When people hear that the savior‘s name is not Jesus, they quickly react instead of thinking about it. And the response is almost always “Jesus is His English name, and we speak English so we call Him, Jesus.“ No more to say about it and definitely no more to think about it.

This sort of thinking ignores the long history of how Christianity has taught us to be treating the name of Jesus. We were taught all along that this name itself is holy and powerful and good, and salvation and healing are found in no other name than Jesus… But when we found out, it was not the right Name then we, were expected to forget everything we’ve been saying about it so far and just decide that it is not as important as we have been saying all along.

But perhaps worse, is the fact that our Christians preachers say that it’s not really about the actual word itself, but the idea behind it or the authority in it or something of the sort, and then proceed to and expect us to keep treating the name, Jesus, as if it were still that all-powerful moniker applied to Him all along.

And feeling justified that Jesus is just an English version of the Hebrew Name, Yeshua, they stick with the fake name instead.

But language does not work this way.

Words from one language do transform from culture to culture and language to language, yes, but not in that way.

Someone named Peter may be referred to by a Spanish-speaking person as Pedro or vice versa but Peter is Peter and not Pedro in actuality. And contrary wise, if he was named Pedro and someone called him, Peter while the connection is understandable, and not necessarily incorrect, it is still not true to say that Pedro is actually Peter. The name may be the one that is appropriately applicable by corresponding connection, but not directly. Because while words can move from one language to another by adoption and pronunciation, we do not change when being addressed by each language and culture. A Spanish-speaking person may see someone named Peter and think of them as Pedro, but they don’t become Pedro even if they are referred to as Pedro , not naturally so. The same is true of Yeshua. He is not Yeshua in Hebrew, and then becomes Jesus in English. On the contrary, if we are calling him, Jesus, we are applying to him our own understanding, culture, and language .

And while He obviously understands all languages and cultures that doesn’t mean whatever language and culture we want to apply to Him is true of Him.

What it does mean is that we have a deep need to make Him more like us, so we give Him a new name and new characteristics reflective of our own ideals.

If we call him, Jesus, as a colloquialism or a nickname or some other sort of grammatically acceptable reference, a title perhaps, that’s not necessarily so bad.

But if meaning it as His true Name or as if His Name shapeshifts to fit our desires or as if His Name doesn’t really matter, then we are being even more intellectually dishonest, because we are not making a one for one transliteration such as from Peter to Pedro. But instead, we are adopting as the actual name of our savior, the version of a version of another version of yet another version and calling what’s leftover at the end the actuality.

A one for one translation would be Joshua if we truly needed to anglosize with an existing English name. Joshua is already an existing name straight from Hebrew, Yehoshua; the Y hardened to J and the rest shortened with the O instead of the E. Though according to the rules of transliteration technically Yeshua is itself a perfectly good English word aswell as Hebrew, since we have the exact letters and sounds in our language to replicate the original and no grammatical rules requiring our altering the sound.

So why are we so attached to this alternative version (of a version of another version of yet another version)? And why are we taught to overlook our own innate hypocrisy in insisting upon it when Joshua would be a more accurate English version than Jesus and fit with the claim we’ve declared?
And if we are going to try to be more accurate and intellectually honest in calling Him, Joshua, why not go all the way to calling Him by His actual Name of Yeshua?

It’s well worth asking the questions of ourselves?

Question Everything
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