stephan huller

And the point of citing Irenaeus is that - if the report goes back to a Marcionite pronunciation of Jesus - it calls into question the accuracy of Ephrem's statement as Irenaeus makes clear his heretics did not call Jesus by a three (= two and a half) letter name.

stephan huller

To duvduv's point interestingly, I wasn't aware that there are TWO spellings of the name Jesus in Arabic. Isa of course appears 25 times in the Quran. It is supposed to be developed from the Syriac Yeshu. Yet I just learned from this source that the Arabic translation of the New Testament preserves the spelling Yasu

http://books.google.com/books?id=BjC...ent%22&f=false

stephan huller

Michael L Brown attributes some of the confusion over the Arabic adoption of the Jewish practice of identifying Jesus as 'Esau'(!). Where is this found? This is new to me.

http://books.google.com/books?id=MoG...syriac&f=false

stephan huller

Jane Dammen McAuliffe of the Encyclopedia of Islam agrees that the claim that Jews called Jesus Esau is without foundation

http://books.google.com/books?id=sq9...ed=0CDIQ6AEwAA

DCHindley

I've got this crazy need for posts to make sense. It is unreasonable, I suppose, but it does prompt me to do a little research myself. Little flags go up when something I read seems to contradict what I remember reading previously about a subject. The reason I even downloaded those two volumes of S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations is because you keep mentioning the guy. I recall the subject of the different renderings of Jesus' name coming up on Crosstalk2(?) some years ago (maybe even 10 yrs) with input from Aramaic affectionado Jack Kilmon. I've read a few articles and web pages about it in the past, generally not comprehending much of it due to different ways of transliterating Hebrew/Aramaic/Syriac letters, but statements in the books above seemed to be the source of your ramblings.

The problem is that the books above explain it completely differently than you do. Your point seems to be that the Syriac speaking Marcionites' form of Jesus' name, vocalized as "ISU" (or "IESU") per Ephraim, does not correspond to the otherwise universal use of the Semitic form for Joshua (vocalized as "Isho/Yeshu") for Jesus of the NT. The "standard" orthodox Syriac form uses a Shin ܫ with a "ss/sh" sound. The Marcionite version has a Semkath (ܣ with an "s" sound).*

You seem to be arguing that the Marcionite form is derived from a form of Semitic Esau spelled VAV-ALEF-SIN-YOD (the normal Hebrew spelling would be VAU-SHIN-'AYIN) was somehow transformed to ISU [VAU-SEMKATH-YUD]. The usual form in Syriac for Jesus/Joshua is E-VAU-SHIN-YUD. Both the Hebrew and Syriac SHIN could be vocalized either "s" [sometimes called SIN] or "sh" [called SHIN by those who make the distinction], but you seem to favor "s."

Doesn't Burkitt's comments indicate that SHIN is associated not with the Syriac Marcionite form of Jesus (with a SEMKATH) but with the regular/orthodox form of Jesus (with a SHIN)?

How does this make any sense? This kind of argument only makes sense in Arabic!** Is this why you downplay the importance of Arabic, so no one will notice? Your exposition comes across as idiosyncratic (I luvs them big wards). I expect better of you.

DCH

*The Hebrew letter [Sin/Shin] represents two different phonemes: a sibilant /s/, like English sour, and a /ʃ/, like English shoe. The two are distinguished by a dot above the left-hand side of the letter for /s/ and above the right-hand side for /ʃ/. Shin (letter)

**"The Holy Quran refers to Jesus as "Eesa", and this name is used more times than any other title, because this was his "Christian" name. Actually, his proper name was "Eesa" (Arabic), or "Esau". (Hebrew); classical "Yeheshua", which the Christian nations of the West Latinised as Jesus. Neither the "J" nor the second "s" in the name Jesus is to be found in the original tongue - they are not found in the Semitic language. The word is very simply - "E S A U" - a very common Jewish name, used more than sixty times in the very first booklet alone of the Bible, in the part called "Genesis". There was at least one "Jesus" sitting on the "bench" at the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin. Josephus the Jewish historian mentions some twenty five Jesus' in his "Book of Antiquities". The New Testament speaks of "Bar-Jesus"- a magician and a sorcerer, a false prophet (Act 13:6); and also "Jesus-Justus" - a Christian missionary, a contemporary of Paul (Colossians 4:11). These are distinct from Jesus the son of Mary. Transforming "Esau" to (J)esu(s) - Jesus - makes it unique. This unique (?) name has gone out of currency among the Jews and the Christians from the 2nd century after Christ. Among the Jews, because it came to be the proper name of their God(?) - their God incarnate. The Muslim will not hesitate to name his son - "Eesa" - because it is an honoured name, the name of a righteous servant of the Lord." (Ahmad Deedat, Christ in Islam, Chapter 2)

stephan huller

The thread doesn't make sense? You're crabbiness has nothing to do with a particular thread. The point here is that Ephrem was familiar with the Greek text of the NT. He couldn't have found Iesous heretical. Is that what people are saying? Yes Mitchell theorizes that Isu derives from Iesous and everyone goes along with it. But I'm saying it only has the appearance of making sense for those who aren't familiar with Ephrem's writings

I still say you need to get laid. It's the marriage to wives from traditional religion conundrum. They'll stand beside you loyally until they die - they just won't release your tension

stephan huller

And my point about the Arabic name of Jesus is different than duvduv's. I am showing how silly the claim that Isa comes from Isho really is. Yasu looks more like Isho than Isa

stephan huller

Another example of what I am talking about. I have been making the point that Clement of Alexandria originally understood Jesus to be the 'Chrestos' and the community of Christians as the Chrestoi. When Clement makes this association he does so because of an established translation of chrestoi for yesharim or chestos for yashar and where yesharim was likely an established identity or the preferred name of the Qumran community.

Now look at the opening words of the Instructor:

Clement goes on to identify 'healing' as the particular purpose of Christianity and 'to heal' as the root of the name Jesus. Of course this is not true if the name Jesus is derived from the same root as the Hebrew name Joshua.

Hence accordingly ensues the healing of our passions, in consequence of the assuagements of those examples; the Paedagogue strengthening our souls, and by His benign commands, as by gentle medicines, guiding the sick to the perfect knowledge of the truth:

And again a little later:

And then at the end of the Instructor;

stephan huller

The LXX of Psalm 73:1 reads:

ψαλμὸς τῷ Ασαφ ὡς ἀγαθὸς τῷ Ισραηλ ὁ θεός τοῖς εὐθέσι τῇ καρδίᾳ

While neither yesharim or any reference to 'upright' appears in the Masoretic text. Yet there are a number of scriptural references at Qumran which add references to the yesharim.

stephan huller

I have already established that the Marcionite community was likely the same as Clement's Chrestoi and that these Chrestoi derive from an established Jewish community of yesharim. A community of 'the upright' continued to exist until the time of Muhammad as we read in Sura III the House of Imran:

And here is Chamin Rabin's Qumran Studies attempting to link this group possibly with the sectarians of Qumran:

I think it is a lot more likely that the community being identified as the upright are a group of Marcionites who somehow identified Muhammad as the awaited Paraclete. Already Ephrem identifies the Marcionites as being addicted to prayer. But what do I know ...