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Summary
- Jesus’s real name was Yeshua, the shorter form of the Hebrew Yehoshua, which English Bibles spell Joshua.
- The Bible uses both forms for the same man: Joshua son of Nun is “Jeshua the son of Nun” in Nehemiah 8:17.
- Greek wrote the name Iēsous, Latin Iesus, and English printed Iesus in the 1611 King James Bible before later printings spelled it Jesus.
- Christ is a title, the Greek for Messiah, meaning “anointed”; it is not a surname.
- In his own time he was known as Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the son of Joseph, and Jesus of Galilee.
- He was named Jesus at his circumcision, eight days after his birth, as the angel had said (Luke 2:21).
- The letter J began as a special form of I and became a letter with its own value only in the fifteenth century.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- The Holy Bible, King James Version, quoted from Bible Gateway: Numbers 13:16; Ezra 3:2; Ezra 5:2; Nehemiah 8:17; Haggai 1:1; Matthew 1:16, 1:21–25, 16:16–17, 26:69; Mark 5:22, 5:35–41, 6:1–3; Luke 1:26–31, 2:21, 3:23; John 1:40–41, 1:45, 6:42, 19:19–20; Acts 7:44–45; Philippians 2:10, 3:5; Colossians 4:11; Hebrews 4:8.
- The Holy Bible (King James Version, 1611), Matthew chapter 1 in the original spelling, transcribed on Wikisource.
- Nova Vulgata, Evangelium secundum Matthaeum, chapter 1, the Holy See.
- Matthew 1:21 in the Reina-Valera 1960, Louis Segond, Russian Synodal, Swahili New Testament, Chinese Union Version, New Arabic Version and Habrit Hakhadasha, on Bible Gateway.
- Hebrews 4:8 and Acts 7:45 in the English Standard Version and the New International Version.
- Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890): entries Yehoshua (3091), Yeshua (3442), Yosef (3130) and bar (1247).
- Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1889), with Strong’s: entries Iēsous (2424), Christos (5547), Simon (4613) and talitha (5008).
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapters 9 and 11, translated by William Whiston, Project Gutenberg.
- Richard Gottheil and Wilhelm Bacher, “Aramaic Language Among the Jews,” The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906).
- Peter Giles, “J,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), volume 15, transcribed on Wikisource.
- Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, Defining Messianic Judaism (2005).
- The Quran 3:45, Arabic text and Sahih International translation, Quran.com.
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