Re The name of Jesus in the Bible

[BouncingBall]

Greetings to all.

I am debating some Messianic believers who claim that the word/name “Jesus” did not appear in the Bible before the 1600s. I know this is not true, but whenever I Google for the answer, very anti-Catholic websites come up.

Can anyone help me with this answer and where I may point them for reliable references? Thank you!

 

[Genesis315]

It’s just a translation thing. Kind of like how the name Charles in English is Carlos in Spanish. If you read a Bible in Latin, you won’t see “Jesus” either, you’ll see Iesus. Hebrew will have a different pronunciation, spelling, etc. I don’t know the history of all the different langauges’ spellings and pronunciations, but it really is a non-issue whatever it may be…

Messianic’s are big into Hebrew which is probably why they make a big deal out of it.

 

[Snowball7]

yeah, that’s only because the letter “J” did not exist at all
until the 1600s. It was simply an “I” instead. (without the consonant j sound)

 

[BouncingBall]

Snowball, that is what I said! I guess I could scour the internetz for a scan of a Bible older than the year 1600. Sigh.

 

[PaulinePresbytr]

Greetings to all.

I am debating some Messianic believers who claim that the word/name “Jesus” did not appear in the Bible before the 1600s. I know this is not true, but whenever I Google for the answer, very anti-Catholic websites come up.

Can anyone help me with this answer and where I may point them for reliable references? Thank you!

Jesus is just an anglicanization of latin Iesus (I → J), which was the Romanization of the Greek Iesous (OU → U), which was the greek rendering of Yeshua (Y → I, SH → S because there was no sh sound in koine greek, and an adding of an s at the end for grammatical purposes)

 

[Mintaka]

If they don’t think the name Iesous or the name Iesu (or Jhesu, or Jhesus) are the same as Jesus, they are clearly more interested in Spelling than the Gospel. But they don’t seem to be much interested in the history of the Bible, or they’d fairly easily get hold of copies of the Vulgate, the Septuagint, the Vetus Latina stuff, etc… And of course the prophet Habakkuk notoriously called upon the name of Jesus before Jesus had ever been born, in Habakkuk 3:18.

Also, “Iesus” the son of “Sirac” is a fairly important guy, although of course Sirach doesn’t get to be in the Bible for most of these Protestant folks.

Anyway, I don’t see how they think St. Joan of Arc’s motto could possibly have been “Jhesus - Maria” unless medieval Europeans knew the name of Jesus. One of the oldest Old Irish poems, attributed to St. Ita, is found in the Felire Oengusso, is not only about Jesus but “Isucan” – little Jesus, baby Jesus. There’s an entire medieval devotional movement centered around the Holy Name of Jesus (mostly started up by St. Bernardine of Siena, who died in 1380).

Occasionally one really does run into medieval folks who shy away from using the name “Jesus” out of piety, just as one runs into medieval folks who love the name “Jesus” so much that they scarcely use His other titles. For example, there are some curious features of Old English translations of the Bible. Jesus is usually called “Haelend” or “Crist”, either out of shyness or because “Haelend” (savior/healer) is the closest translation to Jesus/Joshua (“God saves”), and because “Jesus” seems to have been hard for the Saxons to say. But “Iesus” does show up for the son of Sirach, no problema.

Sigh. Our American forebears would have laughed this kind of stuff to scorn, because even back in the rural waybacks and in the worst parts of town, they knew history better than this. We are so ignorant, these days.

 

[patrick457]

If they don’t think the name Iesous or the name Iesu (or Jhesu, or Jhesus) are the same as Jesus, they are clearly more interested in Spelling than the Gospel. But they don’t seem to be much interested in the history of the Bible, or they’d fairly easily get hold of copies of the Vulgate, the Septuagint, the Vetus Latina stuff, etc… And of course the prophet Habakkuk notoriously called upon the name of Jesus before Jesus had ever been born, in Habakkuk 3:18.

Also, “Iesus” the son of “Sirac” is a fairly important guy, although of course Sirach doesn’t get to be in the Bible for most of these Protestant folks.

You’re forgetting Iēsous Naue, aka Joshua son of Nun. The Fathers were very big on that connection.

Anyway, I don’t see how they think St. Joan of Arc’s motto could possibly have been “Jhesus - Maria” unless medieval Europeans knew the name of Jesus. One of the oldest Old Irish poems, attributed to St. Ita, is found in the Felire Oengusso, is not only about Jesus but “Isucan” – little Jesus, baby Jesus. There’s an entire medieval devotional movement centered around the Holy Name of Jesus (mostly started up by St. Bernardine of Siena, who died in 1380).

Occasionally one really does run into medieval folks who shy away from using the name “Jesus” out of piety, just as one runs into medieval folks who love the name “Jesus” so much that they scarcely use His other titles. For example, there are some curious features of Old English translations of the Bible. Jesus is usually called “Haelend” or “Crist”, either out of shyness or because “Haelend” (savior/healer) is the closest translation to Jesus/Joshua (“God saves”), and because “Jesus” seems to have been hard for the Saxons to say. But “Iesus” does show up for the son of Sirach, no problema.

Sigh. Our American forebears would have laughed this kind of stuff to scorn, because even back in the rural waybacks and in the worst parts of town, they knew history better than this. We are so ignorant, these days.

Speaking of which, the Name is spelled as Chesús in Aragonese, Gesù in Italian and Venetian, Gesùs in Sardinian and Xesús in Galician. Mirandese even has Jasus. I’ve read that the Navajo even call Him Doodaatsaahii ‘the one who does not die’.

 

[Ignatius]

Greetings to all.

I am debating some Messianic believers who claim that the word/name “Jesus” did not appear in the Bible before the 1600s.!

Since modern English didn’t exist until the 1600’s, the name wouldn’t have been the English name Jesus. It would depend on what lanaguage the translation was made.

 

[patrick8888]

This HRM gent says that ‘Iésous’ was not written a single time in the oldest Greek manuscripts. The scribes universally used place holders as Greek made it impossible to transliterated the names. This was done rather than blaspheme the names. Place holders are two or three capital letters with a line over them indicating deity. He directs me to : " The Text Of The Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts" by Comfort and Barrett .

Any one know this to be false?

 

[juliamajor]

No matter how the translation turned out, No one on the opposite side would ever think it was an accident, or lack of knowledge. No, it has to be some black nefarious thing that those evil Jesuits thought up.!

It’s a dang tempest in a teapot!

 

[patrick8888]

This HRM gent says that ‘Iésous’ was not written a single time in the oldest Greek manuscripts. The scribes universally used place holders as Greek made it impossible to transliterated the names. This was done rather than blaspheme the names. Place holders are two or three capital letters with a line over them indicating deity. He directs me to : " The Text Of The Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts" by Comfort and Barrett .

Any one know this to be false?

Slight correction: An HRM person stated the above to me. I do not believe this statement to be true.

I am looking to see IF there can be an adequate answer to this person.

 

[patrick457]

This HRM gent says that ‘Iésous’ was not written a single time in the oldest Greek manuscripts. The scribes universally used place holders as Greek made it impossible to transliterated the names. This was done rather than blaspheme the names. Place holders are two or three capital letters with a line over them indicating deity. He directs me to : " The Text Of The Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts" by Comfort and Barrett .

Any one know this to be false?

What he said is mostly true. This is a common Christian practice called nomina sacra, where certain Greek words that have a connotation of sacredness (such as ‘God’, ‘Lord’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’) are abbreviated rather than written out in full: so for example, XPICTOC (Christos - ‘Christ’) is written XC or XPC, and IHCOYC (Iesous - ‘Jesus’ is written IHC or IC. In fact, this is one of the tell-tale signs that a given manuscript is Christian (rather than say, Jewish) - because abbreviating the nomina sacra was an exclusively Christian practice.



skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/NominaSacra.html
larryhurtado.wordpress.com/?s=nomina+sacra

You might notice the same thing in Byzantine art. Note how in this mosaic, IHCOYC XPICTOC ‘Jesus Christ’ is abbreviated as IC XC.



In fact, the familiar IHS (or IHC or JHS = ‘Jesus’) is a sort of descendant of this practice.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

P.S. If this guy is claiming that just because the name ‘Jesus’ is abbreviated in early Christian manuscripts, we can’t be sure whether I(H)C really spells out IHCOYC (rather than some other name also involving those letters) in full, he’s assuming too much.