Did you know that the name “Jesus” is
less than 400 years old? Where did this name come from, and what was
the original name of our Messiah? In the Bible, names have significant meanings. For example, the name Abram means “exalted
father”, but the name Abraham means “father of a multitude”. This is why God changed his name from Abram
to Abraham saying, “No longer shall your name be called Abram,
but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.” Genesis 17:5 Likewise, the name of our Messiah has significant
meaning. When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph
about his son, he told Joseph what to name the child, saying, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you
shall call His name Yeshua, for He will save His people from their sins." Matthew 1:21 This is significant, because the name “Yeshua”
means “salvation”. The Angel was basically saying, “call Him
Salvation, because he will save His people from their sins." So, where did the name “Jesus” come from? When His name was translated into Greek, it
became Iesous. The "Ie" represents the "Ye" sound, the "s"
represents the "sh" sound, and the "ou" represents the "ua" sound. But, why did they add the “s” to the end
of His name? The Greek language has certain rules about
nouns that indicate case, number, and gender by their spelling. This means the same word can have different
spelling depending on its use as subject or object in a sentence. For example, Iesous is in the nominative case,
while Iesou is in the genitive case. The spelling of the name “Jesus” has been
in use for less than 400 years. This can easily be seen in the fact that the
1611 King James Version of the Bible still spelled His name “Iesous”, not “Jesus”. The name Iesous was used in Greek, Latin,
and English until the 17th century, when the letter “J” was introduced as a replacement
for the letter “I” when used as a consonant. However, it was still pronounced “Yea-soos”
for many years before it eventually took on the “g” sound that we know today in the
word “Jesus”. This means the pronunciation of the name “Jesus”
is a very recent development in the English language. It is also interesting to note that if His
name was directly translated from Hebrew into English, it would be Joshua, because the Joshua
of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament are the same name in both Hebrew
and Greek. We can clearly see this in the book of Acts,
when Joshua is referenced in the book of Acts, his name in Greek is identical to the name
of Jesus in Greek. Likewise, in the Septuagint (the Greek version
of the Old Testament), Joshua’s name is also translated into Greek as “Iesous”. In fact, if you look up the name Iesous in
the Strong’s Concordance, it will tell you that Iesous is the Greek form of the name
Joshua. So, if Joshua and Jesus share the same Hebrew
and Greek names, why do they have different English names? Some people assume there is a great conspiracy
involved in why the names are different, however, it is a very simple reason. When the Old Testament Hebrew text was translated
into English, they phonetically translated “Yehoshua” as “Joshua”, and when they
translated the Greek New Testament into English, they phonetically translated “Iesous”
as “Jesus”, with one exception, when “Iesous” referred to Joshua son of Nun the translators
chose to continue using the name Joshua to avoid confusion. I have heard some pretty ridiculous theories
about the name “Jesus”. For example, some people claim that the name
“Jesus” really means “hail Zeus”, which is simply untrue and proves they are
unfamiliar with the Greek language. They make this claim because the words “Jesus”
and “Zeus” have similar sounding pronunciation in English. However, in Greek, there are no connections
between these two names, except that they both end with an “s” sound. If you compare the two names in Greek, you
will see that they have nothing in common. The name Zeus is spelled Διός in Greek,
while the name Jesus is spelled Ἰησοῦς in Greek. Some people also claim that His name was changed
to Jesus to hide the fact that He was a Jew, since Jesus is based on a Greek name rather
than a Hebrew name. While it is possible that there might be some
truth to this claim, it is pretty far fetched to think that it was some grand conspiracy
to hide the Jewishness of Jesus, since the Bible clearly tells us that Jesus was Jewish. “For it is evident that our Lord arose from
Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood.” Hebrews 7:14 Likewise, the Gospels contain some pretty
extensive genealogies that trace the Jewish lineage of Jesus back to a number of Old Testament
Jewish people including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. Unfortunately, despite these facts, some people
remain unaware of the fact that Jesus was Jewish. However, I think it has less to do with the
pronunciation of His name, and more to do with these people not knowing what the Scriptures
say about Him. Is it wrong to call Him "Jesus"? I do not think there is anything wrong with
using the name “Jesus”, but in the Bible, names have meaning, and the name Yeshua means
“salvation”. Yet the Greek, Latin, and English translations
do not carry any meaning since they are phonetically created words that did not exist otherwise. I prefer to call Him by His Hebrew name Yeshua,
because it has such powerful meaning and significance. He is salvation and His name IS Salvation! But I am by no means a "sacred namer", and
I want you to know that it does not bother me if you prefer to use the name "Jesus",
because I know who you are talking about, and He knows who you are talking about too. Unfortunately, some people treat His name
as if it were a magic word. They seem to think if you pronounce His name
a certain way your prayers will be answered, but if you don’t say it just right your
prayers will be ignored. I have even heard people argue that you must
pronounce His name a certain way if you want to be saved. Let me just say, that is not the way His name
should be treated. Our God is not so petty that He would reject
someone for using the "wrong" name. Languages change over time, pronunciation
changes from one location to another. We can see some pretty vast differences just
within the English language. If you took people from London, New Jersey,
Louisiana and Australia and placed them all in the same room, you would immediately notice
how differently they all speak the same language. They are all speaking English, but which one
is speaking the “right” English? This is a good example of why fighting over
pronunciation is unprofitable. Placing so much emphasis on a certain pronunciation
of His name is like the person in New Jersey telling the person from Australia that they
are not speaking English correctly. It is more important that we understand the
meaning of words than it is to have the correct pronunciation of them. I hope this teaching has helped to clear up
some of the confusion about the name Jesus, and I hope it has given you a better understanding
about how His name was translated from Yeshua to Jesus.
