Saturday, May 14, 2011

CURMDUDGEON PEEVE - GIVE THE RABBI SOME PROPS

This is yet another new theme - Pet Peeves.  As with most pet peeves, mine will most likely be trivial and idiotypic.  This pretty much sums up my first peeve:



My opinion is that if folks are going to identify themselves as followers of someone, they should have the respect to call the person by his or her given name.  Let me quote from the Nazarene Way:

"Yeshua is the original Aramaic proper name for Jesus the Nazarene, who lived from about 6 B.C.E. to 27 C.E. (A.D.) The word "Jesus" is actually a mis-transliteration of a Greek mis-transliteration. It is most proper to call Him Yeshua. It was indeed his proper name, given to him by his parents, and only in Hebrew does this name have any meaning. In Hebrew Yeshua means both "Salvation," and the concatenated form of Yahoshua, is "Lord who is Salvation." The name Jesus has no intrinsic meaning in English whatsoever. The first letter in the name Yeshua ("Jesus") is the yod. Yod represents the "Y" sound in Hebrew. Many names in the Bible that begin with yod are mispronounced by English speakers because the yod in these names was transliterated in English Bibles with the letter "J" rather than "Y". This came about because in early English the letter "J" was pronounced the way we pronounce "Y" today.


Today's tradition of pronouncing His completely hellenized name as "Jesus" has indeed obscured His true name, "Yeshua," and has shifted its perceived meaning much like most of His original teachings. Even His name, it would seem, became a part of this understanding. The name Jesus or Jesus Christ is often used in everything from idle conversation, to bumper stickers and jewelry, to enforcing false teachings, to justifying wars and political agendas, and is even used as a profanity. The name Yeshua however, has remained pure and holy, known and used only by those who would uphold His name and teachings in the highest regard and thus reserving His holy name for use only in spiritual matters and the most humbled and sincere of prayer and obeisances."

Get with it xians.

2 comments:

Bizzy Brain said...

I saw big time arguments on the internet on whether or not the name should be properly spelled Yeshua or Yashua. Yeshua seems to have won out.

DES said...

And another version is Y'shua. Interestingly, Joshua would be closer as an English traslation.