How would Jesus have written his own name?
Translations are fine to include, but I’d like to know what it would have actually looked like.
I’m guessing Yeshua, or some might say Yeshua ben Yosef, as in, Jesus, son of Joseph. However, I’m not exactly a pro at Hebrew, so how that would be written in that language, I don’t know. And, of course, being Hebrew, that’s a very Jewish way of saying it, as far as I know.
If anyone can link to a site where it’s written in Hebrew letters, that would be terrific. As I recall, they’re not available in the fonts accessible on this board.
In Hebrew, he would have used Yeshua ben Yosef, or ben Miriam if He did actually consider Himself the product of a virgin birth and did not use his foster father’s name (which He probably would have, out of respect for Joseph).
In Aramaic (the standard spoken language in First Century Galilee and Judaea), Yeshua bar Yosef, or bar Miriam.
In Greek (the lingua franca for the Eastern Mediterranean at the time), Iesous Iosefides ([symbol]IhsouV IwsefidhV[/symbol])– it’s debatable whether He would have created a matronymic in Greek.
It’s quite possible He might have used His common self-referent of “Son of Man” – ben or bar Adam.
FTR, as a young Jew of the craftsman class in society, it’s almost certain He would have learned to read and write – and we do have the story of the woman taken in adultery, where He writes in the sand, to provide evidence supporting that assertion.
ישוע בן יוסף
If you copy coffeecat’s post and paste it into Word, its reverses the order. Clever, clever.
Wouldn’t that be Joshua ben Joseph, since the word/name Jesus is Greek?
Yeshua is the Aramaic version of his name – Aramaic, by the way, would’ve been Jesus’ first language.
Additionally, Hebrew (and I expect Aramaic, they’re closely related languages) doesn’t have a J sound at all. For reasons a linguist can explain, I’m sure, the Y-sound in Hebrew has been consistantly transliterated as a J. Examples include Jew (Yehudi), Jerusalem (Yerushalyim), Joel (Yo’el), Jacob (Ya’acov), etc., etc.
No linguist required for this one… Hebrew words that got carried into Germanic/Slavic languages had the letter “yod” (Consonant Y sound) properly transliterated into the Latin letter “J” (such as Jude - “Jewish” in German). Than English came along and appropriated the words without changing the spelling… English, of course, pronouces “J” as, well, “J” rather than as “Y”.
So:
Yerushalaim or Yerushalem (Hebrew) -> Jerusalem (prounouces Yeruzalem) in German/Slavic -> Still Jerusalem (but now prounounced "J"eruzalem) in English.
Similarly Ya’akov -> Jaacob (Yakob) -> Jacob ("J"acob)
You get the idea…
Dani
Major hijack, but I have to know. The suspected terrorist in the Twin Cities is named Yousef. (The accused 20th hijacker) Was he technically named after Jesus?
No, Yousouf is Arabic for Joseph
Dani
That’s very interesting, coffeecat. Is that the original, Aramaic way of writing ‘Yeshua Ben Yosef’ then?
Does it translate as ‘Jesus, son of Joseph’?
EJ’s Girl:
Joshua is the English version of the Hebrew Yehoshua, as in the prophet who immediately followed Moses.
OP poses a questionable question.
The only indication of Jesus having ever wirtten anythis is recorded in:
“John 8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.”
It is to be noted that it was written on the ground in the dust. A record to disappear with the passing of feet or the wind.
It was his words that were to endure, not some scrap of paper or other artifact for well meaning but ignorant people would attach more importance to.
“Beware of the Cog”
Actually, that’s Hebrew. If it were Aramaic, the middle word would have been bar, not ben.
It translates as Yeshua son of Yosef.
Zev Steinhardt
Btw, the Hebrew characters shown are the later alphabet. Chances are JC’d write his name using the paleo-Hebrew characters, which are almost identical to the Phoenician alphabet.
I’m pretty sure that Square Hebrew was adopted after the return from Babylon. By the time of Jesus, people wouldn’t be using the paleo-Hebrew alphabet anymore.
If Jesus believed Himself to be Son of God, wouldn’t he have written Yeshua ben Yhvh?
Sorry… Yeshua bar Yhvh?
I doubt it as he would not have used the Divine Name.
Zev Steinhardt