Mat.1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
So, how do we get Jesus, the name we see in our Bibles? As stated, His Hebrew name is Yeshua (English transliteration). In Galilee, where He lived, the 'a' at the end was left silent so the pronunciation would have been Yeshu, in that region. Of course, as we have seen, the Hebrew story of the life of Jesus was very soon, after His death and resurrection, translated into Greek. In the translation, Yeshu(a) became Iesus. In Greek, there is no 'sh' sound thus the 's' in the middle, and in the Classical period, it was typical to add an 's' to the end of male names, thus we get the Greek pronunciation easoos (Iesus). From there it is easy to see how we get Jesus as a transliteration of Iesus. The 'J' corresponds to the 'Y' in Hebrew and the 'I' in Greek. For example, the Hebrew name Yeramiah becomes Jeremiah in English or Yahweh becomes Jehovah. So, Jesus is the name we have come to love, but His given name was actually Yeshua, and perhaps it is this latter name on which we should focus.
This is important for us because Hebrew is the key to becoming more authentically Biblical. In Hebrew, the phrase,"and she shall call his name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins," is actually a play on words. "…and she shall call His name Yeshua for He will yoshea His people…(Matt.1:21). Both are derived from the root "yesha", to save. So Yeshua means savior, the implications of which are astounding.
2007-01-14
03:59:31
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djmantx
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