Question for Christians/Religious Types - especially those in the "industry"?

[hollywood]

For a long time now, we (collectively) have known that the name "Jesus" is simply inaccurate. It was primarily a result of a "glitch" created by translating/transliteration problems going between the common languages used at the time of the creation of the New Testament (Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc.).

If we were to look at the relevant language of the Semitic peoples (Jews/Hebrews) and their tradition of names, it's abundantly clear that the actual name should be Yeshua/Joshua and NOT anything close to the word/name pronounced - Jesus.

My question is: Why has there not been anything done to correct this error?

Is "tradition" or something similar where the name has been so ingrained with the public and Christians that there would be too much resistance?* If not, what reasons do you believe that keep the name Jesus front and center, instead of simply correction the record? (Would it cost too much to reprint all of those Bibles out there? And if so, couldn't the church(es) simply teach their congregations to simply pronounce the name as Yeshua/Joshua when reciting it aloud?)

*I'm old, but not all that old and I clearly remember that the vast majority of Christians used to refer to the "Trinity" as consisting of the Father, Son & Holy GHOST. I think I was in my 20's/30's when there seemed to be a movement to change the latter to "Holy Spirit" due to the recognition that "spirit"was actually a superior translation from the original Greek/Latin. That seems to have gone over without too much resistance. So, why would correcting the translation/transliteration be a problem now?

BTW, as an aside, how many people do those here encounter that do/do not realize that the term "CHRIST" is NOT part of his name, but rather an honorific/title (The Anointed One) derived from the Greek word "Christos?" In English, the proper way to say it/write it would be "Christ Jesus" and not the Jesus H. Christ so many of us are familiar.

 

[PDT816]

Jesus is derived from the Greek "Iesous", not Hebrew.

Greek = Iesous > Latin = Iesus > American =Jesus

 

[hollywood]

PDT, but he wasn't named by Greeks, he was named by those who were Hebrew and spoke the language (or Aramaic).

That's kind of my point, that things got "lost in translation" so we ended up with something far different that the original name.

But, is it too late to fix the error or is there just no desire to do so to make it more accurate?

 

[AC2017]

You could play the same word games with virtually any name as translated into English from the NT. Or any name as is translated into English from the Old and New Testaments. Or for that matter, any word as translated into English from the OT or NT.

 

[hollywood]

So, you're saying the translations are unreliable?


Sorry, AC - you tossed that softball right across the plate in front of me, I couldn't resists taking a swing.

 

[AC2017]

So, you're saying the translations are unreliable?


Sorry, AC - you tossed that softball right across the plate in front of me, I couldn't resists taking a swing.

Translations are never perfect. There are pluses and minuses (depending on who you talk to) in almost all of them.

If course ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek are dead languages and there are problems inherent to that -- but if you can read or understand another language and have tried to translate it to English you know the problems that exist. Some words just don't easily move from one language to the other.

If it became culturally accepted to call the Messiah Jeshua, I would have no problem with that. Most of us no longer use the name Jehovah, but rather Yahweh, describing the covenant name of God. In the OT, it is translated "LORD" in all caps.

I don't think He cares whether we call Him Jesus or Jeshua as long as we understand who He is/was and what He did for us.

 

[PDT816]

It was common for Jews to have two names back then, be called one thing in Hebrew and another in Greek.

Jews would have called him Jeshua and Greeks would have called him Iesous in the period in which he lived. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, which brings us to the Greek>Latin>English naming conventions.

I fail to see where there is a translation error here.

 

[AC2017]

It was common for Jews to have two names back then, be called one thing in Hebrew and another in Greek.

Jews would have called him Jeshua and Greeks would have called him Iesous in the period in which he lived. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, which brings us to the Greek>Latin>English naming conventions.

I fail to see where there is a translation error here.

There's no translation error. Just common practice in translating.

 

[AC2017]

Why do Americans call the giant lizard "Godzilla" when that is not what he's called in the Japanese tongue?

 

[hollywood]

Why do Americans call the giant lizard "Godzilla" when that is not what he's called in the Japanese tongue?

Ac, my son attended a school in L.A. which was probably 40% Korean kids. The school actually offered Korean language classes and it was the little red-headed Irish girl that was the star of the class.

So one day, my kiddo comes home from school (probably about 4th grade) and tells me that the his Korean friends are teaching him new Korean words and the new word he learned that day was Gojira. When asked what that meant, he lit up and proudly informed me it meant GODZILLA!

Back to the subject, I guess my point was that if Ghost can become Spirit due to improvements in translation and in the case of the Jesus/Joshua conundrum, the problem (like Godzilla/Gojira) is not one actually of translation, so much as transliteration in that the Greeks took a stab at trying to create a name that sounded like the original, but fell far short.

PDT, do you have reason to believe that Greeks lived in the Palestine (middle east) region at that time, or were aware of him? I realize the New Testament was written primarily in Greek originally, before being translated to Latin (vulgate). The people in that region would have almost certainly primarily used the Aramaic/Hebrew languages and it's doubtful many of them knew Greek until the much later church Councils when the books chosen to be included in the "Gospels" would have been formally chosen (some 300-400 years after the fact.)

The Dead Sea Scrolls for example were written in Hebrew.

Do you know of any historical documents of that era, from that region were written in Greek? Pliny the Elder and Younger wrote in Latin. About the only one I can think of is Josephus, but he lived quite a while after events of the New Testament.

 

[AC2017]

Koine Greek was the language of commerce in Jesus's day, much like English is for most of the known world today.

 

[PDT816]

PDT, do you have reason to believe that Greeks lived in the Palestine (middle east) region at that time, or were aware of him? I realize the New Testament was written primarily in Greek originally, before being translated to Latin (vulgate). The people in that region would have almost certainly primarily used the Aramaic/Hebrew languages and it's doubtful many of them knew Greek until the much later church Councils when the books chosen to be included in the "Gospels" would have been formally chosen (some 300-400 years after the fact.)

The Dead Sea Scrolls for example were written in Hebrew.

Do you know of any historical documents of that era, from that region were written in Greek? Pliny the Elder and Younger wrote in Latin. About the only one I can think of is Josephus, but he lived quite a while after events

First, 3% of The Dead Sea Scrolls are in Greek.

The rest is answered by researching Hellenistic Jews. They date back centuries before Jesus and would answer any other argument you would have.

 

[Marshal Jim Duncan]

Men and women, hundreds of them, who have devoted their entire life to translation, for many of whom it has been wholly a labor of love and literally a divine calling, have gotten it dead wrong.

Makes sense.

 

[hollywood]

Men and women, hundreds of them, who have devoted their entire life to translation, for many of whom it has been wholly a labor of love and literally a divine calling, have gotten it dead wrong.

Makes sense.

Marshal,

Here's the issue, this isn't technically a problem of "translation" it's a problem of continuing to use a word/name which was put into a "transliteration" form, which missed the mark completely. A transliteration is NOT an exact translation, it's merely an attempt to create an approximation of what a word/name should sound like using the alphabet of another language entirely.

Those who tried to make an equivalent sound for the Hebrew name Joshua/Yeshua, in Greek did so in a way that unfortunately missed the mark by a significant margin.

If someone's name was Richard and an attempt was made in another language to create an identical/similar sound and they came up with Robert, then I think we can agree that there should be no issue with correcting the record to reflect the name as being Richard.

In Hebrew/Aramaic, the language spoken by the people who named him and his family/friends knew him by, then clearly that name is Yeshua/Joshua. If you walked up to him in the street and called him Jesus, no one would have recognized that as being his name. That's my point.

My other point being that if Holy Ghost can be changed to Holy Spirit due to a scholarly conclusion that the word/term had been mistranslated for centuries, then why so difficult to acknowledge a much better translation for his name?

Also that Holy Ghost/Spirit thing kind of destroys your argument that all of those hundreds of people who toiled in the past to get that right and in the end were considered to have it wrong, are incapable of reaching a wrong conclusion.

 

[Marshal Jim Duncan]

Yeshua, this is just pathetic.

 

[WCPoke]

Marshal,

Here's the issue, this isn't technically a problem of "translation" it's a problem of continuing to use a word/name which was put into a "transliteration" form, which missed the mark completely. A transliteration is NOT an exact translation, it's merely an attempt to create an approximation of what a word/name should sound like using the alphabet of another language entirely.

Those who tried to make an equivalent sound for the Hebrew name Joshua/Yeshua, in Greek did so in a way that unfortunately missed the mark by a significant margin.

If someone's name was Richard and an attempt was made in another language to create an identical/similar sound and they came up with Robert, then I think we can agree that there should be no issue with correcting the record to reflect the name as being Richard.

In Hebrew/Aramaic, the language spoken by the people who named him and his family/friends knew him by, then clearly that name is Yeshua/Joshua. If you walked up to him in the street and called him Jesus, no one would have recognized that as being his name. That's my point.

My other point being that if Holy Ghost can be changed to Holy Spirit due to a scholarly conclusion that the word/term had been mistranslated for centuries, then why so difficult to acknowledge a much better translation for his name?

Also that Holy Ghost/Spirit thing kind of destroys your argument that all of those hundreds of people who toiled in the past to get that right and in the end were considered to have it wrong, are incapable of reaching a wrong conclusion.

Maybe you can drop a note into the suggestion box at your local church, synagogue or mosque. I'm sure it'll make its way to the editing staff.

 

[BluegrassPoke]

There are still 1671 languages that do not have a single verse of scripture translated on earth.

 

[CBradSmith]

Someone needs to have a "come to Jesus" moment.

 

[CBradSmith]

But....better use the correct name of Jesus, lest the exercise be in vain.

 

[PDT816]

Marshal,
If you walked up to him in the street and called him Jesus, no one would have recognized that as being his name. That's my point.

This is a weird example as this very thing does in fact happen in the Bible.

Saul/Paul is motoring down the street on his way to Damascus and what happens? Jesus comes up to him and gives him the business personally.

Paul speaks Greek (Native tounge), He's a devout Jew that's sent off to Jerusalem for religious tutoring by Rabbis when young and works as a Jewish bounty hunter persecuting disciples (so we know he's fluent in Hebrew), He's a Roman citizen that spends a great deal of time in Rome (he probably speaks Latin as well), maybe other languages as well due to his extensive travels/ministries.

And what does Paul name Jesus when he clearly has the ability to do so in any language? Exactly the thing you're debating against.

 

[CarrolltonPoke]

Yeshua Built my Hotrod.

 

[trapped_in_tx]

Yeshua Built my Hotrod.

You sure bruh? I'm hearin this dude named Jésus is pretendin to be this 'Yeshua' hombre

 

[ThorOdinson13]

Just refer to Him as Christ. Done

 

[TPOKE]

The real problem would be changing WWJD to WWYD after 20 or so years.

 

[CBradSmith]

What's the motive of OP? May have overlooked it.