Ah, Come On, God is Josh? How About Ron?
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/05
It never occurred to me.
I had done a minor linguistic or etymological analysis of the actual name of Jesus. Obviously, in the Anglosphere tilting towards the pop Christianity, often, we get the name “Jesus Christ.” A benign name of a mostly kind philosopher with many illegitimate claims — miracle claims — about him.
The name “Jesus Christ” has gone through various forms and adaptations through languages and historical periods. His anglosphere contemporarily understood name is Jesus Christ. However, in the Hebrew, his name is ישוע בן יוסף or Yeshua Ben Yosef. This means Yeshua, son of Joseph.
The meaning of this Hebrew or Aramaic name is salvation or Yahweh saves — fair enough. It wasn’t even an uncommon name. In ancient Galilee and Judea, the name of Jesus was a common one when taken as Yeshua. Furthermore, the Old Testament name was Yehoshua or יהושע.
If that isn’t weird enough, it can be taken in a similar pronunciation as Iesous or Ἰησοῦς in the Greek New Testament. Yeshua is transliterated as Iesous in Greek. “sh” was pronounced as “s,” so becae Iesous, becoming Iesus in Latin and then Jesus. Christ becomes not a name, but a title. Jesus the anointed one.
“Yeshua Ben Yosef” is the most historically accurate name for Jesus. The strange beast of Jesus Christ in the contemproary period and more colloquially can, in fact, be taken not merely as Yeshua or Jesus, but as Joshua or Josh. Josh the Christ; there’s a bumper sticker for you!
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