Below is a condensed overview and re-dress of the much overlooked and downplayed issue of how the Father's name was changed. About the errors and substitutes used and the changed that were made in English Bibles and what most reliable scholars say about ancient text and the form you read in regards to the Name of the Father and the Son. More later brother., Peace.
Eminent French historian, scholar, and archaeologist Ernest Renan acknowledges that
the Savior was never in His lifetime called "Jesus." In his book, The Life of Jesus,
Renan doubts that the Savior even spoke Greek (p.90). 'Greek' was mostly the language
of business and commerce in cosmopolitan circles.
As for the Father’s Name, the hybrid "Jehovah" came into existence through the
ignorance of Christian writers who did not understand the Old Testament Hebrew.
Credit for the error is given to Petrus Galatinus, confessor to Pope Leo X in the 16th
century.
Modern scholarship recognizes "Yahshua" as the best rendition for the Name of the
Savior, while "Yahweh" is the closest transliteration for the Name of the Creator as
found in ancient Scriptural manuscripts. In returning as nearly as we can to the Bibles’
original language and meaning, we come to a deeper and more accurate understanding
of the truths contained within it.
As we will learn, the Father and Son’s revealed, personal Names are the foundation on
which other vital, salvation truths rest. It was not without reason that Yahweh
established the foundation of the Ten Commandments with the clear declaration of His
sacred Name: "I, Yahweh, am your Elohim…" Exodus 20:2. Our Savior, as well,
opened His Model Prayer with the words, "hallowed be Thy Name."
Yahweh devoted the Third Commandment to warn of the sin of taking His Name in
vain (a meaning that includes bringing His Name to uselessness, as has been done for
centuries), Exodus 20:2, 7. Our Redeemer’s Name is critically important as well, or
else our Creator would not have inspired the writer of Acts to proclaim, "Neither is
there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven, given among
men whereby we must be saved," Acts 4:12.
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Back to the Basic Truths of the Bible
It should be evident to anyone that through time and tradition, observances change, are
added to, and also lose some of what they first had. This is especially true of the
worship originally practiced in the Bible. Our primary goal as True Worshipers should
be to return to fundamental truths, like His true Name, once known and taught by the
early Assembly but that have been neglected or ignored through the centuries.
Shouldn’t this be the desire of every sincere Bible believer—to worship in ALL truth?
Why go only halfway, or put another way, why continue worshiping partly in error?
Jude 3 speaks directly to us: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of
the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you
should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." This
original faith as practiced in the early New Testament Assembly is being restored now,
just before the Savior Yahshua returns to earth. Acts 3:21 say the heaven must receive
the Savior until the time of restitution of all things. "Restitution" is the Greek
apokatastasis and means re-establish from a state of ruin (Write for the explanatory
ministudy, This Is the EliYah Message.)
Foundational to this original truth being restored by Yahweh’s New Covenant
Assembly is the identity of the One we worship. Nothing in existence is more holy
than the Father and His personal, revealed Name Yahweh. Paul wrote that Yahweh has
given His Son a Name that is above every name, Philippians 2:9. The prophet Malachi
tells us that if we will not give glory unto Yahweh’s Name that He would send a curse
upon us (2:2).
With a sense of gravity of the sacred Name, let’s examine why any substitute name
employing the letter J is erroneous. We will look at the facts and the
overwhelming evidence and carefully evaluate our findings, using numerous sources
revealing the truth. Much of the information we cite here is readily available in your
public library, or found in references you may even have at home. We urge you to look
into this important issue and prove it for yourself.
The ‘J’: A Letter Come Lately
Among the many reasons that both "Jesus" and "Jehovah" are erroneous is the simple
fact that they begin with the letter J, the most recent letter added to our English
alphabet. The Savior’s name could not begin with the letter J because it did not exist
when He was born –not even a thousand years later! All good dictionaries and
encyclopedias show that the letter J and its sound are of late origin.
A chart on both the Hebrew and Greek alphabet is found on page 48 in this booklet.
Take special note that there is no letter equivalent to J in either Hebrew or Greek even
today. Here are what major references tell us about the J and its development:
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The Encyclopedia Americana contains the following on the J:
"The form of J was unknown in any alphabet until the 14th century. Either
symbol (J, I) used initially generally had the consonantal sound of Y as in year.
Gradually, the two symbols (J, I) were differentiated, the J usually acquiring
consonantal force and thus becoming regarded as a consonant, and the I becoming a
vowel. It was not until 1630 that the differentiation became general in England."
The New Book of Knowledge reads:
"J, the tenth letter of the English alphabet, is the youngest of the 26 letters. It is
a descendant of the letter I and was not generally considered a separate letter until the
17th century. The early history of the letter J is the same as the history of the letter I. I
is a descendant of the ancient Phoenician and Hebrew letter yod and the Greek letter
iota" (Vol. 10, 1992 ed.)
The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, under "J," offers additional information:
"J, a letter of the alphabet which, as far as form is concerned, is only a
modification of the Latin I and dates back with a separate value only to the 15th
century. In many cases initial i had the consonantal value of
the English y in iugum (yoke), &c., the symbol came to be used for the value of y, a
value which it still retains in German: Ja! Jung, & c. Initially it is pronounced in
English as an affricate dzh. The great majority of English words beginning with j are
of foreign (mostly French) origin, as ‘jaundice,’ ‘judge’"…(p.103).
Not until the middle of the 17th century did this usage become
universal in English books; in the King James Bible of 1611, for example, the words
Jesus and judge are invariably Iesus and iudge. Long after the invention of printing, j
thus became more than a mere calligraphic variation of i (which in Latin could be either
vowel or semi-vowel), and, j became restricted to a consonantal function.
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary confirms how the J developed
from the I and became a consonant only a few centuries ago:
"J, j (ja), n. 1. The tenth letter of the English alphabet: formerly a variant of I, i,
in the seventeenth century it became established as a consonant only, as in Julius,
originally spelled Iulius."
The letter J was often used instead of the letter I, especially at the beginning of
a word. This became common in the 1600s (World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, 1995
ed). Medieval scribes added a tail to the second I when two I’s appeared together.
Because a beginning I almost always has a consonant sound, the long form, J, came to
be used generally for the consonant sound of the letter (New Book of Knowledge).
It became necessary to distinguish between the J and the I when the dictionary
came into being. In the seventeenth century, the dictionary’s appearance forced a
consistent spelling. Using either I or J became mandatory to ensure proper alphabetical
positioning. Owing to this close kinship with I, J was inserted immediately following I
in our English alphabet.
the letter J to I:
The separation of these two letters is of comparatively recent date, being brought about
through the influence of the Dutch printers."
First Letter of the Sacred Name is Y
The Hebrew yothe (), which is the first letter of Yahweh’s Name (, YHWH, known as the
Tetragrammaton or "four letters"; Hebrew is read from right to left). It is also the first letter of Yahshua’s Name.
The letter I (yothe or yod) in Hebrew carries the sound of "ee" as in "police."
The King James Version and other Bibles employ the Latinized-Greek "Jesus."
But the facts of etymology prove that this cannot be His true name. If the King James
and other Bibles are in error in calling the Savior "Jesus," how did the error come
about? And how can we determine exactly what that precious Name is?
The fact is, the first copies of the 1611 King James Bible did not use the letter J. "Not until the
middle of the 17th century did this usage become universal in English books; in the King James
Bible of 1611 for example, the words Jesus and judge are invariably Iesus and iudge."
Oscar Ogg’s books, The 26 Letters, which gives a history of each letter of the
English alphabet, explains how the J, along with the U and W, were the last to be
added to the alphabet:
"The three missing letters, J, U and W, were not used by the Romans at all. U
and W developed from V about a thousand years ago, and J developed from the letter I
about five hundred years ago," p. 106.
As already confirmed, most of our American vocabulary employing the letter J
stems from the French. Nearly all words containing the letter J in English are
pronounced as in French, such as journal or major, although French has a considerably
softer pronunciation of J than English. In Spanish the J is more of an h aspirate as in
"San Jose."
After development of the letter J, the Savior’s Name was changed by the
translators to Jesus, but continued to be pronounced much like the letter Y. However,
the pronunciation of the J soon changed completely from its former "yee" sound to our
present "juh" through French influence.
In his book, Story of the Letters and Figures, Hubert M. Skinner provides an
excellent summation of the discordant transformation inflicted on the Savior’s Name:
"In some way, various modern peoples who received the J from the Romans
have lost the original sound, and have substituted something very different. We retain
the former sound in our word ‘hallelujah,’ but we generally give the letter the
disagreeable soft sound of G. Yod is the initial of the name Jesus. It is unfortunate that
a name so dear and so sacred is pronounced in a manner so different from that of the
original word. The latter sounded very much as if it were Yashoo-ah, and was
agreeable to the ear. Our sounds of J and hard S are the most disagreeable in our
language, and they are both found in our pronunciation of this short name, although
they did not exist in its original," pp. 122-123.
‘Jesus’: A Word Out of Place and Time
The Bible clearly reveals that salvation is available in only one name: "Neither is there
salvation in any other: for there is none other Name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). The name the angel gave to Hebrew-speaking
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Mary and Joseph was Yahshua, meaning "Salvation of Yah."
This original Name has been made a hybrid by translators and changed to the Latinized,
Grecianized name Jesus – a name that came into our language about the time of
Christopher Columbus. (For a detailed explanation, request the revealing ministudy,
How the Savior’s Name Was Changed.)
The following Biblical study references clearly explain that "Jesus," used in place of
the Savior’s true Name Yahshua, is erroneous. (Some of these references correctly
show the Y or I superior to the Mistaken J.)
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature: "Import of the
Name. –There can be no doubt that Jesus is the Greek form of a Hebrew name…Its
original and full form is Jehoshua (Num. 13:16). By contraction it became Joshua, or
Jeshua; and when transferred into Greek, by taking the termination characteristics of
that language, it assumed the form Jesus" (vol. 4, pp. 873-874).
The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia: "Jesus (Iesous) is the Greek
equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Joshua’ ( , Yehoshua) meaning ‘Jehovah is salvation.’
It stands therefore in the LXX and Apoc for ‘Joshua,’ and in Acts 7:45 and Heb. 4:8
In Strange Facts About the Bible, author Garrison notes on page 81: "In its
English form, ‘Jesus’ goes back to church Latin Iesus which is a transliteration of the
Greek Iesous. But in its original Hebrew form it was Y’hoshua (‘Yahweh saves’),
frequently abbreviated to Joshua…"
All of these authorities and scholars agree. His name is not the Latinized
Grecianized name "Jesus," but reflects His Hebrew heritage and the mission He was
given to save His people through the Name of the Heavenly Father Yahweh.
So how did He end up with the name so many erroneously call on today?
Greek Not the Original New Testament Language
Very early in history, even before the Messiah, Greek had become a world language.
Alexander the Great conquered the lands east and south of Greece, establishing
Hellenistic culture and society as far as the Indus River and south into Egypt.
The koine or common Greek dialect prevailed, becoming dominant in the wake of
Alexander’s exploits. Greek survived the ravages of Roman persecution, as well as the
crusades, and continued to be spoken up to the time of the Muslim conquest of the
Mediterranean area.
Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Rome crushed the Bar Kochba
rebellion in 135 C.E. The Roman army destroyed anything Jewish, especially religious
scrolls and books, including their Torah. This was followed by the Catholic
inquisitions in Europe, eradicating anything Jewish. The crusaders made fair game of
the Jews, ruthlessly destroying any vestiges of Hebrew writings.
Thus, between the suppression carried out by the Romans and the later Crusades, any
Hebrew copies of both Old and New Testament writings were lost. Only Greek copies
survived. Neither are there any original Hebrew Old Testaments manuscripts, only
copies of copies of copies.
An increasing number of competent Bible scholars now agree with scholar Charles
Cutler Torrey (Documents of the Primitive Church) that the New Testament in whole
or part was first written in Hebrew and only later translated into Greek.
In the September 12, 1986 issue of The Washington Times, David Bivin notes that
Yahshua, like His contemporaries, most likely spoke Hebrew, Bivin, the director for the
Jerusalem School for the Study of the Gospels, also believes that the original account of
Yahshua’s life was written in Hebrew, not Greek of Aramaic. In addition, he and his
Jerusalem scholars agree that by considering the Evangels Hebraic, many textual
difficulties are cleared up, strongly suggesting that the Evangels were first written in
Hebrew.
Even Martin Luther recognized the Hebrew roots of the New Testament. He wrote in
Tischreden, "Although the New Testament was written in Greek, it is full of
Hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore been aptly said that the Hebrews
drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream that flows from it, and the Latins
from the downstream pool" (translated by Pinchas E. Lapide in Hebrew in the
Church, p.10).
Where is the justification for changing the Savior’s Name? Even in a Greek context,
there is no J or J sound in the Koine or in any Greek dialect known. The Greek New
Testament of the Bible provides the basis for our present Latin and English translations.
Obviously the J came from another source, as Greek has no phonetic equivalent of the
letter J in its 24 characters of the alphabet. Neither does Hebrew.
We cannot ignore the fact that there was no letter J in ANY language until around the
15th century, and therefore must conclude that the name "Jesus" never existed before
500 years ago. Let us not forget that we read from a Hebrew Bible. It is the account of
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Yahweh’s dealing with His people Israel. Yahweh spoke to a people who understood
Hebrew. Yahweh is the Mighty One of the Hebrews.
Remember also that there was no Jew before the time of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. So
the Sacred Name is not Jewish.
The seeker of truth must not shy from the Hebrew roots of true Biblical faith, for we are
children of Abraham, a Hebrew (Gen. 14:13). Hebrew means to "cross over," and we
are to "cross over" the falsity and error of this world and join in pure worship of
Yahweh and His Son Yahshua.
The following Bible versions have these footnote explanations on Matthew 1:21, the
verse where the angel tells Joseph (Yowceph) what to name the Redeemer of mankind:
· "’Jesus’ (Hebr. Jehoshua) means ‘Yahweh saves’"—The Jerusalem Bible.
· "’Jesus’ is the Greek form of Joshua, which means ‘the Lord saves’" –New
International Version.
· "’Jesus,’ from the Greek form of a common Hebrew name (Joshua) derived
from yasha, ‘he saves’" –Harper Collins Study Bible
· "She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua, [which means
‘Adonai saves’], because he will save his people from their sins" –Jewish New
Testament, David Stern, translator.
· "Heb. Yoshia, reflected in the name Yeshua (Gr. Jesus)" –The Original New
Testament, Hugh J. Schonfield.
· "Jesus: The Greek form of ‘Jeshua’….The full significance of the name
‘Jesus’ is seen in the original ‘Yehoshua,’ which means ‘Jehovah the Savior,’ and not
merely ‘Savior,’ as the word in often explained" –Weymouth’s New Testament in
Modern Speech.
· "Jesus Christ. The name ‘Jesus’ is from the Greek (and Latin) for the
Hebrew ‘Jeshua’ (Joshua), which means ‘the Lord is salvation.’ ‘Christ’ is from the
Greek for the Hebrew ‘Meshiah’ (Messiah), meaning ‘anointed one’"—Ryrie Study
Bible
· "Jesus, Yeshua, meaning ‘Jehovah Is Salvation’" –The Kingdom Interlinear
Translation of the Greek Scriptures.
The following commentaries add their observations on the Savior’s Name:
® Matthew Henry’s Commentary (on Matthew 1:21): "Jesus is the same name
with Joshua, the termination only being changed, for the sake of conforming it to the
Greek."
This must be the greatest conspiracy and decption of all time to so thoroughly and intentionally mis-educate and mis-lead the people. That is why I was complled to share this with you. May you from this point on carry with you a knowledge previously you were unaware of. His Peace be with you*
2006-08-17 10:13:08
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answer #1
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answered by Fathersservant 1
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