The Greek Jesus

Jesus was a JEW! So, tell me, how have we Westerners turned Jesus (even the name) into a Greek? The Bible as we Amerians know it, is a Greek document, and thus we turn to Greek interpreters for meaning (Zodhiates); yet Jesus was a Jew. How does that work? Have you ever asked yourself why a Jew would give their Jewish Messiah a Greek name? Whats up with that?

Jesus is a Greek name and the name was selected because it has a numerical value of 888 which in Greek is the number of the mythical sun. No wonder Constantine was a sun-worshipper and at Nicea determined much of how the Bible would evolve. I'm sure if fundamentalists knew that, they wouldn't be happy. How many of those "End Times" books with those 666 chips in our forehead or hand would have to be rewritten?

Bummer. NOT!   :-)

The Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew with a few short elements in Aramaic. However, about 300 years BC, Greek became the dominant language, thus, the Old Testament became a Greek document, which was known as the Septuagint. That word means 70 because there were supposed to be 72 translaters, 6 from each of the 12 tribes.

The language of much of the early Christian church was Greek, and it was in the Septuagint text that many early Christians located the prophecies they claimed were fulfilled by Christ. Jews, on the other hand stated that this was a misuse and mistranslation of scripture, and they stopped using the Septuagint. From then on the Jews followed a different translation back to Hebrew, but the Christians continued on with the Greek. 

Of course we think we've got every EXACT word RIGHT even though we have not one original manuscript, and we're not even using the original language. Isn't this insane?

The ENGLISH name of Jesus is a transliteration of the GREEK name "Iesous". The use of the name "Iesous" in place of the HEBREW name "Yeshua". "Iesous" was a fully accepted equivalent name for the Hebrew name "Yeshua" and was certified to be so in the Old Testament Greek translation by 70 Jewish scholars! The Greek form of a Hebrew name comes from Jewish history - Joshua, the successor of Moses, and Jeshua, the high-priest, who was with Zerubbabel.

In the original Greek text, we do not find the name Jesus (gee-zuss). We find the name Ihsouv. Although most english speaking people presently do so, you do not pronounce this name as "gee-zuss". IESOUS is pronounced as "yeah-sooce". How did we get the word-name, "gee-zuss"?  Are you ready for this?  :-)

There is no letter J (or equilevent sounding letter) in Greek. The letter J did not exist until about 450 years ago. It is the last letter to be added to the Latin alphabet and was ultimately adopted into the common english language. The new sound that gradually developed (probably under influence of english-speaking German Lutherans) became much closer to the G than the, I. In fact, in some cases the letter J sounds similar to the letter G, however this is clearly a complete deviation from the intended purpose of the letter J. The J was supposed to sound like the, I, and the, I sounded like Y. The J therefore is supposed to sound like the Y.

Enough already!

Bottom line? Isn't our purpose and destiny to BECOME the Christos? Rather than getting caught up in the minutia of what verb tense carries great doctrinal weight, and thinking that "every word" is the inerrant and infallible word of God, shouldn't we just BE: the Christos, love, and the I AM?