PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

I found the thread "Are you the Christ?" What did they expect? quite interesting. I thought everybody contributed fascinating ideas. Ben C. Smith's post #5214512 / #13 . was especially interesting. It strongly suggested the possibility that Jesus had committed blasphemy by mentioning the name of God in Mark 14.62.

I would like to suggest that Jesus did not blasphemy by mentioning the sacred name of Yaweh but his act of blasphemy came by mentioning the sacred name of Yeshua.

First consider this from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua_(name)

Now consider Paul's statement in Philippians

Christ (anointed one/king) is obviously not a name, but a title. So the name above every name is Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus

The name Yaweh could not be pronounced, but the Yeshua (Yaweh will save) was a common name which could be pronounced which included the name Yaweh in it in some sense. The difference between pronouncing the name Yashua and Yeshua is tiny but it would have made all the difference in the world between blasphemy and non-blasphemy. The original writer of the text would not have subjected him/herself to charges of blasphemy by writing Yaweh, but could have indicated the blasphemy by making the subtle change of Yeshua to Yashua. It would have been enough for the Jewish audience to get iit.

Note that the passage in Mark is not linked specifically to the name Yaweh, but to the concept of Yaweh saving (Yeshua/Yashua).

"And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

We can reconstruct this as:

And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty Yashua (Yaweh will save) and coming on the clouds of heaven."

We can suppose that the original writer had the man pronounce his blasphemy three times:

Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ,[f] the Son of the Blessed Yeshua?"

62"I am a son of Yashua," said [Simon/John]. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty Yashua and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Two of the blasphemies come from directly pronouncing the name, the third blasphemy comes from describing how Yaweh will save. (This is the cleverness of the story that gets lost when Mark censures the term Yeshua/Yashua.


The Catholic Church in Rome had the notion around 210 (see Against Praxeas) that the father and the son were one and the same. We may suppose this is because both the father and the son had the same name Yeshua/Jesus.

In the original First century text the crucified man was John or Simon, who considered himself a son of the God Yeshua. In the Second century, When the name John/Simon were suppressed due to political reasons, the crucified man became Yeshua, the son of God. So the transformation is:

Simon, a son of Yeshua into Simon Yeshua, a the son of Yeshua God.

As a euphemism for Yaweh, Yeshua was still too close to Yaweh when applied to God for comfort, but it was originally tolerated by the Jewish High Priests. However, as it became more familiar, a reaction set in and that word soon became blasphemous and had to be erased or changed to Lord or God. It was, however, perfectly okay when applied to a man.

Thus the God "Yeshua" became the man Yeshua and the word became flesh, as the author of the gospel of John put it.

As evidence of this transformation of God's name from Yahew to Yeshua, see http://www.matsati.com/comparison.html.
Here is another thread of interest. #4512689 / #1

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

I thought every Tom. Dick, and Harry in Isreal was named Yeshua or had a brother named Yeshua. How could this name be blasphemous? Or are you saying that there was a special variant that was blasphemy?

angelo

You could stand in the town square on a busy shopping day in downtown Jerusalem and call out ''Yeshua'' and out of a couple of hundred men at least 30 would answer.
Like Toto has pointed out, it was a common name. As was Miriam.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto and Angelo,

Yes, precisely, Yeshua was one of the most common name in Jerusalem. That is why it could not be banned from being spoken, but pronounce it just a little bit differently and you get a name with a theophoric element that was absolutely forbidden to be spoken. In contemporary American culture, the word "Frickin" (see Austin Powers movies) or "Freakin" is often used as an acceptable substitute for the censored word "Fucking". Note the derivation of the word, frickin, from the urban dictionary:

Here is the definition of Freakin :

The situation would have been somewhat parallel to frickin, freakin and fucking. Pronounce the name Yeshua and you were okay, pronounce it Yashua and you were saying the forbidden name Yaweh and committing a blasphemous act. God could be referred to in polite society as Yeshua, but Yashua would have been too close to Yaweh. Probably it was allowed as an acceptable reference to Yaweh for a time, but it was later banned. Shortly thereafter, Yeshua as a name for the Hebrew God also seems to have been prohibited, expecially after the crucified man was given the name. We can suppose these phases over time.

Commiting Blasphemy in Pronouncing the Name of the Hebrew God:

1. Yaweh unacceptable, Yashua acceptable
2. Yaweh unacceptable, Yashua unacceptable, Yeshua acceptable
3. (First Century C.E. - period of original gospel) Yaweh unacceptable, Yashua acceptable to indicate a blasphemy, but otherwise unacceptable, Yeshua acceptable
4. (post 100 C.E.)Yaweh unacceptable, Yashua unacceptable, Yeshua unacceptable.

Sacred words, like curse words, are negotiable and change within and between cultures over time and space.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

MortalWombat

Jesus Frickin' Christ, this is interesting!

Toto

Yes, but, Yahweh is not the forbidden name. It is the tetragrammaton that stands in for the forbidden name - sort of like freakin'.

But then we don't know what the forbidden name is, because it was forbidden.

eheffa

For Philosopher Jay...

For your hypothesis to work one must accept two unlikely posits:

1> The author of Mark understood these subtleties of First Century Jewish culture. This is not borne out by his/her apparent lack of insight into other aspects of the Jewish landscape of that time.

2> The Gospel of Mark was written in the first century by an eyewitness able to have heard & understood these subtleties. Another unlikely supposition.

-evan

Jeffrey Gibson

Oh, I think we know the name. What we don't know is how it was pronounced.

Jeffrey

angelo

There seems to be two names for god in Genesis and Exodus, Elohim and Yahweh. But then there is a third name, Jehovah. What are we to make of that? Then Moses asks god, ''who are you.'' And he responds, ''I am what I am'', ''when Pharaoh asks you who sent you, you are to say 'I am' sent me.'' That's four names. Then if Jesus was god as some theists claim, that makes five names. No wonder fundamentalists are confused.

Jeffrey Gibson

So are you if you think that "Jehovah" is anything other that a medieval hybrid.

Jeffrey