xunzian

As someone who was raised heathen, I'm not sure what the difference is between these two entities. Intuitively, they seem like they should be the same but I've noticed that really creepy hardcore fundies tend to use the "Christ Jesus" formulation whereas more moderate Christians are more likely to use the "Jesus Christ" formulation. What is the deal? Is Hebrew (or Aramaic, or Greek, or whatever) like Chinese in that it is <family name> <individual name> so the more radical formulation is closer to what would have been said back-in-the-day (and so more 'fundamentalist') or is there something else at play here.

Toto

Christ is not a family name.

Jesus is the name of the figure in the gospels, and Christ is derived from the Greek translation of Messiah. So it is either Jesus the Messiah or Messiah Jesus.

The phrase "Christ Jesus" is used in the Bible almost as often as "Jesus Christ" in the most popular translation.

xunzian

So what is the functional difference between the two when someone says them? Since there seems to be a divide.

Neat, so Christ means Messiah. Interesting. I had always wondered that. So why is his adoptive father's family tree a deal? Doesn't the Bible go into that?

Toto

Interesting question.

In the Bible, NIV version, "Jesus Christ" is used in the gospels (except for Luke), Acts, and the epistles.

Christ Jesus is not used in the gospels, but is used in the epistles, especially in the form of "faith in" Christ Jesus.

I expect that the people who use Christ Jesus are just setting themselves apart, because Jesus Christ is the more common form.

That's a "Bible difficulty." There are various ways of trying to get around it, but the Bible leaves it as a mystery.

judge

Christ Jesus being so less common, has such an air of importance and seriousness about it. It is, of course , used by serious christians.

Petergdi

Someone here pointed out that it may be like the difference between "Augustus Caesar" and "Caesar Augustus" except that Caesar starts out as a name and becomes a title while Christ starts out as a title and very nearly becomes a name.

I think that nearly every time you hear "Christ Jesus" it is likely to be a quotation of or an allusion to a text in Paul's letters. Paul seems to use "Jesus Christ" in some phrases and "Christ Jesus" in others. It is a little hard to be certain about the pattern because there is quite a lot of manuscript variation on this point. Older translations made before modern text critical work will often have it the other way round. I strongly suspect that when you hear "Christ Jesus" there is an echo of a biblical phrase which has it in that order in the version with which the speaker is most familiar.

Peter.

Clivedurdle

The discussions I had about Lord Jesus Christ - is it yahweh saviour messiah and what was Paul actually saying are to the point here.

This is an important question that definitely needs further research - is it editorial tampering, is it the conversion of a title to a name?

We don't get Lord Christ Jesus or Christ Lord Jesus.

Why not?

If Revelation can easily be made Jewish by removing a very few Jesus Christs what of the rest of the New Testament?

Was this the major editing that occurred, slipping in a few Jesi and Christs in odd places?

Some computer analysis of the texts should show something.

mountainman

Human analysis suggests that the oldest greek manuscripts of the new testament evidence the presence and work of a single redactor. The estimated chronology for these earliest codex manuscripts is late to mid fourth century. More than one scholar has suggested that one or more of these codices may be either copies of, or originals of one of the fifty "Constantine Bibles" recorded to have been prepared c.331 CE, or

It seems quite reasonable to presume that Eusebius was that single redactor since he was responsible for the preparation of these 50 Bible codices.

It should be noted against this thread that the name of Jesus and the name of Christ do not appear in the received text. What appears in the received text are abbreviated forms - see discussions on nomina sacra.

What is remarkable is that all of the earliest coptic (and Syriac????) texts of the new testament apocryphal texts also do not contain the explicit names of either "Jesus" or "Christ". What is present in the text are abbreviated forms. That these symbolic abbreviations in the text are in fact references to the name "Jesus" and the name "Christ" is an additional assumption.

The greek nomina sacra for "Joshua" (appearing in the Hebrew Bible [OT]) is exactly the same as the greek nomina sacra for "Jesus". The coptic nomina sacra for "The Healer" is exactly the same as the coptic nomina sacra for "Jesus". A certain symbolic licence is therefore required in order to translate each these abbreviated names to "Jesus" and "Christ" respectively. If you go looking in the oldest texts for the fullname "Jesus" and/or "Christ" you will not find them at all.

Doug Shaver

There is none that I've ever discovered, other than different people having different personal preferences.

Assuming he existed, it is undisputed that the man's given name was "Jesus" while "Christ" was a title bestowed on him by certain of his followers. In terms of usage, "Christ" works sort of the way "King" does. (And the pre-exilic Jews, by the way, seem to have routinely applied to the title "messiah" to their kings. The literal meaning of the word is just "annointed" or "annointed one.") Just as you can call someone either "King Richard" or "Richard the king" or "the king, Richard," so there were various ways of appending the title "Christ" to "Jesus" so that he could be called "Christ Jesus" or "Jesus (the) Christ" or "(the) Christ, Jesus." From what I have gathered, Greek writers had a habit of omitting the definite article in certain contexts such as this one.

Tristan Scott

What does the "H" stand for?

I used to always hear my Dad say "Jesus H. Christ", I've used the term myself, but was wondering if any of you learned folk knew what the "H" stood for?