How The Savior's Name Was Changed |
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Superstition,
ignorance, and the dynamics of language led to a change in the Savior’s Name,
to a name He never had!
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THE SAVIOR WAS BORN in Bethlehem of Judea of a
Jewish virgin who spoke Hebrew (or perhaps Aramaic), a Semitic dialect. He was
born into a society where Hebrew was the common language. The angel Gabriel had
announced to Miriam (Mary) the mother that the Child about to be born would
save His people
The Bible shows that whenever people were
spoken to from On High, it was always to those who were familiar with or spoke
the Hebrew language. Hebrew no doubt was spoken in the Garden of Eden. The
Bible is a Hebrew book, given to spirit-filled Hebrew writers. The only
language spoken for the first 1757 years until the
Genesis 10:30 reveals
that the tribes of Shem did not join the project at the plains of
With
all those facts before us, we must ask, why do our Bibles call the Savior by
the name Jesus that is neither Jewish
nor Hebrew? Jesus has no translation
in any language.
Why would a Jewish maiden, whose native
tongue was Hebrew, living in a Jewish community of Hebrews, who had been
addressed by the celestial messenger Gabriel, give her newborn a hybrid
Latin-Greek name that carries no such meaning as Savior in either language? The
Greek word for savior is "soter," while the Latin is
"salvare." No part of this word is found in "Jesus," a name
with no etymological meaning. Recall that the angel said His Name would be
related to His purpose as Savior.
Jesus Is Not the Name Furthermore, there is not now nor was
there ever an equivalent letter "j" in the 22 letters of the Hebrew
alphabet. Nor is there any Hebrew letter that carries even an approximate sound
of the consonant letter "j." Neither is there a letter "j"
in the Greek alphabet.
Even our English "j" is of
recent origin, appearing in English only 500 years ago, when it often replaced
the letter "i," usually at the beginning of a word. The question
before us is, what was the Savior's name before there
was a letter "j"? For some 1500 years He obviously was called by
another name that could not have contained the letter "j."
Would His Jewish disciples call Him by a
hybrid Greek-Latin name when the Bible says they were unlearned and ignorant men? (Acts 4:13). They were common fishermen who spoke Hebrew or
perhaps the closely related Aramaic dialect. Their Hebrew speech was then
translated into Greek by linguists who gave us the record in our Bibles. (Write
for our ministudy, "Was the New
Testament Written in Greek?")
In this study we will pursue the origin
of the English Jesus, and present
evidence from both the Bible and secular sources revealing that the name given
from On High was the Hebrew name "Yahshua, "the same name as the Old
Testament son of Nun whom we know as Joshua.
A Son Carries His Father's
Name Just as today the family name is passed
on from father to son, we would expect Yahshua to bear the name of the Heavenly
Father,
The Savior went on to say that although
the people did not receive Him, if another would come in his own name, him they
would receive. He added that Moses had written of Him, likely a reference to
Exodus 15:2, "Yah...has become my
salvation," [Hebrew =shua,
i.e., Yah-shua]. (See also Deut. 18:15-19.)
As already stated, the Savior's Name
essentially is the same as that of Joshua (pronounced "Yoshua"), the son of Nun, Numbers 13:16. Joshua's name
originally was Hoshea, or Hoshua, but Moses had prefixed the short
or poetic form of the sacred Name, Yah,
calling Him Yahoshua, meaning Salvation of Yah.
From the Babylonian captivity onward, the
"o" sound was dropped, according to linguistic authorities, and by
the time of the Savior's birth the name was no longer "YahOshua," but
became Yahshua. This custom of
shortening names is commonplace. For example, "bedlam" comes from
The Savior Yahshua indeed came in the
name of His Father, for His very name means "the
Salvation of YAH." His name contains the sacred, poetic, heavenly
family name Yah: YAHshua.
One
has but to look at Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 in the King James Bible where the
hybrid "Jesus" erroneously appears. It is obvious that scribes went
through the King James Bible and everywhere changed the true name of Yahshua to
Jesus. With overzealous intent, the name Joshua (Yahshua) the son of Nun had
been mistakenly replaced with the hybrid "Jesus" as well! Later KJV
revisions and newer Bible versions have replaced the more proper Joshua.
No Other Name Has Salvation None other name! That is the same name
given by the angel Gabriel to the mother of Yahshua before He was born.
Please note that your Bible specifically
says there is no other Name! It does
not say there no other "person," which might allow you to call Him by
whatever name you wish. Yahshua is the
only Name by which we have salvation. There is no other name than Yahshua,
which literally means the salvation that Yahweh has sent.
In talking with the penitent Jews at
Pentecost, Peter was inspired to give this special Name through which we are to
receive salvation. He did not say to be baptized in the person of the Messiah. Peter gave us a very specific command to call
on the personal name given by the Father, Acts 2:38, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Yahshua
Messiah for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit."
To be sure, the person of Yahshua
is important. But the Name He was given by the angel came from On High and
carries a very special meaning for the Savior, embodying the Name of Yah-weh
the Father Himself. The Name Yah-shua acknowledges both the Father and the
salvation that is in His Son Yahshua.
Upon learning truth, we are to walk
obediently in it. Most of us have learned deeper truth in small increments, and
then put into practice what we have learned. Yahweh will continue to reveal
more truth only if we accept and follow those things He has shown us. Why
should He give more insight to those who reject and rebel at what He has
already revealed?
Once we know the truth, past ignorance
does not justify our continuing in ignorance. "The times of this ignorance Yahweh winked at, but now commands
all men everywhere to repent," Acts 17:30. He reveals His truth to
those who willingly seek and follow it.
Disguising the Name Yahweh The concealing of the four letters of the
Tetragrammaton (YHWH) representing the Name of the Father first began with the
Israelite priests. It was carried further by the ignorance of the early
Christian translators.
The superstitious Jewish scribes, aware
of Leviticus 24:16 and other verses that demanded reverence for Yahweh's Name,
decided the best way to keep from blaspheming His Name would be to invoke
substitute titles instead of calling on the proper Name of Yahweh. In their way
of thinking, prohibiting the utterance of the sacred Name would eliminate the
potential of blaspheming it.
To forestall anyone's reading the
Tetragrammaton and vocalizing the name Yahweh, the scribes had placed diacritical marks of the vowels for Adonai over the
Hebrew letters for His Name. In fact, the first vowel carried the sound of
"e" as in met so the reader
would read Yeh, and not blurt out
even the short or poetic form, Yah. Theirs was a misguided zeal.
Early Translators Also Hide
His Name The Greek has three declensions of nouns,
three genders and five cases. The noun suffix (ending) indicates its use in the
sentence, which also is true of most European languages.
For example, in Greek the masculine,
nominative singular of our Savior's name ends in "s." This explains
why we also have so many proper nouns in the King James Bible whose Hebrew has
been changed to end in the Greek form "s," such as Judas, Elias,
Jonas, Esaias, Zacharias, Jermias, Annas, and Silas.
These names were lifted directly out of
the Greek Septuagint with no consideration that they were Hebrew names (often
having the ending "Yah,").
As stated, neither Hebrew nor Greek has a
letter "j." Both the Latin and the English letter "i" (with
a sound as in police) is regarded as an equivalent to the Hebrew
"yothe" (also "yod").
Never
should the Savior's Name begin with the sound of "j" as in
"jeers" but should begin with the vowel sound "ee."
In the Septuagint, the equivalent Greek
letter for Yahshua began with a capital I (or iota), and in the Latin was
properly translated with a capital I. Later this became the letter
"j" in Latin and was used for a capital "I" in early
English, known as the "cursive J."
Where Did 'Yeshua' Come
From? Writing Yahweh's name in the Hebrew texts
(hw,.hy.),
Jewish Scribes (hundreds of years earlier) inserted a shewa ( . ) instead of the qamets ( ., ), changing the vowel sound "ah" to
"eh" to forestall blurting out the short form "Yah" of the
Sacred Name. This practice is still found in the erroneous "JEHovah."
(While using “Jehovah” might be considered better than using a substitute title
in place of the name of Yahweh, it is still an incorrect transliteration).
Thus, we have the Savior's Name beginning
with "JE" when it should be "YAH" as in
"halleluYAH." We don't say "halleluYEH."
Using the Greek capital "I" (iota), the Greek translators did not insert the vowel letter "a" (alpha) but had ignorantly accepted the Hebrew diacritical vowel points and used the letter "e" (eta). Thus they began the Savior's name as "Ie." The Greek has no "h" in its alphabet, only a rough breathing mark at a word's beginning that appears as a reverse apostrophe. No "h" appears in Greek of the poetic form "Yah." In fact from the above, we can see the first part of the Tetragrammaton in Greek would be written" Ie" (with no "h" as they had none) to be consistent with the Jew's rule of "Yeh" to avoid vocalizing the "Yah" sound. Nor did the Jews want in any way to associate Yahweh's Name with that of the Savior's, which might be seen as acknowledging His position as the very Son of Yahweh Who came in His Father's Name. The Greek language has no "sh"
sound, so only the "s" (sigma= s) appears. Thus far, we have the
first three letters of the Savior's name, "
The transliteration in Greek, then, is
something like “Ee-ess-oo-uh.” Say it rapidly and we get a fairly close
rendition, “Yesuah,” remembering no “sh” sound was available. In Greek the
Savior's name appears as “IESOUS" (with the suffix “s” for the Greek ending). The Latin translation was then made
primarily from the Greek text, bypassing the original Hebrew.
Yahshua = Iesous in Greek When the capital “I” was given a cursive tail around the year 1500 C.E. to become the “J,” it also took up the sound of the French “J” as in “journal”. His name soon was corrupted to “Jesus” in English. However, in Latin the “j” is sounded as
“i” in police, or “ee”. The Balkan country
Maps at the turn of the century often
identified the U.S.S.R. as "Sowjet Russiah." The "j" had
the "ee" sound and the "w" had the Germanic "v"
sound. The word "major" is pronounced as "mayor" in both
Latin and German. June and July are pronounced" Yune" and
"Yuly."
All of this may be burdensome and
technical, but necessary to show the evidence that the name of the Hebrew
Savior is Yahshua. He came in His Father's name, "YAH." Had the
Christian translators gone back to the original Hebrew His Name could have been
faithfully preserved in the correct form "Yahshua." Instead, His Name
was taken from the Greek into Latin, and then English, losing the Hebrew and we
end up with a Latinized-Greek hybrid instead of the holy, saving Name Yahshua. It is like taking loose change repeatedly from one pocket to
place in another and losing a little of it each time.
Necessity of His Name Paul reveals, "Yahweh also has
exalted [Yahshua] and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the
name of Yahshua every knee should bow..." (Phil. 23:9-10). The Name Yahweh
gave to Mary by which His Son was to be called was Yahshua! This can be proved from margin notes in Matthew 1:21
and Luke 1:31 in most Bibles. The translators substituted and disguised the
holy Name, giving us the erroneous hybrid Jesus. It simply is not His
Name!
Furthermore,
Paul says that the entire family of Yahweh will be called by the precious name
of "Yah," Eph. 3:15. Some of the prophets carried His name, such as
IsaYah, ObadYah, ZephanYah, ZecharYah, and JeremYah.
We are to be given a specific name by the
Father, and by which we will be known. How can anyone despise, ridicule and
reject the Name Yahweh now, and then love and
reverence it – and be called by it – in the Kingdom?
Names in the Bible have deep significance
and have definite meanings. They give us deeper understanding. He has thus set
before us an open door for more truth. His salvation is in the Name of His Son,
Yahshua, “and we are to keep His word and not deny His Name,” Revelation 3:8.
Under heaven there is none other name than Yahshua and through Him we have salvation.
© 2007
Yahweh’s Assembly in Yahshua
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