Quote:
Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa
Jesus was Hellenized not meaning He wandered about in a toga, crowned in laurels. Meaning that His language, His culture, His surroundings were majorly influenced by hundreds of years of Grecian influence since the time of Alexander. His language was Aramaic which was a foreign tongue to the Hebrew people adopted from their Assyrian, and Babylonian captivities.
When Alexander conquers the Middle East, and after his generals, the language again is influenced by Greek. Jesus quotes the LXX, Paul quotes the LXX. As far as anyone who refused to assimilate into the Greek culture, it was around far longer than 50 years. Jesus' apostle Phillip had a Greek name which couldn't be translated into Hebrew or Aramaic. There isn't a Hebrew name for the Friend of Horses.
When Jesus rebukes the Syrophoenician (Greek Syrian) by calling her an ankle biting dog. The phrase is totally Greek in origin. Jesus more than likely used it because it was a phrase used among the Greek Syrian people for anyone who was annoying. Yesha is found in your Strongs 3468, which the His name would of been Yesha because He would deliver, save His people. Iesous, and Iesus, are actually transliterations of Yesha, which was the earliest form of the later Yeshua, Yehoshua. In the LXX 300 years before the birth of Christ, the book of Joshua was called Iesous by the Hellenized Judeans of the Diaspora. Judaizing of the Gospels and the Church is nothing new, groups were busy and hard it for centuries. The Gospel wasn't to meant to stay in one geographical location, but in a language of the entire known world. It also wasn't meant to be Hebraized taking 2,000 years of His name to change it over candidates in baptism to make it sounds more authentic.
Don't get me wrong Birddog I love you and respect you as my friend, this is what I see as I study. The more I study, the more it gets even clearer. Ossuaries in Judea from the first century in Greek, and Aramaic. Judean rebel soldiers in the Bar-Kokhba Revolt only 65 years later, were unable to read messages of their leaders in Aramaic, but could only read messages in Greek.
So was Jesus smack in the middle of a Hellenized Hebrew world? I would have to emphatically say yes. Did He speak Greek? No doubt. Did His mother call Him Iesous? There is a great possibility she did. But even if she didn't, we have been baptizing, casting out demons, praying over our grits and eggs in Jesus name. 100s, even 1,000s of us. Making a name change to sound more Hebraic? Just makes little sense to ME. Yeshua, Yoshua, Yehoshua, Yesha, Yahavahsua, (I have heard some doozies) but the guess name this all over the place just depends on what Yahwist, Sacred Name, or Hebrew Roots group you deal with.
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Yes the world that Yeshua was born into was heavily influenced by the Greek culture, but the assimilation was not total.
How do we know that? Because the red sea scrolls evidence point to a culture that still had strong ties to the Hebrew language.
the Bible itself points to this connection, when Pilate wrote the accusation of Jesus on the cross in three languages, Greek, Hebrew and Latin.
Then we have many Hebrew and Aramaic phrases spoken by Yeshua scattered throughout the gospels.
In the book of Acts there was discord because of the Hellenized Jews being treated differently, which resulted in the creation of 7 deacons.
We are not making a name change to sound more Hebraic, we are simply returning to a more authentic Hebrew name, because Jesus was a Hebrew.
All the names that you mention are simply variations to the name Yeshua.
The name Michael, has variations Mike, Mikey, and some more.
The names James has variations Jim, Jimmy and some more.
As you can see from my usage, I have no problems using the more authentic name Yeshua or the poorly transliterated name Jesus, because we are referring to the same person, that is why I have no problem baptizing people using both names.
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