then be eliminated? The same elimination of the final
sigma also happens with the name zeus in Acts 14:12. Amazingly,
I have seen it claimed by some that Jesus is the name that
actually represents the person of the anti-messiah, and is an
indicator of the far greater evils being promoted by traditional
Christianity.
Iesou (Ihsou) and zeu (zeu) are not
related, and have two completely different spellings. The
first letter from zeus (zeta) is vocalized with a 'dz'
sound, and the dipthongs eu (zeu) and ou
(Iesou) have a totally different vocalization. The final
sigma (V) or "s" added on at the end of Iesous occurs in the
standard transliteration of the proper masculine noun from Hebrew
to Greek. Greek nouns and names almost always have case
endings, so the sigma (V) or "s" is added at the end of the
word to distinguish that the name is the masculine form, and
also makes it declinable. There is absolutely no relation
between these words, and the most basic scholarship can
easily prove this.
If we take the same logic
used in the the Jesus/zeus fallacy, and apply it to a
Hebraic context, then people could never name their children
Nathan or Jonathan, because those names have the same
ending as satan. Of course we all know that those are
scriptural Hebrew names (Nathan and Yehownathan).
Because of the
many errant allegations that have been used
to create fear, and other so called scholarship,
many have
been falsely led to believe that "YAHshua" is the
original
Hebrew name for the Messiah. In order for YAHshua to
be an
actual name in Hebrew, it would need to be spelled
in Hebrew
as Yod-Hey-Shin-Vav-Ayin. Unfortunately for it's
supporters,
this name can not be found anywhere in the Hebrew
Scriptures. What you will find in the Hebrew
Scriptures is
Yehoshua (H3091) which is written in the Hebrew as
Yod-Hey-Vav-Shin-Ayin or Yod-Hey-Vav-Shin-Vav-Ayin, or the
shortened form Yeshua (H3442-H3443) which is written
in the
Hebrew as Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin.
The main obstacles in
trying to render His name as YAHshua instead of Yeshua, is
created by the fact that there is no Hebrew letter "hey" in
Yeshua, and also by the Masoretic vowel pointings or nikud. The tsere
that is under the Yod in "Yeshua" in the Hebrew scriptures
demonstrates the vocalization of the first syllable as "yay,"
and not "YAH." This is also true of the Greek vowel eta,
which is pronounced "Yay", and is found in the
transliterated Greek rendering of Yeshua which is Iesous.
Many use Y'shua thinking that it is a shortened version of
YAHshua, when in fact, Yshua would represent a truncated
version of the long form Yehoshua with the theophoric
element "Yeho" removed. This shortening occurred with many
names that possessed the theophoric element of the Name of
the Almighty during the second temple period.
Another example would be
Yehowseph shortened to Yoseph. Biblical names such as
Yehonatan (Jonathan), Yehoyaqim (Jehoiakim), Yehoshafat (Jehoshaphat),
Yehoram (Jehoram), and Yehoshua (Joshua), all have the shva
under the yod signifying the "Yeh" vocalization, but the
later shortened version of Yehoshua (Yeshua) does not.
Some 'teachers' have promoted in their videos and books,
that the Messiah's Name is YAHshua, and that it means
"Yahweh is
our salvation". If we review the meanings of the
correct scriptural names, we find that the long form
of Yehoshua would translate as "YHVH is salvation" or "He who
is (or will be) saves". I am not sure where the
'our' could possibly
come from in their constructed name of YAHshua. Some
of these
same teachers have stated that they do not like to
use the
name Yeshua, because it only means "salvation". This
needs
to be clarified, as it is an incorrect statement.
Yeshuah
(H3444) written Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin-Hey, is a feminine
noun
that means "salvation". Yeshua (H3442) written
Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin, is a
masculine noun
that means "He is salvation" or "He saves." It is the name that refers
to Joshua in the TeNaKh (OT), and is the shortened form of Yehoshua
which the
name Jesus was derived from. In scripture we find in
Matthew
1:21 "for He will save His people from their sins"
If someone firmly believes that the manufactured rendering
of YAHshua is a scriptural name, then I would recommend that
they check it out for themselves in the Hebrew texts.
Creating one's own language concepts while ignoring the
rules that govern transliteration and vocalization, and then
applying them to other languages to aid in the formation of
a Hebrew sounding name does not demonstrate sound or
acceptable scholarship.
It appears according to the above explanation that "YAHshua"
is a manufactured name that has been assembled using faulty
scholarship in an effort to support a theological agenda.
Let's now take a look at how the name
Iesous, which is rendered in the English Bibles as Jesus (G2424)
came about from the Hebrew Yeshua (H3442), the short form of Yehoshua (H3091):
When transliterating Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin -- the Hebrew
name Yeshua to Greek:
Yod - "ye"> transliterates by
pairing iota-eta (Ih) which is vocalized as "yay" or "ee-ay"
because Greek has no consonant y.
Shin - "sh"> transliterates as sigma (s) because there is
no equivalent letter for the "sh" sound in Greek.
Vav - "u" > the final u sound transliterates as the
dipthong omicron-upsilon (ou) vocalized as "oo" because
upsilon alone would not create the correct voicing needed.
Ayin - "ah"> the rules that govern Greek grammar dictate
that this letter not be vocalized, and is due to the fact
that it is not allowable for masculine names to end with a
vowel during the transliteration process from the Hebrew
to Greek.
The final sigma (V) or "s" on the end
is part of the standard transliteration from other languages to
Greek. Greek nouns and names almost always have case endings, so
the sigma (V) or "s" is added at the end of the word to
distinguish that the name is the masculine form, and also makes
it declinable.
What we end up with is the name Iesous (IhsouV), pronounced
Ee-ay-sooce or Yaysoos. The Greek Iesous then got transliterated
into Latin as Iesu[s], and then into Old English as Jesus,
but initially the J was at that time, still pronounced like
the German J, which was pronounced with more of a 'Y' sound.
This is the way that it still is spoken in Germany today.
Over time, the J sound eventually began to harden into
sounding more like the the French J which is where the
Modern English J originated from. The end result is the
current English pronunciation of Jesus.
While there is a clear etymological path concerning the
name of Jesus that clearly shows its Hebrew origin, the name
YAHshua can not be found in the Hebrew scriptures. The name
YAHshua is also not transliterable into a Biblical Greek
name, which should throw up some flags to those who believe
that the Greek New Testament is the inspired Word of The
Almighty.
I find the prohibition
against saying the name of Jesus a little absurd,
considering that the people who have imposed this
prohibition, are calling the Messiah by a name that is not
found anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures. Most of their
reasoning, is that Jesus is an English rendering from a
Greek name, and since all things Greek are pagan, this name
should not be spoken, and that no self respecting Jew would
have ever uttered a Greek name, and surely would not have
written any scripture in Greek.
Many of these
same people have used selected passages from the Septuagint (LXX)
in
their new translations,
while referring to Jesus (Iesous) and Christ (Christos) as pagan
names. One popular teacher has taught
that “ the Greeks called all their gods christos from adonis to
zeus,” while explaining that Christ is not an acceptable title
for the Messiah. Not only is this not provable historically, but
from the linguistic standpoint, as well as the textual
standpoint, it is totally incorrect. In the scriptures, we find
that the Apostle John used both Messiah and Christ
interchangeably when he wrote his Gospel. In John 1:41 we read “
we have found the Messiah, which being translated is, the
Christ”. When quoting the woman at the well in John 4:25, he
also wrote “The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is
coming, He who is called Christ” It is obvious by the usage in
the text that John considered the titles “Messiah” and “Christ”
to be equivalent terms. Historically, the Greeks never used the
word “Christ” as a title for any of their gods, or as any type
of a sacred title at all. Christos (G5547) is
derived from the root word chrio (G5548), which by definition
means “to smear or rub with oil.”
These very same names and
titles were chosen by the Jewish translators of the Greek
Septuagint when transliterating the Names Yehoshua/Yeshua to
Iesous over two hundred times, and the title Mashiyach from the
Hebrew to their chosen Greek equivalent of Christos all thirty
nine times that it appears in the text. These are the same Greek
names that are rendered in the English versions of the New
Testament as Jesus and Christ.
As an
additional note, the title of Mashiyach (H4899) appears in the
Hebrew text thirty nine times in the Hebrew Scriptures (OT). In
the majority of cases, it is translated as "anointed," and
refers to priests such as Aaron, or others who were anointed. It
is only translated from the Hebrew twice as Messiah. The Greek
equivalent for Mashiyach only appears in the New Testament as
Messias (G3323) on two occasions, both in the book of John as
noted above.
It has been alleged by some that the name "YAHshua" was
fabricated by the sacred name movement in the late 1930's as
a vehicle to assist in promoting their doctrine. Many in the
Hebrew roots/ sacred name movement have tried to use this
scripture to prove that the Messiah's Name is YAHshua:
John 5:
43 I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not
receive Me. If another comes in his own name, you will
receive that one.
Many have argued that if
He came in His Fathers Name, then His Father's Name should
somehow be represented in His name. They assert that if the
Fathers Name is "Yahweh", then Yah must be the poetic
shortened form, or a family name. Because of this, it is
their belief that the Son must have a form of YAH
incorporated somewhere in His Name. When we review this
claim, we immediately find a few glaring problems with this
reasoning, because King David and others also came in the
Name of "YHVH" in the Hebrew scriptures, but they did not
have YAH (Yod Hey) as a part their names.
If we examine the New Testament Scriptures, we will find
that in first century Judea, Jews were known by who their
father was, as demonstrated in this passage:
Matthew 16:
17.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou,
Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it
unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
Barjona = "son of Jonah"
Here are some other New Testament Aramaic names:
(G912) Barabbas = son of abba
(G918) Bartholomew = son of Tolmai
(G919) Barjesus = son of Jesus
(G921) Barnabas = son of Nabas
(G923) Barsabas = son of Sabas
(G924) Bartimaeus = son of Timaeus
We also see this same type
of identification in Matthew 23:35 where we read "Zechariah
the son of Berechiah"
This is how the family name was noted in the Hebrew culture.
Bar means son in Aramaic, and in Hebrew it is "ben."
In the Hebrew Scriptures we are shown the same:
Genesis 19:
38 And the younger also bore a son, and called his name
Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this
day.
(H1151~ Ben-ami or Ammiy = son of my people)
Genesis 35:
18 And it happened as her soul was departing (for she
died) that she called his name Benoni. But his father
called him Benjamin. (Ben-oni or Owniy = son of my sorrow)
1 Chronicles 4:
20 And the sons of Shimon: Amnon, and Rinnah, Ben-hanan,
and Tilon. And the sons of Ishi: Zoheth and Ben-zoheth.
(H1135~Ben-hanan or Chanan = son of favour)
2 Chronicles 17:
7 And in the third year of his reign he sent to his
rulers, to Benhail, and to Obadiah, and to Zechariah, and
to Nethaneel, and to Michaiah, to teach in the cities of
Judah. (H1134~Ben-hail or Chayil = son of strength)
Joshua 15:
8 And the border went up by the valley of the son of
Hinnom to the south side of the Jebusite. It is Jerusalem.
And the border went up to the top of the mountain that
lies before the valley of Hinnom westward, at the end of
the Valley of the Giants northward. (H2011~ Hinnom=lamentation
- ben Hinnom = son of lamentation)
Other names in the Hebrew
scriptures (OT):
Ben-'Abiynadab (H1125)
Ben-'Owniy (H1126)
Ben-Geber (H1127)
Ben-Deqer (H1128)
Ben-Hadad (H1130)
Ben-Zowcheth (H1132)
Ben-Chuwr (H1133)
Ben-Checed (H1136)
Ben-yemiyniy (H1145)
Using the many examples
cited above in both the Aramaic and Hebrew languages as a
guideline, we can put forth the assertion that possibly to
the unbelievers, the Messiah was known as "Yeshua bar Yoseph"
(his adopted father), or to those who understood who He
truly was as "Yeshua bar Elah" in the Aramaic, or "Yeshua
ben Elohiym" in Hebrew. These would both end up in the
English as "Yeshua (Jesus) Son of God". In the Greek we find
"Iesous Huios Theou" which is rendered in English as "Jesus
Son of God." It should once again be noted that there is no
YAHshua to be found anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures.
Some people have emphatically asserted that if people in the
first century had called the Messiah by His Greek name
Iesous (Jesus) that He would not have even recognized or
answered to that name. Many have designed and marketed
bumper stickers that state "WWJD? He'd use his own name
YAHSHUA" and other slogans denigrating the name of Jesus as
G-Zeus.
For the sake of argument,
let's take a look a this controversy from a different
perspective and consider the following:
The Greek language in the Koine or
"common" dialect, was established as the common tongue by
Alexander during his short lived reign beginning around 332 BCE.
He instituted this in hopes of uniting all of the areas he
presided over with one language. Alexander died unexpectedly in
323 BCE, and after his death, disputes between his generals led
to the division of his empire, which was now became under the
control of three of his generals. During the period between
319 to 302 BCE, the control of Jerusalem changed on seven
occasions. The time period from 332 to 63 BCE is termed by
historians and archaeologists as the Hellenistic period.
When the Romans conquered these areas
in 63 BCE, they retained the Greek language and much of the
Greek culture and customs established by Alexander which
continued to be spread throughout the growing Roman Empire. At
this time Israel was indirectly under Roman rule, and later
became under direct rule in 4 BCE. It has been stated by
historians that around the third century BCE, Ptolomy
commissioned that the Torah, or the five books of Moses be
translated into the Greek language known as the Pentateuch
(pentateuchos) for his library at Alexandria, which we refer to
today as the Septuagint (LXX).
The New Testament scriptures speaks of
the Hellenist Jews in Acts 6:1 which is dated around 63 CE. The
second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE which was the beginning of
the dispersal of the Jews, but history tells us that the Koine
Greek language was spoken in the declining Roman Empire and the
Byzantine Empire as late as 529 CE, which demonstrates that the
Jews had exposure to Koine Greek for many generations before and
after the Messiah.
While the multi lingual disciples may have
personally called The Messiah by His Hebrew or Aramaic name
Yeshua, I doubt if they had any reservation in referring to Him
as "Iesous" when talking about Him and His teachings to the
Greeks, Hellenic Jews, Romans or others living in the Roman
Empire who spoke Greek, which was the recognized language of
commerce and literature. The name Iesous was already firmly established in the
Septuagint (LXX) at that time as the Greek rendering
(equivalent) of His name. Out of the twelve apostles, eleven of
them were from Galilee, also known as Galilee of the Gentiles,
(Matt 4:15) and the Messiah was also a Galilean (Matt 21:11). We
are told in the Gospels that the Messiah spoke with a Greek
woman and cast out a demon from her daughter (Mark 7:26), and
that He healed the son of a Roman centurion (Matthew 8:8). How
did they address Him would be my first question, since history
tells us that Greek was the official language of the Roman
Empire, and had been established as such centuries before the
Messiah was on Earth. In the scriptures we are told of the
Greeks who traveled to Jerusalem for the feasts, who wanted to
speak to Messiah, and had asked the apostles if it were possible
(John 12:20).
We should consider what would be
the language that Andrew and Phillip addressed them in, and
while we are at it, maybe we should check the language of
origin for the names Andrew and Phillip. We are also told in
the scriptures that Matthew was a tax collector, so he would
have to be versed in the language of commerce which was
Koine Greek, and we know that Luke (Loukas) was a Greek
physician. We can safely assume that Paul addressed the
Greek Stoics about the "unknown god" in Greek (Acts 17:23)
as that was the language of the educated philosophers, and
in scripture we are also told that he addressed the Roman
centurion in Greek (Acts 21:37). This should also raise the
question as to what language the Messiah conversed with
Pilate in.
As a side note, there is currently an inventory of almost
900 burial boxes known as ossuaries from Herodian Jerusalem
(37 BCE - 70 CE). Over 200 of them have inscriptions that
are in the following
languages:
143 are inscribed with the local
Aramaic script
2 are inscribed in Palmyrene Aramaic
14 are inscribed bilingually in Aramaic and Greek
73 are inscribed in Greek only
2 are inscribed in Latin
The different languages of the
inscriptions demonstrate a cross section of the different areas
where the Jews of the diaspora resided, and the multiple
languages that were spoken. This is also clearly demonstrated in
Acts 2:5-11. Archaeologists have also found Greek inscriptions
on early synagogues in Israel, as well as on bilingual coins
minted less than a century before the time of Jesus by king
Alexander Janneus, who was a Hasmonean Sadducee. These coins
carry a Greek inscription on the obverse side, with an
Aramaic/Hebrew inscription on the reverse side. It should also
be noted that there were scrolls and fragments written in Greek
that were found at Qumran. You can find these listed in the Dead
Sea Scrolls inventory.
If we examine the problems of trying to communicate various
aspects of the gospel to Greeks using a semitic language, we
would first need to examine the restrictions that might be
caused by the differences between the Hebrew/Aramaic, and
the Greek language. Firstly, in reference to his Name, the
Greek language didn't have a true "Y" sound for the yod, nor
the "sh"
sound for the letter Shin and so on.
Since Koine Greek
is more
tonal in its approach to accents, Greek speakers
were not
practiced in vocal techniques such as pharyngeal
fricatives/velar fricatives/glottal stops/guttural
sounds
and other phonemes/allophones that are utilized in
semitic
languages, but are not common to the Greek language.
Loanwords often do cross over into various other languages
that might be spoken in a region where multiple
languages
are commonly spoken, and in the case of proper
nouns, they
can and sometimes do import phonemes from one
language to
another. Because His Hebrew name contained phonemes
that
weren't native to Greek doesn't rule out that they
couldn't
pronounce it, but it may have been easier for them
to use
Iesous. And think about this ....
If everyone knew Him only as Yeshua, there would have been no need
to write His Name in its other transliterated forms of Greek
and Latin on the sign above Him.
John 19:
19 And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And
the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
20 Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place
where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was
written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
Hebrew: Yeshua haNotzri
Melech haYehudim
Greek:
Iesous ho Nazoraios ho Basileus ton Ioudaion
Latin: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum
The article above represents my
opinion based on what I have learned, what I understand, and
what I believe. As always, I would challenge everyone to
research all that I have discussed, and prove it for
yourself.
For we are told:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which
is good.
Higher Truth
Note * All Scripture quoted
by Higher Truth from the Modern King James
Version
Other Letters from Higher
Truth
Letter
From A Reader: Higher Truth Speaks Out
Yahweh, Yahwah,
Yahawah,
Yahovah, Yaheveh, Yehaweh, Yehowah, Yehowih,
Yehwih,
Yahuweh, Yahueh, Yahuah,
Jahveh, Iabe, Iahueh,
Iehouah, and Jehovah: What is His Sacred Name
or True Name?
Copyright . All articles
are the sole property of SeekGod.ca and Vicky Dillen. All Scripture King
James Version unless otherwise stated.
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2Corinthians 6:2
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