Apparently there are people who are having controversy over what name to call Jesus. Some are saying you must use the transliterated Hebrew word, <Yeshua> or maybe <Yehoshua> or some other version of it (like, <Yeshua Hamashiach> which would mean, “Jesus the Messiah” or actually, “Jesus Christ”). Do we need to use or pronounce a particular form of Jesus’ name in order for Him to hear us? Does it need to be pronounced a certain way for it to “work”? Do we, who don’t know ancient Hebrew or Greek, need to use those tongues to say His name?

Put that way it sounds as silly as it actually is. We know the character of God from reading the Bible and we know what Jesus was like from the New Testament. Does the above worry about correct pronunciation fit with what we know about God’s character as shown through what Jesus did and taught in the New Testament? In a word, no it does not.

Naming the Name of Jesus in the Original

The Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Yeshua is a Hebrew name.

The Hebrew alphabet doesn’t have the vowels, so it would be יֵשׁוּעַ, and יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, in a later period (<Yehoshua> or Joshua, more so when Jesus was walking the earth). The reason that the word “Jesus” is used, is because we read the New Testament to learn about Him, and that was written in Greek. You would read in the original Greek of the New Testament that Jesus’ name was clearly “Jesus” or the Greek, /Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν/ which is pronounced ‘Ee-su’ or ‘Ye-su’. Historically, in the English language, which we speak here and in English-speaking countries, there were some shifts over time in which the vowels and the ‘y’ sound shifted to a ‘j’ sound and that accounts for our pronunciation today, in a nutshell.

Nerd alert:

And no, Americans had nothing to do with this at all, as I have seen some accuse. Changes in Old English happened when a ‘y’ sound or the Lateral Approximant, /ʎ/ shifted to the ‘j’ sound or a Voiced post-alveolar affricate, /d͡ʒ/; in other words, when the initial sound of “Yeshua” changed to the initial sound of “Jesus.” You can see why this may have happened if you say the first syllable of both words “Ye” and “Je” over and over a few times and pay attention to where the back of your tongue is placed to say the consonants with the following vowels.

In time, changes like that happen in languages to make the consonant closer to the vowel and easier to say. A big change like that happened in English and some other Germanic languages (i.e., English is a Germanic language) regarding those sounds and that is why the change happened to pronounce basically a ‘y’-sounding Greek word to an English ‘j’- (or /d͡ʒ/-) sounding word.

Naming the Name of Jesus Today

Remember, the Jesus we know was told about to us in the New Testament Greek. God chose to use the Greek to write the New Testament in. We know about Him specifically from the Greek language, not the Hebrew. Not to say that it isn’t important to read the Hebrew and Old Testament. Jesus was foreshadowed often in the words of the Old Testament Hebrew. He actually spoke the common tongue, Aramaic to His disciples. But again, I say (and for many good reasons) the New Testament we have today was written in Greek.

So, when people are making claims about what to call Jesus—as if we should go by what the Hebrew use was in the Old Testament—they are adding something to the Bible that has not got any evidence to back it.

Naming Names: What Matters?

Beyond all that, this website and Facebook page (“Whatever Happened to WWJD?”) is about how we can get more deeply into what the Bible has to teach us about following Jesus. To be picky and self-righteous about the linguistics of the name or the way someone says it has nothing to do with–and actually distracts us from–applying Jesus’ words to our life and growing in the knowledge of Him. We all would do well to focus more on that, rather than inaccurate views of pronunciation and made up controversies.

We speak English and so use the name Jesus. If we spoke another language, we would use whatever way the name is translated from Greek to that language. Simple as that. I think probably only English-speaking people would be making a big deal about a letter ‘Y’ or a ‘J’ in Jesus’ name. It is another distraction from actually living out the Kingdom lives that Jesus calls us to live.

Which is the main point with being a Christ-follower: Knowing who it is we call upon. Jesus.