I.
THERE ARE two aspects that the Church has to address when believers assume that the use of Hebrew transliteration as the new norm:
(a) The assumed superiority of the Hebrew transliteration
to the English equivalent when, for example, referring to God or Jesus, proponents
of HRM claimed that it is improper to address the Lord Jesus except by His
original Hebrew name. While it is not wrong to call Jesus by the name,
“Yehoshua” or “Yeshua,” if it becomes a matter of one’s assumption that it is
more appropriate to address Jesus by His Hebrew name, or else, prayers are not
answered, this becomes a doctrinal issue. It is at the same time unacceptable
when it becomes an obligation, where failure to address Jesus by Hebrew name is
considered a sin.[1]
(b) A worse proposition made by the HRM proponents is that
the name Jesus is linked to the Greek god, Zeus, as this does not do justice to
the name that has been used since Christianity was first adopted by the English-speaking
world at least five hundred years ago, when the King James Bible was officially
translated in 1611. The idea probably
came from the Sacred Name Movement, a name within Adventism which places emphasis
on the use of the Hebrew name of God. One of its pioneers, Traina in The Origin
of Christianity, asserted that “They (referring to the Gentile believers in
the past) had worshipped Zeus, or Jupiter, as the supreme deity, so now they
were told the new name was Theos, or Dios, or God. Their [sic] savior was Zeus,
so now they were to accept Jesus (Ἰησους).”[2]
Traina’s theory, which claimed that the meaning of
Jesus is “Yah=Zeus” is baseless, as there is no historical evidence to
back up his theory. A mere similarity of the sound of words in two different
languages does not mean that they carry the same meanings. In fact, the name
Jesus originated from the Greek translation used in the second century BC
Septuagint, where the name “Yeshua” was translated into Greek as Ἰησους, which later took the
form of the Latin word “Iēsous,” before it took on the English form as Jesus.
According to Dunning, there is “no indication the translators intended to
connect Joshua to Zeus or to draw pagan Greeks to follow Joshua by using Iesous.”
Proponents of the HRM will also find it hard to explain the myriads of miracles
and healings that have since been carried out or the demons cast out in the
name of Jesus, if there is no power in that name. Many of the great preachers
had preached in this one name, Jesus, for “… there is salvation in no one else;
for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which
we must be saved.”[3]
The HRM is a recent movement in modern times, but for
over the past 20 centuries, billions of Christians have used either the Greek,
Latin, or modern translation of the name equivalent to Jesus. For example,
Jesus in Malay is Yesus, in Mandarin it is Yesu, and in some Muslim context, He
is known as Isa Al-Masihi. Therefore, to link Jesus to Zeus is to basically blaspheme
the name of Jesus; it is synonymous to saying that whatever miracles performed
in the name of Jesus over the centuries have little to do with the Lord Jesus
and that millions of people have worshipped the wrong god. Such teaching robs
the Second Person of the Trinity all the glory that is due to Him.
The other contention is that Bibles with the name
Jesus printed in them are printed in the millions; and if Jesus only wanted to
be known as Yeshua, surely, He would have through some divine intervention stopped
the printing of the Bibles using a name that ascribes all the miracles that He
performed during His ministry of earth to Zeus. God is a jealous God – “for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”[4]– and if
the god of the Philistines, “Dagon” could not stand before the ark of the Covenant[5], no
Bibles with the name that is linked to Zeus would be able to survive for so
many years, and printed in so many editions.
This claim has no basis as it is obvious that the name "Zeus" originated
from an ancient Phoenician god named Baal Tzephon or Baʿal Zebub (otherwise,
known as "Beelzebub" in Matthew 12:24). To assume that the
name Jesus is linked to Zeus is reaffirming what the Pharisees had accused of
Jesus, being possessed by Beelzebub, to which Jesus repudiated, saying, “whoever
speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this
age or in the age to come.” (Matthew 12:32).
On the contrary, the translation of the name Yeshua into
Greek as Ἰησους (Iésous, in Latin) follows the earlier usage made by
the seventy scholars who were involved in the Septuagint, a Greek translation
of the Old Testament text. Many of the early "church fathers" used
the Latin name Iesous (or Greek Ἰησους) to refer to the Messiah. For instance, Polycarp
(70-155), Clement (c 96-110), Ignatius of Antioch (c 110 AD), and Justin Martyr
(c. 100-165) all wrote in Koine Greek and plainly used the name "Ἰησους" to refer to the
Saviour. Moreover, the Didache (Aidaxn), dating from the first century AD, made
references to the name Jesus:
"First, concerning the cup: We thank thee, our Father, for the holy
vine of David Thy servant, which Thou madest known to us through Jesus Thy
Servant ('Indoo Too naidóç aou); to Thee be the glory forever
(Did. 9:2).
The argument that the
Hebrew names carry nuances that are otherwise missing when these names are
translated into another language is valid. However, it does not make any
difference if original Hebrew names are transliterated into the English
language, since for the non-native speakers, the Hebrew names would not mean
anything unless it is explained in the native tongue of the users. Hence, names
such as “Shemuel” (שְׁמוּאֵל Hebrew name for
Samuel), for example, would not mean anything to a non-native speaker, unless
one knows the meaning of the word שֵׁם (“Shem”) which
means ‘name’ and “אֵל” which is the short form for Almighty or God. To someone who
knows Hebrew, the name שְׁמוּאֵל (Shemuel) in its Hebrew form is indeed a meaningful name, which
means, ‘His Name is God,’ an acknowledgement that it was God who spoke to
Hannah and opened her womb to have a child.
Another Hebrew name in its original form “Yehonathan”
(“יְהוֹנָתָן” or Jonathan) comprises of two words:
(a) “יְהוֹ” which is a
short form of the tetragrammaton יהוה; and
(b) נָתָן which means
‘he gives.’
When put together, the name Jonathan means “God gives”
or “God is the Giver.” This is the reason why learning Biblical Hebrew is so
necessary for every seminary student; however, the meaning of these names also
lose their nuances when transliterated in English as Shemuel and Yehonathan.
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