Joined: 6/28/2007(UTC) Posts: 1,030 Location: Palmyra, VA
|
I tend to cut the Greeks and Latins a little slack in their transmittal of the Messiah's name, for the simple reason that neither language was equipped to handle it---neither had a "Y" sound or a "sh" sound, both of which are essential. That being said, we English speakers have all of the requisite vowels, consonants and dipthongs, leaving us with no excuse not to revert back to the original pronounciation of His name. My problem is, I don't know for sure whether Mary called Him Yahshua, Y'shua, or Yahushua when she called Him for supper. I've settled on Yahshua, but I have no idea if I'm right. Perhaps a quote (sorry: it's lengthy) from the first chapter of Future History will help to explain how we got into this linguistic mess. Getting out of it, however, takes only a little courage, a little knowledge, and a little willingness to do the right thing in the face of half a millennium of errant English tradition. Anyway... Quote:Even though the whole western world and every popular English Bible translation calls the Messiah “Jesus,” I have taken the liberty of using His real name, the name his mother called Him: Yahshua (alternately pronounced Yahushua. The often-used short forms, Y’shua, Yeshua, or Yahsu, are corruptions which disguise the meaning of the Name). Yahshua means “Yahweh is salvation.” The English word “Jesus” is not a translation; it is a transliteration of a transliteration, and it has lost every shred of its original meaning.
How did we get from point A (Yahshua) to point C (Jesus)? The standard reference books will tell you that there are several forms of the word translated “Jesus” in the New Testament, and they’re all singular, masculine nouns...In Greek, as in most languages, nouns (including names) must agree in case, number, and gender with the adjectives that modify them. The word we know as “Jesus” is found in five different cases in the New Testament, three of which share the same form; the remaining two have different endings.
Ίησου̃ (pronounced E-aý-sū) is in the genitive case, which denotes description, possession, or relationship.
Ίησου̃ (E-aý-sū). The second case (which looks like the genitive) is dative, used when its nouns or pronouns have the function of an indirect object. The vocative case (the case of address) also takes this same Greek form.
Ίησου̃ν (E-aý-soon). The accusative case sounds a little different. There are six distinct types, but basically, they function as the direct object of the verb. The last form is Ίησου̃ς (E-aý-soos), the nominative case (used where the subject is producing the action). There are five separate nominative types.
As complicated as all this may look, the reality is far worse. Greek is extremely complicated, and is therefore capable of transmitting quite subtle nuances of meaning. Unlike English, however, Greek nouns, pronouns, and adjectives—including names—don’t stay put. As we have seen, they change to fit the case, gender, and number of the sentence. But the lexical form of a noun or adjective—i.e., the form found in a lexicon or Greek dictionary—is always the nominative singular form, in this instance Ίησου̃ς (E-aý-soos). Hence the alternate forms Ίησου̃ (E-aý-sū) and Ίησου̃ν (E-aý-soon), as well as other possible forms, would never show up in standard reference works like Strong’s or Thayer’s.
Note therefore: (1) The genitive, dative, and vocative case of the Greek word rendered “Jesus” in our English texts, Ίησου̃ (Iesou, prounounced E-aý-sū), is about as good a transliteration of the short form of Yahshua, “Yahsu,” as you can get in Greek, and makes for a passable transliteration in Latin as well: “Iesu.” In Greek, the final “ah” syllable of “Yahshua” would never appear because the case designation would be lost. Note also that there is no “Y” sound in Koine Greek, nor is there a “sh” sound. (2) The nominative form Ίησου̃ς (Iesous, pronounced E-aý-soos) is the obvious origin of the transliteration that eventually emerged in English, “Jesus.” The Latin “I” transformed over time into a “hard I” and only later into the new letter “J”. As a matter of fact, the Authorized version of the English Bible (a.k.a. the King James Version) used the name “Iesus” from 1611 through 1628; “Jesus” did not appear until the 1629 edition, and we’re not positive how that was pronounced. Considering the drift of pronunciation modes of European languages, especially the ambivalent use of “J” versus “Y” sounds in Germanic and Scandinavian tongues, it could have been pronounced Yesus as easily as Jesus. The transformation therefore seems natural and logical: Yahshua…to Ίησου̃ς (E-aý-soos)…to Iesu/Jesu (Latin)…to Iesus… to Jesus. kp
|