Q. Why is the Son of God called Jesus, that is, Saviour?
A. Because He saves us from all our sins, and because salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else.
Yeshua in Hebrew
Theological: Jesus’ name is a significant clue to who he is and what he came to do. Yeshua (in Hebrew and Aramaic) means “the Salvation of Yah” or “Yahweh’s salvation.” This comes to be quite obscured through the years and through various languages. Let’s see if we can’t track some of this down. First, the Greek transliteration of Yeshua is Iēsoûs. (A transliteration is merely a signifying the sounds of one language in the letters of another. For example: the word Hallelujah is a transliteration of the Hebrew word, but “You all, praise Yahweh” is the translation of the same word.) As I was saying, the Hebrew/Aramaic “Yeshua” was transliterated into Greek (in the NT) as “Iēsoûs,” which in turn is transliterated into Latin as “Iesus.” It comes into English from the Latin as Jesus, which is a far cry from Yeshua, especially as Jesus doesn’t immediately convey the meaning of Yahweh’s salvation.
Practical: Something that’s perceived as especially impractical, I will argue is both nearly necessary and highly practical: knowledge of the original biblical languages. Now, I say this is a near necessity and highly practical for ministers especially, but not necessarily for other folks. I think that some knowledge of the languages can be helpful (and hurtful) to everyday Christians, but it is one of the main tools of a minister of the Word. Let me put it this way: I read a lot of scholarship on Dante in college. Every Dante scholar read Italian. A fellow’d get laughed to scorn if he pretended to be a serious Dante scholar and didn’t have a working knowledge of the language in which Dante wrote. How much more important is this for ministers of the Sacred Word? I say this with some pangs of guilt, as I’ve let Hebrew slip more than I’d like to admit. My Greek is workable, but it could be a whole lot better, too. In any event, this is an encouragement to ministers and preachers, to counselors and teachers: set a course of study for yourself and find a study partner. Let’s get more serious about the WORDS of Scripture, so we can more ably minster the Word of Scripture.
Sadly, so it is that the multitudes follow the “imag”ined pagan catholic/christian ‘jesus’ on the broadway to destruction” ;-(
Francis, welcome to my blog. Not entirely sure what you’re after, but we don’t follow the Christian Jesus, there really wasn’t such a person. We follow the Jew named Jesus, the one who inaugurated a New Covenant in his blood. As Calvinists, we’re not too hot on images of Jesus either. Maybe you weren’t going there… I dunno.
Good word, tim.
You are right, we don’t follow some christian dude with flowing blond hair and striking features who wore a toga, but the Jew who fulfilled the Law to the letter.
I believe my eyes were opened to the Gospel when I was taught the meaning of His name. I can point to that moment and say that I was convicted and exposed, and before that I had never been able to comprehend the meaning of Salvation.