spin

There have been a number of people who try to claim that because "Jesus" was a common name it wouldn't have been chosen for the name of a savior. This is an interestingly untestable hypothesis. A non-existent savior needs to have a special name!

I have pointed out that the name "Jesus" is laden with significance. In Hebrew it is the same as Joshua, the person after Moses who led his people to the promised land, and "Jesus" is the name of the high priest responsible for the reconstruction of the temple, god's house, after the exile.

However, I'd like to put forward perhaps a new reason why "Jesus".

John the Baptist is considered in Mark to be Elijah, the messenger sent before the coming of the day of the Lord. Mk 1:6 describes John the Baptist as Elijah (see 2 Kgs 1:8). And one can best understand Mk 9:11f as referring to JtB as Elijah. Just as Elijah came before Elisha in Kings, so did JtB come before Jesus in the gospels. What is interesting about this is the name Elisha, a contracted form of Elishua, "my god saves', "my god" of course being Yahweh, hence it is an equivalent of Yeshua, Jesus.

Whether Jesus existed or not cannot be asserted by his having a common name. There are numerous associations with the name.


spin

mountainman

Who traditionally selected the name of the children
in your usual out-of-the-way Galilaean 1st century
village? Were there conventions? Were there
exceptions? Who would have given this common name
to the god of the observable universe within the
Hubble-Limit, at the time, if we assume he actually
"incarnated" as the texts would will us to believe?
The parents, the man, the woman, the priests,
who? Was it Mary or Joseph or neither? Do we know?

dog-on

4So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

Clouseau

'Name' here didn't mean appellation, but complete stance, or achievement, in this case. In context:

'The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact expression of his essence, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.' Heb 1:3-4

dog-on

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Ray Moscow

There might be multiple reasons why "Jesus" is such a good name for the main character of the Christian stories -- besides the possibility of an HJ who actually had that name -- but I like the idea that the gospels are largely a retelling of the Exodus story and therefore cast "Jesus" as the new Moses.

And who followed Moses in the Hebrew Bible? "Joshua/Jesus", the new Moses.

Clouseau

Same answer.

Clivedurdle

This reverbrates very strongly and has the feel of a reasonable reason for this religion - not that as the apologists state that Jesus is the Joshua to the world - but that a made up story about Moses and Joshua and let my people go was redone for a new time and audience.

As West Side Story is a rewrite of Romeo and Juliet, Mark's good news of the saviour is a rewrite of Exodus, beginning with forty days in the wilderness!

Chris Weimer

Spin, you don't have a point here, unless you're saying that John the Baptist didn't exist? Or that Jesus belongs to the same type of literary cycle as Elisha? Theophoric names are common in antiquity. The argument, lest you missed it, was that the name Jesus was indicative of his non-existence, and the opposition pointed out that the name was a common one. The position that the name (by itself) is evidence of his existence appears to be a strawman, or at least not a position held by the mainstream.

But then again, you do find all sorts of things here...

Chris Weimer

Joshua wasn't the new Moses. So if Jesus was the new Moses, why wouldn't his name be "Moses"?