How the name Yahshua became Jesus

by Scott Nelson

The name, Yahshua

Did you know that if you could go back to the time of the twelve apostles, if you walked up to Peter and said, "Please, take me to see  Jesus Christ", Peter would get a puzzled look on his face and say the equivalent of, "Who, or what is that?"  Did you know that no one who followed Jesus was capable of accurately pronouncing in English the name "Jesus"? The truth is, if you  could go back in time, Peter would probably say something more like, "Come, let me introduce you to  Y'shua the Messiah."  

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her she was going to have a son and what the child's name was to be, (Luke 1:31) the sound of the name that Mary heard come from Gabriel's lips was very close to, if not exactly... "Yahushua" pronounced  Yah-hoo-shoo'-ah.  In modern Hebrew script, "Yahushua" looks like  and is read from right to left. This name is the blending of two Hebrew words. The first part, "Yah-ho", is part of God's name that is sometimes used at the beginning or end of a Hebrew name.  God's full name is likely pronounced "Yah-weh". More on this in a moment. The second part of the Messiah's name, "shua", is the Hebrew word for deliverance meaning, "saves".  The name "Yahushua" literally means Yahweh/God-saves.  The name Yahushua was then shortened for everyday use the same way a name like Barbara is often shortened to Barb (see the name parable), and the four syllable name Yahushua was shortened to three syllables, Yahshua. And in every day usage of the name, it came out even shorter and sounded like Y'shua.       

Today, to make Y'shua more English user-friendly, some Messianics have replaced the apostrophe with the letter "e" as a least pronounced vowel in the English language, rendering it as Yeshua. This version of the Messiah's name is one that I used for some time as well. But because the "e" is almost always over-pronounced, sounding like one is beginning to say the word "yes", and the emphasis wrongly placed on the second syllable, I now prefer to use the more correctly pronounced spelling of Yahshua. It is pronounced like "Joshua" with a "y". The emphasis should remain with God's name in the first syllable.  

The translation process....  Hebrew to Greek

Early on, when the Gospels were being written and the story of Yahshua the Messiah was spreading to the Gentile nations, the story had to be translated to Greek. There are two ways a Hebrew name can be brought across a language barrier. Hebrew names always carry a meaning, and one way is to  translate the name, which is bringing across the meaning of the name. The other method is the most common and is called a  transliteration, which is the bringing across of the sound of the name. If the translators of the Gospel story had  translated Yahshua's name down through history, we might well know him as "God-saves" today because that is what his name means.  

In the case of the name "Y'shua", the Greek speaking world did the best they could to transliterate his name. Usually, this involves a relatively easy process of swapping like sounding letters so a reader would end up making the same sound when pronouncing the name. In many cases this is not a problem. But in the case of the name "Y'shua" there are four problems in bringing it across to Greek. Two of them are the fact that the ancient Greek language did not contain two of the  sounds found in the name Y'shua. This may come as a surprise to English speaking people, but the fact is, the ancient Greek language did not contain any "y" sound as in "yes", nor did it have a "sh" sound as in "show". The closest sound a Greek speaking person could come to making a "y" sound was by putting the two Greek letters  Iota and Eta together and coming up with an "ee-ay" sound. And the closest a Greek speaking person could come to making the "sh" sound was the "s" sound made by the letter Sigma. With these two changes, "Y'shua", pronounced by a Greek speaking person would naturally come out sounding like  "ee-ay-soo-ah". The third problem with transliterating "Y'shua" is the fact that traditionally, masculine Greek names never ended in a vowel sound. Those that did were generally given the letter  Sigma or "s" as a suffix. This tradition was likely derived from the fact that the name of the Greek god  Zeus ended with Sigma. This tradition is seen in familiar Biblical names, where  Judah became Judas, Cephah (which means "rock") became Cephas, Apollo became Apollos, Barnabie became  Barnabas, Matthew became Matthias and so on. So "ee-ay-soo-ah" needed to become "ee-ay-soo-ah-s". The fourth problem is that the two vowel sounds before the "s" do not flow and are virtually never seen in Greek. So the last vowel sound was dropped as it was in other names, and we were left with  "ee-ay-soos".  Aside from the added tradition of giving the name a masculine sound, this is the closest a Greek speaking person could come to  transliterating the name Y'shua. Already by this point, the name Y'shua had lost all of it's meaning and 75% of its sound. The last vestige of it's sound was found in the "oo" (as in "soon") sound.  Yahshua was known as "ee-ay-soos" to the Greek speaking world for nearly 400 years. In Greek script, "ee-ay-soos" looks like , and like English, it is read from left to right.

 There are a number of differing schools of thought on what the true pronunciation of God's name might be other than "Yahweh" as mentioned above. Some believe it is "Yahu-eh", others believe it is "Jehovah". Consequently, there are many differing ideas as to what the Messiah's true original full name is. Some would say it is "Yahu-shua". Some take the (J) and the (O) from Jehovah and come up with "Joshua". Others, realizing there is no (J) sound in Hebrew, replace it with (Y), and come up with "Yeho-shua" and the list goes on and on. The differences are many and one could go on in a multi-paged discussion of the pros and cons of each theory. The point that needs to be made here is that whatever our Lord's full name was, it was obviously shortened to "Y'shua". Also, there is simply no possible way that anything longer than Y'shua could have become "ee-ay-soos". There would be too many syllables and sounds left unaccounted for. But in "ee-ay-soos" we can clearly see why it became thus and account for every sound and syllable. Along with this is the well established fact that shortening names in this way was common practice among the ancient Jewish people. So by working the transliteration process backwards, we can also see that the shortened name of "Y'shua" is a safe assumption to make and one that is acceptable to virtually all those who differ on the pronunciation of God's name.  

Continuing the translation process....  Greek to Latin

Around 400 A.D. the Latin language became the predominate language of Christianity and the Greek versions of the New Testament were translated to Latin. The Latin Bible, or  Vulgate as it is called, also transliterated  what was left of Yahshua's Greek name by bringing across the same sound of "ee-ay-soos". This was easy, because all of the Greek sounds in this name are also made in Latin. The letters of the Latin alphabet are different from that of Greek but virtually identical to English. The new transliteration of  the Greek name "ee-ay-soos" became written as and was identical in pronunciation to the Greek name. This Latin spelling and on-going pronunciation dominated the Christian world for nearly 1,000 years.  

The final translation....  Latin to English

Meanwhile, the English language was still evolving.  Before the 12th century, the letter ( J ) did not exist in the Old English language. The sound the letter ( J ) makes has never existed in the Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek or Latin languages. This fact is why no one in Yahshua's day could have accurately pronounced the English name Jesus. Sometime during the early 12th century, ( J ) began showing up in some obscure dialects of the Middle English language. Over the course of the next 500 years, infatuation with the new sound caused letters like ( I ) and (Y) in the English language to be replaced by a ( J ). This was especially true of male names that began with ( I ) or (Y) because the hard sound was, again, considered more masculine. Names like Iames  became "James", Yohan became "John", and so on.  During this period, in 1384  John Wycliffe translated the New Testament to English for the first time. His only source was the Latin Vulgate. Wycliffe continued to use the Latin spelling and pronunciation of Iesus. The printing press had not yet been invented and only a few hand-written copies of Wycliffe's Bible were produced. In the 1450's, Gutenburg invented the printing press. Then in 1526 William Tyndale translated the New Testament to the English language from the Latin Vulgate along with the additional help of some ancient Greek manuscripts. Tyndale wanted the Bible translated into the language of the common people and many copies of his translation were printed with the help of the printing press. Tyndale was the first to use the letter ( J ) in the spelling of the name . This new spelling in the hands of many marginally-literate English commoners soon became pronounced by the general public as "Jee-zuz". By the 17th century, the letter ( J ) was officially part of the King's English and in 1611 the most renowned English translation of all, the  King James Bible, was put into massive print, complete with pronunciation helps for all proper names including the name of Jesus as we pronounce it today. Every name in the Bible that begins with the letter ( J ), has come to us this same way.  Names like "Jeremiah", "Jerusalem", "Judah", "John" and "Jew" are only a few examples. At no time in history when these people and places were being written about did there exist in their language the sound of the letter ( J )! 

With the new official English pronunciation of the name "Jee-zuz",  the last remaining sound found in the name "Yahshua", (the oo as in "soon" sound), had vanished. Nothing in this name remains recognizable in either the sound or the meaning of the name Yahshua. It should also be pointed out that the word "Christ" is not a name but a title. It is basically a Greek  translation of the title Messiah and means "anointed one". So all that is left of the sweet gentle sound of Yahshua the Messiah is the series of phonetically harsh sounds "Jee-zuz Chr-i-st", which no doubt has lent this name to the abuse it has suffered. At one time, I believed the name Jesus Christ is commonly used in cursing because Jesus is his name and God-less men hate it. But in all my research, I have been unable to find one other language in which his name is used in a similar cursing manner. No other language renders the Lord's name with the phonetic harshness as does the English language. One exception would be the near identical way "Christ" in pronounced in French, and interestingly enough, it too is regularly used in cursing!  Considering the indisputable fact that for nearly fifteen hundred years after Yahshua walked the earth the world never heard the name "Jesus", I can only conclude that the English version of his name is abused solely because of its harsh sound.  Remember, the name Jesus has existed for only a few hundred years.     

See The Name Parable for a touching illustration of how this name change must appear to Yahshua.

Now that you know Yahshua's true name,

would you like to know the name of his rival?

Yes, I am referring to "the beast", also known as the "antichrist."  Many have sensed that something very dark is looming, and they are right.

Since posting the above article on Yahshua's name many years ago, it has amazed me how few people really care about something so very important as knowing Yahshua's true name. Many readers have simply categorized this truth as fun-fact and continued to refer to Yahshua as Jesus... never having applied the truth to their lives. If you are like these who don't like to be bothered with the facts and avoid changing tradition, the following offer is not for you. If on the other hand you understand the significance and importance of a name, and have come to love the name Yahshua above that of  Jesus, and your eyes long to see his return to establish God's true kingdom on earth, please read on.

In February of 2008, I was granted understanding concerning another name. It concerns the identity of "the beast" spoken of in Revelation 13:16-18. Mankind has been mystified for nearly two thousand years as to the identity of this person.  I have also been looking for him to appear on the scene, and have been analyzing the numbers in the names of every world leader and potential world leader looking for the infamous number 666. Even though there have been those who I might have seriously considered candidates for the office, the numbers never added up and I have never cried wolf... until now. 

There is no precedence for determining the number of a name in Scripture, so those who have been searching for the number haven't really known what to look for. The number is coded in the name, and that code has remained sealed and un-cracked since this prophecy was given, that is, until February 2008. 

Christians who don't recognize the importance and significance of a name like Yahshua  will not understand the truth concerning the name of Yahshua's rival either.  Moreover, due to sadly mistaken preachers, televangelists, and the volumes of erroneous literature (both doctrinal and sensational), most are expecting certain events to occur before the rise of the antichrist that will not, and they are looking in the wrong place for him to arise.  Most Christians will be caught by surprise. This too was prophesied by Yahshua.        

I have written a three-part article on the subject. The first part was written in February of 2008 and identified the beast by the number of his name. The second was written later in December of that year and outlines some of the events we need to watch for in the next few years. In January of 2010 I added a third part as an update and follow up to part two. Last October I also wrote a another article on this subject as a review to a well known youtube video. I am currently making  these four articles available to those who truly love Yahshua's coming. I have no intention of posting them on the internet.

If you are one who truly loves Yahshua, and you long to see his return, please write a short convincing letter stating as much, assure me you will not post these articles on the internet and email it to me. I will return a Word file containing the articles free of charge. This offer is only for those who love Yahshua. You know who you are. All others need not inquire. 

This offer may be changed or withdrawn at anytime without notice. 

Blessings in Yahshua,

Scott Nelson        

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