Who started this thing? When? Where is it based? Is there something in the group creed specifically requiring that members proselytize in AOL chat rooms?
My impression is that this group believes in a lot of Christian fundamentalist doctrines and social principles, but with a special emphasis on Hebrew word play. For instance, I came across some Yaohushua webpage with a peculiar explanation of how any name or word containing the letters S-T-R or S-T-N is somehow an occult symbol. There were also some other rantings about how images of rainbows, suns, moons, animals, or anything remotely phallic is an abomination. (Put down that Twinkie, you blasphemer!!!)
I’m no Hebrew scholar, but I have taken a year of Hebrew and studied some of the Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia. I recall YHWH (or whatever you’d call it, perhaps with a J instead of Y for the yodh or a V instead of W for the waw/vav, depending on which experts on ancient Near Eastern Semitic languages you find most convincing), but I do not recall anything about Yaohushua in the Hebrew Bible. Not that it makes any difference to me, as I’ve always considered names as mere labels, not constituting the essence of a person or thing. After all, there are guys in prison named Jesus who murdered people, and the overwhelming majority of people named Jones would not condone what happened at Jonestown, etc.
But anyway, what gives? Where did this group come from and who is behind it? All I have found on the Internet is a lot of labyrinthine explanations of the group’s doctrines, which are always couched in what seems to be a lot of uppity-sounding Hebrew word play. I think the idea is that fundamentalist doctrines will sound intellectually justified if couched in the terms of an ancient Northwest Semitic language. If you can thoroughly confuse people, and they want to believe in something, then maybe they will believe you if you sound confident and authoritative.
Is it possibly the group known as the Way International that’s doing all this Yaohushua stuff? I read somewhere that the leaders of that organization were in the habit of using a bunch of Aramaic word play (which could sound a lot like Hebrew) as a justification for their doctrines. Maybe the whole thing is a secret plot by web portal Yahoo (which sounds a lot like Yaohushua) to control the minds of everyone on AOL.
Don’t know anything about the group, but the word Yaohushua looks to be from the Pentagrammaton: the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) with a letter shin inserted–YHShWH. From what I remember reading in my “Interest in the Occult” phase, it is thought to represent the element of Spirit incarnated into the four earthly elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) symbolised by the four letters of the Tetragrammaton. It was always presented when I saw it as the true name of Jesus: the incarnation of the Spirit of God in an earthly man.
Dijon - from a cursary glance of your link, I can tell you it’s a load of crap. That’s not how you spell Yehoshua, nor is it an acceptable variation. The name is derived from the root Yod Shin Ayin, meaning “salvation”. There is no possible way, according to the very strict rules of hebrew grammar, that the Ayin can be dropped as it was it the example you provided.
Plus, the five pointed star and the yin-yang (!) are good tip-offs, too.
Well, it’s how I have always seen it presented. So I guess the question is from which origin did this group obtain the name, yours or mine? My opinion: no idea. What I can tell you is that the presentation I linked to is quite prevalent in the occult world, and is what I’d always heard as the origin of the word.
And so on and so forth. The five-pointed star and yin-yang are good tipoffs to what? It’s a site on occult symbolism. That’s the context in which I’ve always seen the word presented, and theorised that it therefore may be from where the group had gotten it. Proof to the contrary is welcome. Perhaps one of us should ask these people, whoever they are, eh?
Could it be that these people simply have no idea about the Hebrew language, Jewish/Hebrew use of letters and symbols, etc, and just patch together a bunch of different occult traditions to form something new, which doesn’t mean anything?
I’m not trying to be controversial, and I don’t have any specific cites, but this seems like those folk who discuss the World Wide Web = WWW = 666 nonsense, when they try to prove that because in Hebrew, the sixth letter (Vav) is similar to ‘W’, and using Hebrew numerology in a completely irrational way you come up with three sixes = 666 (when, of course, it would equal 18 - ironically enough, the same numerical value as Chai, or ‘life’ in Hebrew).
This is a site which looks at the issue, but seems polite in its overlooking of the absurd bi-lingual leaps of the imagination needed to make it work.
According to this essay, the Pentagrammaton was created by Johannes Reuchlin. So it appears that while it was not the original name of Jesus, it has been seen as a symbolically corrected one by students of the Kabbalah for about 500 years…even if it’s a bit retro-fitted. Philo’s mention of this group being heavy into Hebrew word play (which sounds to me like gematria, etc.) makes me think this was where they probably got the name and why they’re using it.
Heh. I saw a site like that once that was on about how the numbers 6 and 11 were evil. My birthday is June 11. :eek:
They also said green, red, and purple are Satan’s favorite colors – as well as being the colors that Catholic priests wear during various points in the liturgical calendar (i.e. Ordinary Time, Pentecost, and Lent/Advent). Somehow I think the people who put this together are well aware of that.
'Course, they could also have been thinking of the Teletubbies…
Well, you’d have to ask them, I guess. All I was contributing was that the Kabbalistic/esoteric context was where I’d always heard the name Yaoheshua/Yeheshua/Yehoshava presented, and that given Philo’s representation of these people engaging in Hebrew word play (which to me resonates to gematria, notariqon, etc), it seemed very likely that the esoteric/Kabbalistic origin of the name was their source. They certainly could have derived it from a linguistic source, and I have no idea whether they did or not.
Insofar as why students of the Kabbala would care about the derivation of Jesus: I don’t know; but it’s clear that many of them do. You must remember that not all students of the Kabbala are strictly Jewish. I’ve studied it a bit out of curiosity, and I’m not remotely kosher. ;j Nevertheless, the subject is interesting; and the explanation of the “true name” of Jesus as the Name of God impregnated (if you will) with the Holy Spirit in the form of the letter Shin is intriguing, if not linguistically accurate.
What I can tell you is that the presentation I linked to is quite prevalent in the occult world, and is what I’d always heard as the origin of the word.