Rhea

Thanks. I'm hoping for more.


Because it is not like Yesua is _difficult_ to pronounce or anything. Or Miryam, for that matter. Or Saul.


I don't understand why one would transliterate when it wasn't difficult to say in the first place.


Nor do I understand why they wouldn't want to correct it once they know the original.


Too much trouble to work out the correct pronunciation of the God's name? eek. You'd think of ANYONE whose name you'd work at pronouncing correctly, your GOD'S name would be kind of high up on the list.

Toto

?

Beijing is the modern spelling for the phrase that means "Northern capitol". Peking is the same phrase in a different spelling system based on a different dialect.

But back to your main point, the gospels were not written in Hebrew or Aramaic - they were written in Greek, and Jesus is the transliteration of the name. Ye'shua is just an attempt to re-Judaize the gospels.

Ovazor

But quite a number of historical classical names have been anglicized. For example, we see movies and plays about Mark Anthony, not Marcus Antonius.

Rhea

Toto, thanks for the correction on Beijing. I had always assumed the change was to "correct" us.


So you're saying that they changed it to Iesous (or at least, away from Yeshua) when it was first written down for the first time? So that brings me to part two: when one realizes they've had it wrong all this time - one doesn't have the desire to fix it?

Apparently not. This confuses me. It may be perfectly reasonable, but I find it confusing. It's their GOD whose name they changed.

...

Ovazor - true some are. Some are, some aren't. I personally find a movie or book more convincing and more transporting (if you know what I mean) when they use the original. The mark/marcus difference, for exapmle, is present in various texts, isn't it? Not ALL references in English to the historical figure use the anglicization.

And therein, I suppose, lies my confusion. Isn't the bible supposed to be convincing and transporting? And wouldn't you try to be "historical" with your RELIGION?


Or is it just like any other story? Even to them? That it's no different from mark Anthony, that is.

Rhea

I'm trying to honestly open and read here, thanks for your patience.


What I'm saying is, since we aren't Greeks, why would we use greek?

In any case of transliteration, why would you allow yourself to change the change, if you have any knowledge of the original?

If you were concerned about preserving History or Truth, why would you move another step further from the original - if you knew the original existed?



all of this is academic. Obviously people DO it. It just seems if I were a Christian that I'd be uncomfortable with it and I'm trying to figure out why others aren't.

Toto

I'm not clear on your objection. The gospels were written in Greek, so they used Greek words and the Greek forms of names. They used IESOUS because Greek does not have an 'sh' sound and that was as close as they could get to YESHUA, and because the added a Greek masculine noun ending to it for grammatical purposes.

For the Jews, the actual name of God is too holy to be uttered, so an indirect reference or the tretragrammaton is used.

Jesus is the same as Joshua or Ye'shua, and can be translated as Savior or YHWH saves.

Since Christians at least claim to be beyond belief in the magical power of names, it is not clear why you think that they should prefer the name to be in one language or another. It is only Messianic Jews who are trying to recast the gospels back into a Jewish form (that was not there to begin with!) who think that there is some significance to using Ye'shua

Rhea

Thanks for your patience.


My objection is:
What was the guy's name? and are they using it.


What name did his mother give him? How would he have pronounced his own name?


Perhaps we don't know the answer to any of that. Then anything goes and we might as well take as the best offering the attempts of someone in another language to render the name as best they could.


But all that is moot if the guy had a name and we know how he pronounced it.



...


And further - the same for Maryam. What was the greek excuse there? No "am"? How about Saul/Paul?


It seems to this unlearned observer (note openness to learn / admission that I don't know - I'm asking) that they were ALL changed, whether they were easy to pronounce or not. And that we KNOW what they were ORIGINALLY and willfully are choosing to not use them.

Mediancat

Wish granted.

Rob aka Mediancat

Rhea

I don't see why you would say those are the same.


Would it be normal for the world to write about Juan Kennedy?
How about Guillame Shakespeare?


They may be "equivalent" but they are not the same.
Merci and Gracias are equivalent. But they are not the same. They are two different languages.

Hazel-rah

I think the answer to your question, Rhea, is habit and ease of pronunciation. Kinda like loanwords, I guess.

We say Christopher Columbus, after all, and Copernicus, which are both latinized names only marginally resembling the originals.

I agree that it seems slightly more... flippant, I suppose, to go with altered names in something as important as your religion. But in Japanese Christianity (at least the kind I was exposed to), they use names like "Johann" instead of "John," because [yo-han] is easier for them to say.