Jesus, Jehovah, John, Jew, Judas, Judah, Jude, James, Job, Joseph, Jacob, Joshua....
The bible seems to be full of important characters that have names that start with "J". However, if you look at the Hebrew alphabet, you will see that there are no letters that make a "J" sound!
Apparently, all of these names probably originally started with the Hebrew letter Yod, which makes a "Y" sound.
English has a "Y" sound, so why do English bibles use "J" for all of these names? It seems like replacing all the original Y's with J' is sort of a silly and unneeded substitution.
2007-12-17 06:49:04 · 11 answers · asked by Azure Z 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Anthony C - This is a question. I'm not trying to start a debate. I'm just wondering why we use J's for all those names.
2007-12-17 07:05:07 · update #1
Y didn't exist in the Latin alphabet when a lot of the transliteration occurred -- it developed later as a variation of V/U. J at the time was an alternate version of I, and was the closest letter for transliteration.
2007-12-17 06:52:10 · answer #1 · answered by smcwhtdtmc 5 · 5⤊ 1⤋
What a fantastic idea...of course, you would need to include enough information about the dialogue of other characters and setting for his words to make sense...but that could be done in a matter-of-fact way that made it clear it was just "staging" for the words of Jesus. If nothing else, limiting the message of the bible to the words of Jesus would ensure than a much greater number of "Christians" actually knew and understood what Jesus commanded them to do.
2016-05-24 09:22:29 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That is more a linguistics question than a religion question. English has strange ways of changing words, and adopting them from multiple languages.
For example, Jesus and Joshua are actually the same name. If that name is translated from Hebrew into Greek and then into English, we get "Jesus" if it is translated directly from Hebrew into English, we get "Joshua".
2007-12-17 06:54:59 · answer #3 · answered by Thrice Blessed 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is all to do with translation from one language to another.
There are rules to follow when converting letters and words.
To English ,' J' is more correct than 'Y'.
However , in another language the conversion with a 'Y' may be more accurate.
The fact is , if your reading the Bible in English , those Bible names would be most correct with a 'J' and NOT a 'Y'.
For more Bible based information please feel free to email me.
2007-12-17 06:56:10 · answer #4 · answered by I♥U 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
John the translator sure was an ego maniac.
2007-12-17 06:52:28 · answer #5 · answered by ɹɐǝɟsuɐs Blessed Cheese Maker 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
All the names you mentioned are translated with Y (or I) in romanian.
Iisus, Iehova,. Ion, Iuda, Iosef, Iacob.....
2007-12-17 06:53:54 · answer #6 · answered by larissa 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
No, a 'J' is a consonantal 'Y'. It's not even related to the Hebrew.
2007-12-17 07:09:30 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
because a yud(or yod) looks more like "J" than "Y"
2007-12-17 07:00:52 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
King Yames liked 'J's' better.
2007-12-17 06:52:12 · answer #9 · answered by Sister blue eyes 6 · 6⤊ 0⤋
by far the best letter in any alphabet!
2007-12-17 06:51:41 · answer #10 · answered by J 1 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋