Spaz

Can somebody tell me (or link me to) what the actual names in the bible are? I've always wondered that, and how come the names were anglocized? Couldn't they have just used the actual names?

Writer@Large

Here is the only source of use I could dig up [warning, it's a preaching site]. I'm sure there's a more complete list somewhere, but this gives a lot of the major ones, and some explanations:

Yeshua=Jesus
Miryam=Mary
Yoseff=Joseph
Moshe=Moses

It's a start. As for why they did it? Part of it may be for the same reasons most every church in America depicts Jesus as a white European with wavy brown hair. But also, there's translation issues and language corruption and such. Here's a neat explanation for the "Jesus" name.

--W@L

Spaz

Thanks

I would think that with something with such importance as a religion that they'd try to stick to the real thing, but I guess that's just wishful thinking

callmejay

Names always get mangled in translation. I don't think there's necessarily a plot behind it. Why in the US do we call Spain Spain and not Espana? On a side note, growing up an Orthodox Jew, I didn't always know the English versions of Biblical names and it really threw me off sometimes. ("Who is this Esau everybody keeps talking about? Ohhhhh, Aysav!")

Also, if you want to know any specific names from the OT, I might be able to help you out.