Where did modern English names like John, Mark, Samuel come from, given that the Bible was written in Hebrew?

Question

For example, the word "Mark" would not be found in the Hebrew Bible. Is it a translation? A phonetic spelling based on how it sounds in Hebrew?

Answer 1

they're English pronunciations of Hebrew letters changed into English equivalents of Hebrew letters. it would be absolutely impossible for the the name "Mark", for instance, to be in Hebrew, since Hebrew has no vowels. Just like we'd pronounce "dnt" "dint", despite the lack of a vowel. it's an anglicized pronunciation of a Hebrew word.

p.s. to all those to railed on him because he said the Bible was Hebrew. the old Testament was indeed written in Hebrew and the New in Greek, but as most of the names he's talking about are names of Israelites, their traditional language was Hebrew, though they lived in a Greek-speaking world.

pps However, several of the names were Latin, since those who had them (Mark, Paul, etc) were Romans.

ppps Samuel is an old-Testament name.


hope this makes sense, and helps you.

Answer 2

Yes, but the fact that the Bibles are in English has very little to do with the use of J in so many names, anyway. The important factor is that English got its versions of the names from German, where the letter J does represent the Y sound. In typical English-speaking fashion, when we come upon a spelling in the Latin alphabet but intended for a language with different pronunciation, we pronounce it according to the letter-values we're used to. It's not "parroting" to point out that the J sound is introduced purely by an accidental collision of different languages. If the topic happens to be what these names were like in Hebrew or Aramaic, it's precisely on point to mention that fact.

Answer 3

Biblical names used in English are all translations upon translations from both old and new testaments in the Bible.

for example:
Yeshua -- Jesus -- Joshua same name based on various translations
Saul -- Paulus -- Paul same idea they are translations from hebrew, greek, and latin

Yes, the Hebrew translations are based on phonetic spellings because obviously Hebrew does not use the Latin alphabet.
Thats how words like "Jehovah" came to exist --mistranslations of Hebrew word for God YHWH (because Hebrew does not use vowels)

Answer 4

john, mark and samuel are modern english names? John is from Hebrew for "Jehova has favored" Mark is an english form of Marcus-which is Latin (another language spoken during that time and "Mark" wasn't a name found in the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew, it was found in the New Testament, which was written in Greek) and Samuel is also Hebrew and means "name of God".

Answer 5

They are Roman names. The Roman Empire ruled over All the known world when Jesus was born. Most of the disciples had a Hebrew and a Roman name during that time. For Example The Apostle Paul was Saul before his conversion on the road to Damascus.

Answer 6

Those names were transliterated from Hebrew, as Joshua and Jesus too. When you said a phonetic spelling based on how it sound in Hebrew that is a transliteration, not translation.

Answer 7

****Where did modern English names like John, Mark, Samuel come from, given that the Bible was written in Hebrew? *****

Aramaic - Hebrew - Greek - Latin - English, generally speaking.
Yes, that does sounds like a lot of borrowing for sure.
For a fact as far as i can tell no one mentioned
in the bible knew or spoke English, modern or otherwise.

Answer 8

Some of the names are transliterations of Hebrew names, some of Greek names. David comes from Daoud, John from Yochanon, Mary from Maryam.

Answer 9

A) You mean GREEK.

B) It's an English-ized word....John/Johannes/Johan/etc...It's just an example of how language evolved over the years. English even has a predecessor that can barely be read called Middle English. Names and words in this "transition" have changed quite dramatically in some cases. Just a linguistic feature.

Answer 10

translation from Hebrew or Greek to modern English.