Where Matthew, Mark, Luke and John originally called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

[essell]

Where the authors of the Gospels known by the same names we use?
If so were they pronounced the same as we would?

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by essell

Where the authors of the Gospels known by the same names we use?

No. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are Anglicized versions of the original names. Matthew's original name is pronounced something like Mat-Ay, Mark Mahr-Koss, Luke Lo-Kah and John Yo-Chah-Nan.

[Sage Rat]

Were

"Where" is used to refer to location.

[Dunderman]

By the way, virtually everybody in the Bible has an Anglicized name in the English translation. No-one was called that.

[Sage Rat]

Jesus was Yehoshua or Yeshua, for instance.

[CalMeacham]

It's also woth notung that the Gospels aren't self-labeled (i.e. -- "This is the Gospel of John"), and that the names are traditional. You can see how the sources could be logically deduced from internal evidence (As G.A. Wells shows in his books. Wells is one of those guys who doesn't believe in the historicity of Jesus, but, regardless of how you may feel about it, it doesn't detract from his reasoning about deducing the origins of the names of the Gospel authors. Or even disprove their authorship, for that matter.)

[psychonaut]

Originally Posted by Priceguy

By the way, virtually everybody in the Bible has an Anglicized name in the English translation. No-one was called that.

Are there any exceptions?

[JustThinkin']

Originally Posted by psychonaut

Are there any exceptions?

There are several that are pretty close -- we just pronounce them differently. For example, Eli would have been pronounced Eh-lee. Elizabeth would have been pronounced Eh-lee-zah-bet (not sure of the correct accent).

Disclaimer: this is from my poorly remembered Hebrew classes. I can't claim to know how the names were really pronounced at the time.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by psychonaut

Are there any exceptions?

Depends on definitions, really. None of them are spelt the same (different alphabets) and none of them are pronounced exactly the same (different languages, dontchaknow, and in many cases we don't know exactly how the person would have pronounced their own name), but there are some that are a hell of a lot closer than Matthew. Orpah from the book of Ruth, for example. About as close as you are going to get with two languages as far apart as modern English and ancient Hebrew.

[Alive At Both Ends]

Originally Posted by psychonaut

Are there any exceptions?

My guess is that Mahershalalhashbaz is not an Anglicised name.

[essell]

Originally Posted by Sage Rat

Were

"Where" is used to refer to location.

Grammer Nazi!

It was a very rushed post at work. I apologise.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by Alive At Both Ends

My guess is that Mahershalalhashbaz is not an Anglicised name.

You know, you might be surprised.

[jjimm]

Originally Posted by essell

Grammer Nazi!

That'd be "grammar".

[MadTheSwine]

Originally Posted by essell

Grammer Nazi!

It was a very rushed post at work. I apologise.

Were do you work?

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

It's also woth notung that the Gospels aren't self-labeled (i.e. -- "This is the Gospel of John"), and that the names are traditional. You can see how the sources could be logically deduced from internal evidence (As G.A. Wells shows in his books. Wells is one of those guys who doesn't believe in the historicity of Jesus, but, regardless of how you may feel about it, it doesn't detract from his reasoning about deducing the origins of the names of the Gospel authors. Or even disprove their authorship, for that matter.)

Yes, we don't know who wrote the gospels (see the Staff Report: Who wrote the Bible? (Part 4)).

There are people named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who appear in the New Testament (though there's significant doubt over whether they're the same people who wrote the gospels). Since the New Testament was written in Greek, was it the Greek forms that were used of these names? Or were they given in Hebrew form?

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

Since the New Testament was written in Greek, was it the Greek forms that were used of these names? Or were they given in Hebrew form?

Well, Luke is most likely Greek, so his name was Λουκάς - Loukas - and not originally Hebrew or Aramaic.

[essell]

Originally Posted by MadTheSwine

Were do you work?

Yup.

[mwbrooks]

Originally Posted by Priceguy

Depends on definitions, really. None of them are spelt the same (different alphabets) and none of them are pronounced exactly the same (different languages, dontchaknow, and in many cases we don't know exactly how the person would have pronounced their own name), but there are some that are a hell of a lot closer than Matthew. Orpah from the book of Ruth, for example. About as close as you are going to get with two languages as far apart as modern English and ancient Hebrew.

Sort of a side point, but my Latin teacher liked to point out surprise similarities. Romans would've pronounced "Jove" (Jupiter) as "Yahweh," he claimed, similar to the Hebrew pronunciation of Jehovah. Going the other way, he said the Roman pronunciation of "Caesar" would have sounded similar to the German "Kaiser," which in fact is a direct derivation.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by mwbrooks

Sort of a side point, but my Latin teacher liked to point out surprise similarities. Romans would've pronounced "Jove" (Jupiter) as "Yahweh," he claimed, similar to the Hebrew pronunciation of Jehovah. Going the other way, he said the Roman pronunciation of "Caesar" would have sounded similar to the German "Kaiser," which in fact is a direct derivation.

I'm pretty sure he was making up the first one. Every Latin teacher I've ever had gave the pronunciation as "yoo-pi-tare", including a couple of ex-Oxford dons. I have heard the Caesar ~ Kaiser thing, though.

[CalMeacham]

I'm pretty sure he was making up the first one. Every Latin teacher I've ever had gave the pronunciation as "yoo-pi-tare", including a couple of ex-Oxford dons. I have heard the Caesar ~ Kaiser thing, though.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He's clearly saying that Jove, in Classical Latin, is pronounced "Yo-way" (something I noticed decades ago), not that Jupiter is.

[jayjay]

But there's not definitive evidence that the Hebrews pronounced JHVH as "Yahweh". The average Hebrew did not, in fact, pronounce it at all. And no one knows for certain how it was meant to be pronounced then. It could as well be Yahuwahu, as Larry Gonick once proposed. The similarity is very likely coincidence.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

He's clearly saying that Jove, in Classical Latin, is pronounced "Yo-way" (something I noticed decades ago), not that Jupiter is.

Jove is an Anglicized version of Iovis, the genitive form; in Classical Latin Jove wouldn't be pronounced at all (at least not in the nominative).

[CalMeacham]

Jove is an Anglicized version of Iovis, the genitive form; in Classical Latin Jove wouldn't be pronounced at all (at least not in the nominative).

Why the devil would it be in the genitive form?


I see that Wikipedia says that Jove is an anglizcized form, but I;'m sure my Latin dictionary had Jove as the latin form.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

Why the devil would it be in the genitive form?


I see that Wikipedia says that Jove is an anglizcized form, but I;'m sure my Latin dictionary had Jove as the latin form.

It's Iupiter, Iovis.

[Dr. Drake]

Originally Posted by Really Not All That Bright

It's Iupiter, Iovis.

Ablative: Jove (or Ioue), a case you'd use to translate expression such as "by Jove." Of course, Latin /o/ is not equivalent to Hebrew /a/, so it's not a perfect analogy even given the objections above (by the time they were in contact with the Romans, YHWH was not a word that would be spoken aloud anyway).

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drake

Ablative: Jove (or Ioue), a case you'd use to translate expression such as "by Jove."

I hadn't thought of that. Answer's CalMeacham's question rather nicely, though.

[Diceman]

Originally Posted by Sage Rat

Jesus was Yehoshua or Yeshua, for instance.

I've heard that the name "Jesus" was a variation of Joshua.

Originally Posted by mwbrooks

Going the other way, he said the Roman pronunciation of "Caesar" would have sounded similar to the German "Kaiser," which in fact is a direct derivation.

The Russian title "Tzar" is another direct derivative of Ceasar.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by Diceman

I've heard that the name "Jesus" was a variation of Joshua.

Yes. Jesus and Joshua is originally the same name. Joshua is the Anglicized version of the original name and Jesus is the Anglicizised version of the Hellenized version of the original name.

[matt_mcl]

There's something called the Hebrew Names Bible, which is a Bible in English with the names directly transliterated from the Hebrew form.

For example, in Matthew 1:2, where the KJV has "Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren," the HNV has "Avraham became the father of Yitzchak. Yitzchak became the father of Ya`akov. Ya`akov became the father of Yehudah and his brothers," and so forth.

It's one of the versions you can access at www.blueletterbible.org .

[AskNott]

Originally Posted by jayjay

But there's not definitive evidence that the Hebrews pronounced JHVH as "Yahweh". The average Hebrew did not, in fact, pronounce it at all. And no one knows for certain how it was meant to be pronounced then. It could as well be Yahuwahu, as Larry Gonick once proposed. The similarity is very likely coincidence.

Yahuwahu. How about that. When I've heard people yell "Yahoo, wahoo!" they seemed mighty joyful. I wonder if they knew they were talking to God?

Yahoo! Wahoo! Yeah, that feels good.

[Cervaise]

Originally Posted by psychonaut

Are there any exceptions?

Jor-El got to keep his name.

[Tom Tildrum]

OK, but how would Adam and Eve have pronounced their own names?

[Antinor01]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

OK, but how would Adam and Eve have pronounced their own names?

Throatwarbler and Mangrove, respectively.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

OK, but how would Adam and Eve have pronounced their own names?

"Eve" is actually very close to how the name is pronounced in Hebrew, which was a big surprise for me. As for Adam, that just means "man"; I don't know how it became a proper name in the translation. I know of no place in the original text of Genesis where it's used as such.

[Kalhoun]

Originally Posted by Sage Rat

Were

"Where" is used to refer to location.

Thank you. That was annoying the bejeezus outta me.

[chowder]

Originally Posted by jjimm

That'd be "grammar".

By Jove or should that be Yahweh?

[jimmmy]

Well, the biggest problem I see answering the OP in a GQ way is that what we really have is people speaking in the Gospel from at least 4 languages and even those languages had differing accents - i.e the Galilean accents of Jesus ' followers being easily identifiable to their fellow Jews of Jerusalem. They clearly pronounced things in different ways and it is hard to be absolute about how someone's name (or anything) was pronounced. Further it is possible that they pronounced their own name differently than the guy who wrote it down in the Gospel. Please get that I am not sh^tting on the scholarly things written above - I see nothing "wrong". I just think it is fair to point that out.

To follow up Priceguy and Justthinkin's answer to Psyhconaut's posts on pronunciations I think "Tiberias" (a proper name, the Emperors name, a city name and what the Romans called the Sea of Galilee - Galilee itself being the Greek name of the "sea") is a good example. Today the way a guy from the US would pronounce the name is different than how a guy from the "Rural UK" OP'er likely would. The Greek pronunciation of the name was different than the Roman pronunciation. The Hebrew pronunciation would have differed, and re my point above, maybe even among the people there on the ground. So when Luke writes John begins his ministry in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius - how do we take that Tiberius was pronounced in Galillee, by Tiberius, by a rural UK guy, by an American, by a native Pharisee Jerusalamite? Is it spelled Tiberius or Tiberias?

I think this GQ answer is that is depends on who is doing the pronouncing. I think Jesus and his followers would probably not say Tiberius like a guy from the Rural UK in 2008. But the pronunciation that either the UK/US 2008 used would probably be closer to the way that Tiberius himself would say it than what Jesus' guys would use.

Other examples are the Greek followers of Paul (1 Cor 16:17), - Achaicus this is a Latinization of a Greek name Achaikos, heaven alone knows how a Jewish Merchant in Jerusalem or a Galilean Rabbi would pronounce that name.

I think you run into the same thing with Jewish names that the guys in question "more than likely" used in their lifetime IOW: Silas becoming Silvanus, Saul becoming Paulus. Our pronunciation is probably closer to how the name was 'supposed to be understood' than Paul or Silas’ own Mother's pronunciation of the Latin name would be.

[Autolycus]

Originally Posted by Priceguy

Yes. Jesus and Joshua is originally the same name. Joshua is the Anglicized version of the original name and Jesus is the Anglicizised version of the Hellenized version of the original name.

I read somewhere that originally it was pronounced Jesús.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by Autolycus

I read somewhere that originally it was pronounced Jesús.

To the best of our knowledge, Jesus pronounced it something like jay-shoo-ah.

[DrDeth]

It's now thought that John was substantially dictated (late in his long life) by the Apostle of that name to his disciples at Ephesus, but went through editing etc by that Church. In any case, it appears to be based heavily upon what we think are the teachings of that Apostle. It very likely comes closest to the actual words of one of Jesus's Apostles. Note that John is thought to have lived until his 80's or more and perhaps his memory wasn't all that sharp on the details, which is perhpas why that Gospels differs so much.

Mark might have been written by "Mark the interpreter of Peter", at least to an extent.

Matthew was almost certainly not written by that Apostle, although perhaps by his followers.

Luke might have been written by (at least partially) by Paul's physician.

[ignis_glaciesque]

Originally Posted by Priceguy

"Eve" is actually very close to how the name is pronounced in Hebrew

Huh? From what a Hebrew-speaking friend told me, the Hebrew for 'Eve' is 'Chava'. 'Ch' as in 'Chanukka'. Nothing like 'Eve' as it's pronounced in English.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by ignis_glaciesque

Huh? From what a Hebrew-speaking friend told me, the Hebrew for 'Eve' is 'Chava'. 'Ch' as in 'Chanukka'. Nothing like 'Eve' as it's pronounced in English.

I have to confess to not checking before I posted, but as I remember it Eve is spelt Aleph Bet with the vowel denoting an "ee" sound, making it, pretty much, "Eve". I'll check my Hebrew Bible when I get home. Until then, Wikipedia agrees with you.

[Alessan]

Eve is, in fact, "Chava."

Adam is Adam, and while id does mean "man", the etymology is the opposite of what you think - human beings are called "Bnei Adam", or "Sons of Adam", which in modern Hebrew is often shortened to "Adam."

[Colophon]

Originally Posted by jayjay

But there's not definitive evidence that the Hebrews pronounced JHVH as "Yahweh". The average Hebrew did not, in fact, pronounce it at all. And no one knows for certain how it was meant to be pronounced then. It could as well be Yahuwahu, as Larry Gonick once proposed. The similarity is very likely coincidence.

I thought it was... Jehovah!


*rock bounces off head*

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by Priceguy

I have to confess to not checking before I posted, but as I remember it Eve is spelt Aleph Bet with the vowel denoting an "ee" sound, making it, pretty much, "Eve". I'll check my Hebrew Bible when I get home.

I'm home, I've checked, and as the technical term goes, I'm pwned. Eve is indeed Chava and I have no idea where I picked up my misconception, only that I have a disturbingly strong memory of it.

[Alive At Both Ends]

Originally Posted by Colophon

I thought it was... Jehovah!


*rock bounces off head*

You're only making it worse for yourself, you know.

[mwbrooks]

Originally Posted by Autolycus

I read somewhere that originally it was pronounced Jesús.

OK, I just have to inject a modern linguistic curiosity here. At one time, I'm told, Yaesu produced a very popular Marine radio (and maybe they still do). I've heard that coastal fishermen used to go into their local radio store and ask for "that Jesus radio."

Yaesu, toy of ham's desiring.

[Švejk]

Can I just insert here my genuine wonder at the anglocentrism of the OP? Really, why would you think people living a dozen or so countries over, almost a thousand years before anything remotely resembling modern English actually existed, would have English names?

If anyone here suggested that the names of the authors of the gospels were really spelled and pronounced 'Mattheüs, Marcus, Lucas & Johannes', I'd be pretty sure it was a joke.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Švejk

Can I just insert here my genuine wonder at the anglocentrism of the OP? Really, why would you think people living a dozen or so countries over, almost a thousand years before anything remotely resembling modern English actually existed, would have English names?

Not anglocentrism, just plain ignorance. We're always told that the apostles were called Matthew, Mark, John, and what have you, and you never hear their Aramaic/Hebrew/Semitic names, so it's not a particularly stupid idea to assume that the actual names are very similar in pronunciation.

Given how similar Matthew and Mattheus are, would it really be that surprising?

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by Really Not All That Bright

Not anglocentrism, just plain ignorance. We're always told that the apostles were called Matthew, Mark, John, and what have you, and you never hear their Aramaic/Hebrew/Semitic names, so it's not a particularly stupid idea to assume that the actual names are very similar in pronunciation.

Agreed. The question wasn't whether the four evangelists had English names, but whether the names they did have had come down to us unaltered and adopted into English language.

The only anglocentrism here, I think, is being monolingual enough to have never encountered other languages' versions of the biblical names.