Duvduv

It might be interesting to note that traditional Jewish sources explain the removal of the letter heh in "Yeho" names as having to do with a text rendering a person UNWORTHY of having a name that identified the name of God OR being a result of a general spiritual decline associated with the destruction of the First Temple (i.e. in the Book of Nehemiah), rather than simply having to do with an Aramaic usage.

Thus, a person named Yehoshua at birth gets referred to in texts as Yeshua, which in relation to any person having the Greek name Iesous means that his actual birth name was simply YEHOSHUA/JOSHUA.

Of course although this view might explain why a single name of Iesous was used in the Greek for all people called Joshua, it would not explain why the Greek used Iesous instead of Ieosoua or Iesoua.

Nor would it explain why the Latin chose to give him the name Iesus while calling the others IESUE.

Duvduv

And the name in Greek for JESSE (father of King David) is IESSAI, which closely corresponds to the Hebrew YISHAI considering that Greek has no SH.
In Latin the spelling is ISAI, which is also close to the Hebrew.

And yet every rendering in Greek of Joshua is IESOUS in Greek and IESUS in Latin, which are not as close to the Hebrew as would be IESOUA or IEOSUA, or IESUE in Latin.

I believe the name of the Christ in the Peshitta is YESOO which might suggest that IESOUS had the final S added to IESOU in Greek AND is the source for the Arabic rendering of ISA, though I do not understand why Arabic, which DOES have the gutteral ayin would not have simple rendered it "YISU'A" Although in this case it may not mean much because the Syriac must have had the gutteral ayin at the end of YESOO without a vowel (YESOO') which is strange because it is very hard to utter even for a person who can make a gutteral ayin sound.

And Arabic ended up strangely calling Abraham IBRAHIM while ISAAC is IS'HAK, And Moses in Arabic is MUSA instead of MUSHA and MOUSES in Greek.

Anyway, the discrepancy about IESOUS is what we call in the Talmud a KUSHIYA, a "difficulty" in need of an unobvious answer/explanation (as opposed to a SHE'ELA which is merely a query).

Of course the other kushiya is why the name Yochanan in Greek in the Tanach is IOANAN but in the NT IOANNIS.

Duvduv

For this thread that few people are apparently interested in, the Arabic version of the Tanach refers to Joshua as YASHU'A and in the NT to Jesus as YASU'A, as opposed to the name ISA used in the Quran (and Mary and Miriam are both called Maryam).
Apparently Arabic verses of the NT also follow the system of creating a new name for Jesus which originated as the same name for all persons named Joshua/Yehoshua.

Sheshbazzar

I can well relate to these name altering practices. My legal given name is Jessie. It is a homonym of my mothers name 'Bessie'.

I have often been told that my name in Spanish is 'Je'sus' (hey'sooce) I recall one situation in particular where when I explained to a Spanish speaking Hispanic co-worker that my name was pronounced as 'Jessie' so as to rhyme with my mothers name 'Bessie', he became very upset _as that FACT simply did not fit within the normal practices and usages of his language.
The upshot being that I brought in a Spanish language Bible and pointed out that even there the name JESSE and the name JESUS appeared in both Old and New testaments of the Spanish Bible and were obviously distinctively different names.
Not to him apparently however, the names JESSE and JESUS were both 'Hey'sooce'!
The matter was irresolvable. He went on his way insisting that my name IS 'Je'sus'-'Hay'sooce' in Spanish. And me, in honor of my mothers name, insisting that my name is JESSIE (as you would pronounce JESSIE in English) in every language on earth. As no other honors my mothers name, for which I was named.
(She died when I was a young child, so I am quite protective of her memory. (of which I and my name are her living memorial)
My friends learn my name, and learn how to pronounce it respectfully, as my mother, father, and my family always have. I don't change my name every time I cross over a border, or enter into another country or culture.

One of my dearest Arab-American 2nd cousins is named 'IBRAHIM', that is what his his parents named him, and that is how both they and he spell it and pronounce it, here, there, and everywhere.
I certainly would never be so culturally presumptuous and crude as to insist that his name is, or ever anywhere ought to be 'Abraham'. And I don't believe anyone else should either.
(My name is 'JESSIE' in Hebrew also, and DOES NOT become 'IESSAI')

So I'm not the least bit impressed with arguments about -Greek- or -Latin- variations of the name יהושע
All that matters is correctly transliterating this Hebrew name directly into English, skipping over any Greek, Latin, Arabic, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Swahili or any other weird popular nationalistic variation that has ever been cooked up.

Duvduv

All I am trying to (so far unsuccessfully) understand is why the name Iesous was used instead of the name Ieosua/Iesua, and why it emerged as a separate name in Latin and English from Iosue and then Joshua and Jeshua after starting out as the same name for all Joshuas in the original Greek. In fact the correct name for the Christ even in English usage based on Greek renderings of the OT and NT should in fact be Joshua.

Sheshbazzar

Far as I've ever been able to detect, these name changes (including my own) are simply matters of what was 'customary' practice in a particular language/culture.

English is loaded with them. How ever do we derive the names 'Bill' or 'Billy' from 'William'? or 'Ted' from 'Edward'? :huh:
And how would you explain that change to anyone totally unfamiliar with English customs?

My youngest brother was named 'Edward Junior.' at birth. (there never was any 'Edward Senior' in our family. Dad's name was 'Jacob')
Mom had simply always wanted a son named 'Edward Junior' The name appealed to her, so that is what she chose for the name of her last child.
BUT 'Edward Junior' has went by the name 'David' every since he was old enough to write, and his legal name of record has always been 'David', even though on his Birth Certificate it is given as 'Edward Junior'.
Does this make any sense? Hell no, It is just a fact of a family peculiarity, but no one would ever be correct to insist that my brother David's name should really be 'Harvey'.

Duvduv

Well, is there any evidence anywhere that anyone in the 1st century CE or thereafter would be called Yeshua rather than Yehoshua as a given name in Jewish sources? I haven't found any. All Talmudic rabbis with that name are called Yehoshua. Here are the English name:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/ar...im-and-amoraim
Joshua b. Akiba
Joshua b. Bathyra
Joshua ha-Garsi
*Joshua b. Hananiah
Joshua b. Hyrcanus
Joshua b. Jonathan
Joshua b. Kaposai
*Joshua b. Ḳarḥa
Joshua b. Mamal
Joshua b. Matthias
*Joshua b. Peraḥyah
Joshua b. Ziruz
Joshua (brother of Dorai; P)
Joshua b. Abba
*Joshua b. Abin (P)
Joshua b. Benjamin
Joshua b. Beri (P)
Joshua b. Boethus
Joshua of Gizora (P; 4)
Joshua b. Idi
*Joshua (ha-Kohen) b. Nehemiah (P)
*Joshua b. Levi
Joshua b. Levi b. Shalum
Joshua b. Marta (B; 1)
Joshua b. Naḥman
*Joshua b. Nehemiah
Joshua of Ona (P)
Joshua b. Pedaya
*Joshua of Shiknin
Joshua of the South
Joshua b. Tanḥum
Joshua b. Timi (P)
Joshua of 'Uzza
Joshua b. Zidal (P; 1)

Sheshbazzar

But then they were not Greeks. I suspect that if you could locate Greek language references to these individuals, that the spellings of their names would be 'adjusted' so as to conform Greek conventions. It would be interesting if the Greek transliteration of these names ever at all came across as 'Yehoshua'.

After all there are many Jewish Hebrew names that continued to contain the theophonic 'yahu' or 'yaho' element.
To the best of my knowledge there was/is no prohibition on the clear pronunciation of יָהּ 'YAHH' (הַלְלוּ יָהּ "hallelu YAHH" Psalms 111:1 etc.)
Or the pronunciation of theophonic element יָהוּ as in the name יִרְמְיָהוּ 'Y'rem'YAHU' ('JeremYAHU' > 'Jeremiah') The ban was/is only upon the pronunciation of HaShem 'in particular' יהוה
If Judaism developed any such phobias about the name יהושע it would have only been as a late response to Christianities claims upon that name.

Duvduv

If the fellow Jesus was a Jew in Judea then it stands to reason that the name known would have been Yehoshua. Other Jews living there named Yehoshua did not go by the short form Yeshua in the 1st century CE, and in any case the Greek convention based on what we have seen with other Hebrew names in Greek (Iakob, Abraam, Yoanan, Mariam, etc.) should have come out as Ieosoua.

I just remembered about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachia who was the teacher of Yeshu ben Pandera in the 1st century BCE according to the Talmud. Even he was Yehoshua. In fact, Yeshu is said to have actually been Yeshua but he dropped the letter ayin. I would go one step further and suggest that his birth name in the 1st century BCE would also have been Yehoshua, but the letter heh itself was dropped in reference to him as a negative connotation.