Understand that I was reading 1 Maccabees for the very first time, from the DR in iPieta. I was a little shocked! Is Jesus that close to Joshua in translation? What’s behind this?
Well, the short answer is: it’s because the names ‘Jesus’ and ‘Joshua’ have the same origin.
Yeshua was a common name among Jews of the Second Temple Period, and is thought by some to be the Hebrew or Aramaic name for Jesus. It was common that extant literature we have (say, the Bible itself, as well as other works such as Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls) mentions several individuals with this name. In fact, instances of the name were found 71 times in burial caves from that time period.
The name
Yeshua (transliterated in the English Old Testament as Jeshua) is a late form of
Yehoshua (‘Joshua’), spelled with a letter
vav in the second syllable. Late Biblical Hebrew spellings for earlier names often contracted the theophoric element
Yeho- to
Yo-: for example,
Yehochanan is often contracted to
Yochanan (which BTW is the origin of the name ‘John’, through the Greek transliteration
Iōannes). However, there is no name (aside from Yehoshua) in which
Yeho- became
Ye-.
In the Septuagint and other Greek-language Jewish texts, such as the writings of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, Ἰησοῦς (
Iēsous) is the standard form used to translate both
Yehoshua and
Yeshua. It is also used to represent the name of ‘Joshua’ son of Nun in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 (It was also used in the Septuagint to translate the name
Hoshea in one of the three verses where this referred to Joshua the son of Nun: Deut. 32:44).
Here’s a (not comprehensive) list of the references to the names
Yehoshua/
Yeshua (or to people whose original names are thought to come from this) in the Bible:
1.) Joshua son of Nun
2.) Joshua of Beth-Shemesh, owner of the field in which the Ark rested after its return from the land of the Philistines (1 Samuel 6:14,18)
3.) Jeshua the head of the 9th course of priests, and possibly of “the house of Jeshua” (1 Chronicles 24:11; Ezra 2:36; Nehemiah 7:39)
4.) Jeshua, a Levite of Hezekiah’s time (2 Chronicles 31:15)
5.) Jeshua son of Jozadak = Joshua the high priest (Ezra 2:2; 3:2,8; 4:3; 5:2; 10:18; Nehemiah 7:7; 12:1,7,10,26; Sirach 49:12)
6.) Jeshua of Pahath-moab, some of whose descendants returned from Babylon to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel (Ezr 2:6; Nehemiah 7:11) = “Jesus” (1 Esdras 58)
7.) Jeshua, head of a Levitical house which had oversight of the workmen in the temple (Ezra 2:40; 3:9; Nehemiah 7:43). He is mentioned again in Nehemiah 8:7 as taking part in explaining the Torah to the people, in Neh 9:4 f (compare 12:8) as leading in the worship, and in 10:9 (10) as sealing the covenant; this Jeshua is called
son of Azaniah (Nehemiah 10:9)
8.) Jeshua father of Ezer, a repairer of the wall (Nehemiah 3:19)
9.) Jesus (
Iēsous) son of Sirach
10.) Jesus (
Iēsous) of Nazareth
11.) [Jesus] (
Iēsous) Barabbas (Matthew 27:15-18)
