# How did "Jesus" get the "s" from Hebrew or Aramaic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240 "2014-09-11T22:16:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/21 "2014-09-15T13:56:49Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > My friend says that the additional -s was from Greek: Ieosus. (I still don’t have the Greek grammar to know if this was for noun declension, pronunciation, or what.) Iesous. I’m not sure if it matters, but it’s something I’ve known about for a while, because I’ve always wondered where the O came from. It’s not there in the Hebrew/Aramaic it came from or the Latin that came from it. It makes me think that the O wasn’t pronounced in the Greek. If it were present in Moses’s Greek name, I’d think it was a way of indicating the previous sigma was a shin. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/22 "2014-09-16T13:55:58Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Iesous. I’m not sure if it matters, but it’s something I’ve known about for a while, because I’ve always wondered where the O came from. It’s not there in the Hebrew/Aramaic it came from or the Latin that came from it. It makes me think that the O wasn’t pronounced in the Greek. > > If it were present in Moses’s Greek name, I’d think it was a way of indicating the previous sigma was a shin. The Hebrew is Yehoshua – so there is an O, but it’s before the S rather than after. My friend (who has some knowledge of classical Greek but doesn’t call himself an expert) adds: > [@](#): > > The declension which the name “Iesous” follows (Iesous, Iesou, Iesoun) is one of the less common in Koine Greek (-os is a more common nominative ending); on the other hand, it seems to be the typical ending for nouns whose last syllable has a contracted vowel. The -uah ending in Hebrew would seem to lead in that direction, particularly since an “a” noun ending would be more typical of feminine nouns than masculine in Greek. So I’m guessing that the added “s” came in to make the name fit with Greek declensions. > > I offer this with some hesitation. I’m inclined toward skepticism of arguments of the form “the language does this because”; they seem to assume that human behavior makes sense… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/23 "2014-09-16T14:07:06Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Explain, please. I was under the impression that Mses is an Egyptian royal name and always had the final S Not exactly. As others have pointed out, the Hebrew “Moishe” lacks the final “-s”, which is what I primarily meant. But even the Egyptian ending “-muse” or “mose”, meaning “child of–” and attached to a god’s name (thus “Ra-Mose” = “Child of Ra” or “Thut-Mose” = “child of Thoth”)\* bears the effects of passage through Greek. Our common namnes for Egyptian gods and Pharaohs are derived from Greek, such as “Rameses” That final “-s” is the result of a Greek ending, and without it I’d write it as “Ramose”, albeit with an English silent “e”. - The Biblical patriarch Moses" lacks the “theo” part of “theophorus”, presumably because either he removed it when expressing a beilief in a single God or, more likely, because later authors of the proto-Old Testament thought it was inappropriate – there are other examples of the authors screwing with foreign names, especially when they involved the names of foreign gods. Look up “Ishbosheth – Ishbaal” sometime. See Sigmund Freud’s “Moses and Monotheism” for more details. Then read Elias Auerbach or someone else more recent. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/24 "2014-09-16T16:09:49Z")
Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the info. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/25 "2014-09-16T17:27:04Z")
Next, someone is going to ask how he got the last name “Christ”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/26 "2014-09-16T17:54:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Next, someone is going to ask how he got the last name “Christ”. 😃 Bill Cosby has conclusively laid that to rest, IMHO 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/27 "2014-09-16T18:08:54Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Bill Cosby has conclusively laid that to rest, IMHO 😃 OK, well what does the middle initial “H” stand for? ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/28 "2014-09-16T19:16:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK, well what does the middle initial “H” stand for? Howard. His dad’s name. There’s that famous prayer that goes “Our Father, who art in heaven, Howard be thy name…” ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/29 "2014-09-16T21:28:56Z")
> **[Why do folks say “Jesus H. Christ”?](https://www.straightdope.com/21341213/why-do-folks-say-jesus-h-christ)** Harold, not Howard 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/30 "2014-09-16T22:36:59Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Bill Cosby has conclusively laid that to rest, IMHO 😃 😕 Thanks for the thread. So it’s wrong that nobody fucks with the Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240/31 "2014-09-17T15:00:06Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I don’t think it has anything to do with German. My understanding is that “I” was used in Latin orthography for these [j] sounds — Iesus, Iehovah, etc. > > In Latin, “J” was simply an alternative form of “I” that was often used word initially. This was true for a long time, even in English as late as the 18th century. Washington, D.C., has no “J Street” because in writing “I” and “J” were still somewhat interchangeable. > > Eventually, a convention was adopted for using “J” in consonental positions and “I” in vowel positions. Yes, but I think C K’s idea still holds – that English speakers eventually started pronouncing the “J” in “Jesus” as in “jet” or “Japan,” because that sound had become the most common one for the letter written “j” in English. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-jesus-get-the-s-from-hebrew-or-aramaic/698240.md?page=1)