Does anyone else find it odd that we Christians (I was raised Catholic) use names like Jesus, Mary, John, Peter, Paul, etc. for people whos names were really something completely different?
I mean, I don't have any idea what their names were, but I think its safe to say that none of them (ok, with the possible exception of Jesus) would have known who you were talking to if you called them by those names.
I know its due to the Bible being translated into English, but really, shouldn't their names have been important enough to make them look something like what they sounded like at least?
Anyway, just a thought that has bothered me for a while... comment or not as you like.
2006-07-03 09:29:30 · 13 answers · asked by David D 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I think many of you are missing my point... I'm not criticizing anyone's beliefs here. I just think that considering the importance of these individules to history (and so many factions of belief systems) that it seams strange that we don't use their real names.
I know its much like Piere is French for Peter, and that is what was done.
Maybe its just me, but it seams that if we are going to be paying homage to and revering these individules it would, if nothing else, be more respectful to use the names their parents gave them.
2006-07-03 09:52:16 · update #1
Well consider Aramaic is also a Semitic language ,and in many incidents is quite close to Hebrew ...
The proper names tend to be closer transliterations than you may suspect ...
Hebrew is a twenty-two glyph consanantal alphabet (despite some of these being individually indistinct from some of our vowel sounds) ... Historically pronunciations change over time ...
Somewhere between the 5th and 7th centuries AD... Hebrew began annotating in little marks (that imply) vowel sounds and which are not letters proper ..to help maintain pronunciation conventions ...
There are still dichotomies of pronunciation between Northeastern Hebrews (Akthinishka) and Sephardic Hebrews (Southwestern) in naming conventions ... the variance between ALHIM and ELOHIM is a prime example of this sort of thing ...In Hebrew it has one spelling ...
The posit that Jesus is said Joshua or Yeshuah ...is more a piece of legendation out of the Rennaissance Gentile Qabalistic movements ... though it is an interesting piece of mysticism ..that vests the name with more meaning by substituting the fiery "Shin" letter into the middle of his name ..."Yod" ,the first letter is equivalent to the English "j" or vowel "i" or "y"...and as a first letter is often a fusion of the two as "ji" or "je" ...or "ye" but this y has usually a "j" inflected also ...
So in actuality ...the Biblical proper names are often very similar to what would have been pronounced in those epochs ... It is simply the meanings of all other words that the English translations have often mutilated ...
re:Lion'sBlessing ..."Levi" Greek- are you kidding ...Levi was one of the twelve tribes of Israel ...
2006-07-03 09:54:37 · answer #1 · answered by gmonkai 4 · 2⤊ 3⤋
Jesus wouldn't be the exception. His name was most likely Yahshua (or Yeshua) and he wouldn't have known that you were talking to him if you called him Jesus, because there is no letter J until over a 1000 yrs after his death. Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, none of these lang's had a J or a J sound as we know it today.
Find a good site about the Hebrew names or do a search on Yahweh (YHVH, the Hebrew name for God... the I AM). This should lead you to some translations of the names, etc.
2006-07-03 16:45:57 · answer #2 · answered by Kithy 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well I am not sure about all, but in the case of Peter, his name was different, but changed by Jesus to Peter.
Now as for the spelling and the dialect, that will be different everywhere, as most words are around the world.
In the light of the whole forest, try to stay away from questioning just one tree.
2006-07-03 16:40:55 · answer #3 · answered by cindy 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most of the names havent changed, most however have a greek and a hebrew name.
Matthew in the Bible was matthew 2000 years ago( matthew's Greek name was Levi)
We usually however do not use the Greek name, we use the Hebrew name.
English adopted these names as English names(even though they were hebrew names.)
2006-07-03 16:58:16 · answer #4 · answered by Lion's Blessing 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeshua, Miriam, Yusef. That would be Jesus, Mary and Joseph. No "j" sound in Hebrew. We have the names as translated through the Greek.
2006-07-03 16:39:03 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
King James edition.......King James did his best at hiring the people to translate the Bible to English. I feel that somethings may have been left out or God forbid but changed somewhat to fit the needs of those who ruled back in that time. I could be wrong to but am a true believer in God and try to understand what I read and decide on my own...........God Bless
2006-07-03 16:35:41 · answer #6 · answered by snuggels102 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think that some believers take the names of their children from the Bible in order to pay homage to Biblical heroes, and to the Bible in general.
2006-07-03 16:38:28 · answer #7 · answered by kathleen m 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not as wierd as Jews named Mary, John, Peter and Pual
2006-07-03 16:34:11 · answer #8 · answered by David 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Personally I'm more offended and bother by people who name their Children Jesus. I don't see how anyone that is truly devout would name their child after our Lord and Saviour. That is like trying to say that your kid is the Messiah if you ask me.
2006-07-03 16:33:21 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not even jesus, in fact. I think his name was something along the lines of yeshua.
2006-07-03 16:34:55 · answer #10 · answered by The Resurrectionist 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋