There are a lot of lies being spread around the internet about the name “Jesus” and
I felt it was necessary to address these issues because they are bringing shame to the name
of our Messiah. It's time to UNLEARN the lies.
UNLEARN
Hey, welcome to UNLEARN. My name is Lex, and I'd like to invite you to join us each week
as we UNLEARN the lies and dig deeper into the truth of God's Word. Now, let's get started.
The English name “Jesus” is a transliteration of the Greek name “Iesous”, which is a
transliteration of the Hebrew name “Yeshua”.
How did Yeshua become Iesous? The "Ie" represents the "Y" sound, the "s" represents the "sh"
sound, and the "ou" represents the "ua" sound, and the “s” at the end makes it masculine.
It’s impossible to write the name "Yeshua" in Greek. The closest you could spell it would
be "Iesua" which is a feminine name, so the “s” is added to make it masculine.
If you transliterate Yeshua from Hebrew into English you get “Joshua.”
If you transliterate Iesous from Greek to English you get “Jesus.”
Thus, the English names “Joshua” and “Jesus” are essentially the same.
The name Iesous was used in Greek, Latin, and English until the 17th century, when the
letter “J” was introduced as a replacement for the letter “I” when used as a consonant,
and thus His name became “Jesus.”
Some people claim that changing the name from Yeshua to Iesous was a grand conspiracy to
change the name of our Messiah, but the fact is, the Septuagint was translated more than
a hundred years before Messiah was born, and they used the name Iesous.
The only way to spell "Yeshua" in Greek is "Iesous”, which is why the Jewish scholars
who translated the Septuagint used “Iesous” when translating both Yeshua and Yehoshua
into Greek. Anyone who has studied Biblical languages understands this and can verify
that what I am saying is true.
That being said, there is a lot of misinformation and lies going around regarding the name of
our Messiah, and I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous theories about the name “Jesus”.
For example, some people claim that the name “Jesus” really means “hail Zeus”,
which is completely untrue and proves they’ve never actually studied Greek.
This theory was popularized by Lew White in his book "Fossilized Customs.” According
to Lew White, the name "Iesous" really comes from "Ie" meaning "to hail/praise" and "Sous"
being another name for Zeus. There is absolutely no scholarly evidence to support this claim,
and anyone who has ever studied Greek can verify that there is absolutely no connection
between the names Jesus and Zeus.
People make this claim because the words “Jesus” and “Zeus” sound similar in English. However,
in Greek, there are no connections between these two names. If you compare the two names
in Greek, you’ll see they have nothing in common.
Zeus in Greek is written as (Zee-us) Ζεύς and spelled zeta-epsilon-upsilon-sigma
Jesus in Greek is written as (Yay-soos) Ἰησοῦς and the “sous” is spelled sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma
As you can see, these names are very different.
There are two words in Koine Greek for "hail or praise“:
χαίρω - “chairo” which means "rejoice" or "be glad"
καλώ - “kalo” which means "to call" or "to hail"
Neither of these words are present in the name Iesous. So, you can see that this claim
is easily proven false.
Another ridiculous theory I’ve heard is that the Greek name “Iesous” means “horse
in Hebrew”, because the Hebrew word for horse is sus. They’re taking a Greek word
and claiming it has a Hebrew definition based on a similar sounding pronunciation. Not only
is this completely false, but it’s also very offensive.
The Hebrew word for horse is spelled סוס (samekh-vav-samekh), but if we backwards transliterated
the name Iesous from Greek to Hebrew it would be spelled with the letter shin (ש) and not
samekh (ס), and “sus" spelled שוש (shin-vav-shin) means “rejoice" and "exult.” So, if you
really want a Hebrew meaning for a Greek word, then "rejoice" is the proper version of “sus”
in this situation. However, that’s not the proper way to look for a definition of a word.
Greek is not Hebrew, and we shouldn’t try to define Greek words based on a similar sound
in Hebrew. We don’t do this with other languages. We don’t try to define English words based
on how similar they are to Chinese words. For example, in English, the word “book”
refers to a document that is bound with a cover, but in Chinese the word book means
“can not or must not.” They sound the same, but they are spoken in two very different
languages and we shouldn’t confuse their meanings based on their similar sound. To
think such a thing is completely absurd.
Another claim I’ve heard people make is that the name Jesus in Latin means “earth
pig.” They say the word “Je” in Latin means “Earth”, and the word “sus”
means pig, and conclude that “Jesus” in Latin translates to “Earth pig.”
The first problem I see with this claim is they are taking the English spelling of the
word “Jesus” and saying it’s a Latin word. His name in Latin is Iesus (I E S U
S). So, to claim that “Je” in Latin means anything is ridiculous, since His name begins
with an “I” in Latin. Besides that, there’s no word, “Je” in Latin, and the Latin
word for “earth” is “terra.” So, the claim that “Je” means earth is completely
false.
The words for pig in Latin are “porcus”, “porcum”, and “sus” or “suis.”
So, it’s true that “sus” means pig, but claiming that three letters in a word
can be broken off into a definition is poor scholarship. If this were true then any word
in Latin that contains “sus” would have something to do with a pig. However, there
are many Latin words that contain “sus” that have nothing to do with pigs. For example,
“bellosus” means “warlike”, “casus” means “to be slain or to die”, “defensus”
means “to defend or protect” and “mersus” means “to dip or immerse”. All of these
words contain “sus”, yet none of these words have any connection to pigs at all.
Every one of these attempts to connect the name of Jesus to pagan gods and barn animals
is an attack on the Character and name of the Messiah. Stop spreading these lies! You’re
bringing shame to the name of our Messiah when you say such things.
We need to be careful about what we say about His name, because using the Lord’s name
in vain is a sin.
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless who takes His name in vain.” - Exodus 20:7
When we misuse, abuse, and lie about His name, we are dishonoring Him and bringing His name
to nothing. God will not be mocked, and He will not hold guiltless those who misuse His
name.
If you’ve ever said such blasphemous things about the name “Jesus”, then you need
to repent and seek forgiveness from Yeshua. You also need to go to everyone you’ve said
these things to and tell them you were wrong. Stop spreading lies about our Messiah, and
stop being so gullible that you would believe such nonsense.
I also want to address the claim that, you must pronounce His name a certain way to be
saved. Those people are treating His name like some sort of magic word that must be
said correctly if you want it to work. That’s not the way His name should be treated! Our
God is not so petty that He would reject someone for using the "wrong" name or for calling
on Him in a different language.
I prefer to call Him by His Hebrew name, Yeshua, but I don’t tell people they are wrong for
calling Him by the English transliteration, Jesus.
If you prefer not to use the name “Jesus” that's fine. Don't use it. But don't go around
spreading false information that it is somehow "evil" or "pagan”, and don’t tell people
it refers to some barnyard animal either.
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