Malachi151

Again though, according to who, and when? We don't really know anything about the origin of the cult, and the only stories of extraordinariness that we have were written much later and with totally different intention and views, so you can't really talk about what may or may not have been a motivating factor of people whose ideas we know zero about.

aa5874

I find the name Jesus initially had no real significance until he was potrayed as the Christ, the son of God.

According to gMatthew, John the Baptist was asked if he was the Christ or the Messiah, not if he was Jesus. And in the writings of Josephus there were many persons named Jesus. There was at least one person characterised as a leader of a band of robbers named Jesus according to Josephus, and there was also Jesus the son of Ananus the madman declared to be so by the Roman authorities for shouting "Woe unto Jerusalem".

Malachi151

Which is absolutely meaningless for any kind of argument. The Gospels don't contain any useful information, there is nothing in them that is based on reality.

Do you think that the author of Matthew actually had any real information about "what Herod asked John the Baptist"?

I mean, the fact that his Gospel is almost entirely copied from another Gospel should be a clue.....

aa5874

All I know is what is written in the Gospels and the name Jesus became significant only due to the authors calling him the Christ or son of God, without which Jesus would mean very little.

dog-on

Is there any evidence of Greeks named Ioseus, prior to Jesus(Ioseus)? Does the name Ioseus have any meaning in Greek, other than as a translation of the Jewish Yeshua?

Thanks.

Ray Moscow

There is some numerological significance to that particular spelling of it in Greek. The Jesus Mysteries mentions this, but I didn't find any good description on-line for it.

Ray

Clouseau

There was (and is) no name more significant to an Israelite. The name means 'God is salvation', and the Jews were those looking forward to the coming of God's salvation through the Messiah. There were many individuals given the name, and this fact in itself was a constant reminder of the Messiah, as had been promised by the prophet Jeremiah:

'"The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety."' Jer 23:5 NIV

Many Jews had a different take on what doing 'what is just and right in the land' meant than the meaning taken by Jesus, but, as a whole, they certainly took the prophecy seriously.

So when along came a man doing good deeds, performing miracles, saying remarkable things that had not been said before- fulfilling prophecy, some said- and they asked his name, they were given a clue. It looked like an ordinary name, one they had perhaps got a little inured to. He looked like an ordinary man- no crown, no royal entourage, no army, no shining angels. But maybe this really was, at last, the promised Messiah, the king who was to come to them, 'righteous, and having salvation' (Zec 9:9).

Or had he arrived too early? Was he just not the Messiah they had envisaged? Would he just go away, with his searching questions and answers that stunned into silence? The silenced Pharisees and Sadducees certainly thought he should.

Jeremiah went on:

'This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.' Jer 23:6 NIV

Note, our righteousness. It was righteousness, one's own righteousness, that saved. It was by being accounted righteous that Abraham had become God's friend, and was saved.

It was the silenced Pharisees and Sadducees who brought their king, if king he was, to a place of shameful execution. The death of the king, his spiritual death, that is, was to be taken as the means of the Jews and indeed everyone else of having the righteousness of Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. The erstwhile Pharisee Paul wrote:

'... not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.' Php 3:9

So if Paul and the others were right, Mary's firstborn having the literal name 'Jesus' is no less significant than him taking the 'name' of 'the Lord, our righteousness.' One 'name' describes the means, imputed righteousness; the other, the end, the salvation by substitution of the otherwise unrighteous, through faith.

JEST2ASK

Thanks quite helpful.

gurugeorge

Good stuff there Clouseau. OTOH, the points you are making apply equally well to the MJ case. If the new "wrinkle" on the Messiah idea that Cephas and a few other perfervid scripture-botherers and mystics came up with in Jerusalem was that of a Messiah who wasn't to come, but one who had already been, and in obscurity, and had already done his job, "Jesus" would be the ideal name for him too.

That this scenario fits with what we actually find (i.e. that in the earliest evidence we have the terms of his coming in the recent past are sort of vague) makes it all the more plausible. i.e. his doings and sayings were at first unimportant: the time-reversal into the past, and his having slipped under the Archons' radar and done his work in obscurity, was the important thing. It's only a bit later that a requirement to "fill in" his doings and sayings (out of natural human curiosity, and a natural human inability to let a potential propaganda opportunity go) arose.

spin

Not just the MJ case, but also the FJ (ok, we've just made him up, whaddawe call him?) and the TJ cases (what does the tradition indicate his name is?).


spin