THE SAVIOR’S TRUE NAME

The name of “Jesus” is very precious to many people, because it was by calling upon Him through this name that they came to know the Savior. I myself was a child of ten or eleven years old when I first came to accept Him. I truly came to know Him as my Savior and Master when I accepted Him into my heart and life as “Jesus Christ”. However, in the course of time I was shown that this is not actually the name by which He was called when He lived on this earth. I also came to find out that using the true form of His name was very important for bringing greater honor to Him and to the Heavenly Father whose name He clearly bears.

In this article we will consider what is the correct English form for the name of our Savior, the Messiah of Israel. Of course most people who profess to follow Him know Him as “Jesus”, as I once did. No doubt many even think He was called this when He was born here on earth. Most of them would be surprised to learn that the English term “Jesus” is a rather recent invention. However, the truth is that until the letter “J” was invented in the end of the 15th, or beginning of the 16th, century A.D. no one ever heard Him called “Jesus”.

THE NAME “JESUS” OF LATE ORIGIN

Thus, the term “Jesus”, with the use of the letter “J” did not come into usage until the time of late English. In the time of Middle English the term “Iesus” began to be used for Him (as carried over directly from the Latin where it was used as a transliteration of the Greek form used for His name in the existing manuscripts of the Greek New Testament). But even this form was not used in the time of Old English. In O.E. (Old English) He was known as “Healend” (as can be seen by looking under the term “Healend”, or the term “Jesus”, in an unabridged Oxford Dictionary). Thus back then Matthew 1:21 would have used “Healend” as His name. In the King James Version this verse reads, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” But Old English Matthew 1:21 would have had “Healend” instead of “Jesus”.

THE NAME OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER

We begin to see the importance of the correct form of His name when we learn the true name of our Heavenly Father, see its importance, and see the connection our Savior’s name has to that name – the name above all names.

First of all we need to come to realize that in the process of translating the scriptures out of their original language (Hebrew) the name of our Creator and Heavenly Father was removed from the Bible with other terms being substituted for it. Originally His name was in the Bible around 7,000 times. But, as a result of their following a tradition of men developed concerning the reading of the scriptures in the Jewish Synagogues, the translators replaced this “Sacred Name” with the terms “the LORD” and “GOD” (usually written with capitals as you see here).

Because the third commandment warns us to not take this name in vain, the leaders of the Jews taught the people that it would be best never even to speak His name at all. They told the people that instead of pronouncing His name they should say “adonai” (usually translated as “Lord”) or, if “adonai” occurred with the name, to say “Elohim” (usually translated as “God”) in place of it.

That such a tradition of man is false can be seen when the scriptures are read with the name left in them. In fact, the very commandment that forbids taking His name in vain includes the idea of not making light of it or doing away with it. The Hebrew word “shawv”, which is translated “in vain”, carries the basic meaning of “falsify”. The commandment is a prohibition against falsifying His name or bringing it to “naught”. Yet this is exactly what is being done by refusing to use it at all, or by putting something else in place of it.

Although the Jewish people never changed this personal name of our Creator in written form in the Bible, they did make these substitutes in their oral reading of the scriptures. However, the translators of the Bible went one step further. They actually removed it from the written word by substituting in its place their translations of the words the Jews used in place of it in their oral reading of the scriptures. When the Bible is read with this one personal name of the Almighty restored to its proper place, it becomes very clear that our Heavenly Father wants His name known and used by His people. We please Him not by our refusing to use His name, but by our using it to praise Him, and by otherwise giving honor unto it.

THE NAME OF THE FATHER IN THE NAME OF THE SON

This leads us back to the matter of the name of His Son, our Savior. If, as I propose to show to be the case, our Savior had the name of the Heavenly Father in His own name, then when we call on the true name of the Son we give honor unto that of the Father as well. To use any other form for the Savior’s name lessens the honor due to both the Father and the Son.

It is abundantly clear that “Jesus” does not represent the true form of our Savior’s name. All scholars know this for a certainty. As I have mentioned the name “Jesus”, as such, did not even exist until the time of Late English. However, it is commonly thought that the modern Jewish terms “Yehoshua” and “Yeshua” are the correct forms for our Savior’s name.

In this article we should come to see that this modern Jewish pronunciation, which merely means “Savior”, is not the correct form of His name either. Those who insist that it is the correct way to pronounce our Savior’s name base their conclusions upon the fact that both Modern and so-called Biblical Hebrew give this as the pronunciation of the name that our Savior is known to have borne while here on earth. However, the Modern Hebrew and so-called “Biblical Hebrew” grammars are founded upon the Masoretic rules of pronunciation of Hebrew terms. And numerous scholars can be cited who emphatically state that the Masoretic pronunciation is not true to Biblical Hebrew.

Although in this short article this matter cannot be gone into in great depth I will cite a couple of references as examples. In a Comparative Philology and The Text of The O.T., by James Barr on pages 202-203 (chapter IX) we read, “There have, indeed, in recent years been some opinions according to which the Masoretes were rather innovators.” (My emphasis) On page 222 he says, “All in all …the position of the vocalization appears to be most unsatisfactory.” Alexander Sperber, Jewish Theological Seminary, in Hebrew Based Upon Greek and Latin on page 105 wrote, “… the Greek transliteration and the Babylonian vocalization of Hebrew are in full agreement between themselves and both presuppose a pronunciation of Hebrew different from what the Tiberian Masoretes offer us.”

Beginning with the teaching of scholars in general that the name of our Creator was pronounced as “Yah-way” (which they write as “Yahweh”) I propose to show that our Savior’s name should not be pronounced with the “eh” sound, as in “Yehoshua” or “Yeshua”, but with the “ah” sound, as in “Yahshua” or “Yashua”. Although “Yashua” is acceptable as a transliteration of His name, I prefer the spelling “Yahshua” to “Yashua” for two reasons. First, “Yashua” is ambiguous as regards pronunciation, for it could be thought to be sounded with a long “a” sound, as in “hay” or “say” instead of with the correct sound, which is as “a” in “father” or “ah”. Secondly, “Yahshua” more clearly shows its connection with the name of the Father, which connection I plan to show it indeed has.

As respects the name of the Creator, it is written with four letters in the Hebrew scriptures. They are generally considered to be equivalent to YHWH in English, although some prefer YHVH. The most basic, root form of this name, however, is YH. This is found separately in certain places in the Hebrew scriptures and, most commonly, in the well-known Hebrew word of praise “Hallelujah” (pronounced, and more clearly written, as “HalleluYah”). This Hebrew word, “HalleluYah”, means “Praise Yah”. A third basic form in which this one true name of the Almighty is found in the scriptures is “Yahu”. This is found in the names of various Bible characters, especially the names of many prophets, and is also found in various ancient inscriptions. “Elijah” is a prime example of its use in a name. Though written in English as “Elijah”, an accurate transliteration of this name from the Hebrew is “EliYahu”. It means “My Mighty One is Yahu”. There is no uncertainty whatsoever as respects the pronunciation of these two shorter forms of this one and only personal name of our Creator. Unlike the full form of our Creator’s name, these shorter basic forms have both been spoken in generation after generation. Thus their pronunciation have come down to us from time immemorial.

Now then, back to the matter of the Savior’s name, we know for a fact that His name was the same as that of the successor of Moses, the one we commonly refer to as “Joshua”. All scholarly writings, which address the subject of the Savior’s name, state this as a fact. Also in the Greek copies of the New Testament writings there are two places wherein the same Greek term is used for the name of this man, “Joshua”, as is everywhere else used for our Savior’s, thus showing them to be one and the same. Those places are Acts 7:45 and Hebrew 4:8. I know of no commentary that does not tell us these two passages are speaking of “Joshua”, even though the original King James uses “Jesus” in them in keeping with the fact that the same Greek term is used in them as is elsewhere used for our Savior’s name. (The New King James, and many other modern translations, actually uses “Joshua” in these two places to make a distinction in persons.)

When we examine the actual Hebrew of this man’s name, which was also given to our Savior, and see how it came about, we see that it does indeed contain the name of our Creator along with a term meaning “Savior”. Without the vowels (which were not written in ancient Hebrew) originally this man’s name was made up of Hebrew letters that are equivalent to the English letters HUSHA. This means “Deliverer” or “Savior”. In Numbers 13:16 we find that Moses changed his name to a form that, letter for letter, would be written in English as YHUSHUA. Thus, basically by adding the letter “Y” Moses made this man’s name to have the personal name of the Almighty in it. He, thereby, changed its meaning from merely “Savior”, or “Deliverer” to “Yah-Savior” (or “Yahu-Savior”) or “Yah-Deliverer”. He was the one who, after the death of Moses, led Israel into the land of promise wherein they were supposed to find rest from their wanderings

and from their enemies. Thereby, this man became a type of the true Savior who leads Yahweh’s people into their spiritual rest and land of promise. Since this name contains the name of the Heavenly Father, and since it is the same name our Savior came to have, our Savior’s name clearly contains the name of His Father.

Over time, possibly due to the influence of Aramaic, the name of this successor of Moses became shortened from YHUSHUA to Y’SHUA as we see in the Hebrew of Nehemiah 8:17. This is somewhat like the English “cannot” became shortened to “can’t without changing its meaning. The difference, however, is that in the case of this name, which our Savior came to also have, the sound of the unwritten vowel continued to retain the sound of the Heavenly Father’s name, as I propose to show.

This is important to realize, because the Bible puts the emphasis on calling upon, praising, and proclaiming Yahweh’s name, all of which involve sound or pronunciation, not just on writing His name. And even though it is likely that to “call upon” His name is an expression which refers to calling upon the person who has that name, yet we should surely want to know how to correctly speak our Father’s name as much as possible. This is especially today when so many are calling upon other names as their god such as “Allah”, “Buddha”, “Krishna”, and even “Satan”, etc. The Bible puts great emphasis upon the name of the true Almighty One. In fact, the most ancient creed, called the “Shema”, declares who the true Almighty is by saying, “Hear O’Israel, Yahweh our Elohim, Yahweh is One.”

Now then, if you are among those who want to use the true form of our Savior’s name, what you need to ask is not how this name of “Joshua”, which He also had, is pronounced in Modern Hebrew, or even in the so-called Biblical Hebrew, but how was it pronounced in the true Biblical Hebrew of the days of our Savior and before. As has been stated the Hebrew used today and the Hebrew of the so-called Biblical Hebrew grammars are based upon the Masoretic system of pronunciation. This system was in turn based upon Hebrew as it became pronounced long after the time of our Savior’s life on earth. It contained a system of vowel markings that came into existence over 500 years after the birth of our Savior. As I have mentioned, there are some very scholarly men who cast great doubt upon the system of pronunciation the Masoretes instituted, stating that it is not the same as the ancient Biblical Hebrew.

Consider this. When Moses changed the name of this man by adding the Creator’s name it was not the written form, but the spoken form that he used. It was this form that gave it great meaning in the ears and mind of the hearers. As I have pointed out the vowels were not written in the time of Biblical Hebrew but only spoken. If in speaking this new name over this man Moses had used the “e”, with an “eh” sound, between the YH, and pronounced it as “Yehushua” (or “Yehoshua” as in current day Hebrew) it would likely have had no meaning to the hearers. (Remember this name did not exist before Moses coined it.) The question the hearers would have asked is, “What does ‘Yeh’ mean?” But if Moses called him “Yahushua” (or “Yahoshua”) everyone would have recognized the use of the Creator’s name and would have, therefore, recognized that Moses was changing his name from meaning merely “Savior” to meaning “Yahweh is Savior” by adding the letter and sound that made it contain this shorter, basic form of the Creator’s one true personal name.

When our Savior was given this name it was in fulfillment of Isaiah 12:2 and other scriptures. Using the King James Translation with no other change than that of putting the name back where the translators substituted “LORD JEHOVAH”, we read, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the YAH YAHWEH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.” (“Jehovah” is an erroneous form of the name, as most dictionaries and encyclopedias will show.)

(The word for salvation in the above passage, when it says “YAH YAHWEH… also is become my salvation”, is the Hebrew term with letters that are equivalent to the English letters YSHUAH. This is very similar to the name of the Son of Yahweh, by whom YAH even YAHWEH became our salvation, but it is not His actual name as some say, but merely the Hebrew word for “salvation”. )

After Moses changed the name of his successor, the son of Nun, from HUSHA to YHUSHUA, over the following centuries of time, this name became very common in Israel. Many mothers began naming a son by this name that meant YAHWEH-SAVIOR. As we have considered from Neh. 8:17, by the time the Messiah was born this name was commonly used in a shortened form. Historical records indicate that this shortened form, Y’SHUA, is what the Messiah became named.

Although many others had been given this name, the true Messiah is the only one who fully fulfilled it as being the one through whom YAH-YAHWEH became our salvation. The Son was the perfect manifestation of His Father, Yahweh. In fact, we are told concerning the Messiah that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the deity bodily.” (“Deity” may not be considered the best choice of words by some, due to its derivation from the name of a pagan god. Yet in its English meaning it is the closest I can come to the translation of the Greek term “theotes” used in this passage. Strong gives its meaning as “divinity”. Since Yahweh is the only true “deity”, as respects the English meaning of this term is concerned, this passage is in effect saying, “in Him dwells all the fullness of Yahweh bodily”. …)

In the rest of this article I plan to show three things about this name that was given to our Savior. First, I will show that the scriptures, which are our final authority, teach that the Messiah was called by the name of His Father Yahweh, as Yahweh-Savior. Secondly, I plan to show that this name Y’SHUA could have been pronounced with the “ah” sound for the unwritten vowel between the Y and the SH. Thirdly, I plan to show that those who lived in the time in which Biblical Hebrew was spoken, and who had this same name, give clear indication that that unwritten vowel was sounded as “ah”.

HE SHALL BE CALLED YAHWEH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

In speaking of the promised Messiah Jeremiah 23:6 says, “In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, YAHWEH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” We are told in 1 Cor. 1:30, “But of him are ye in Messiah Yahshua, who of Yah is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Truly by washing us from our sins in His own blood our Savior became our righteousness. In fact, we read

in Acts 20:28d concerning, “the Congregation of Yahweh, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” … So truly He is called “YAHWEH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”.

SALVATION BY THE NAME OF YAHWEH

It was foretold in Joel 2:32, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of YAHWEH shall be saved.” This passage is applied to calling on the name of the Messiah in Acts 2:21 and Rom 10:13. Also Acts 4:12 says of the Messiah, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 10:43, also speaking of the Messiah, says, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins.” So the conclusion is that since salvation was to be by calling on the name of Yahweh, and since salvation is by calling on the name of the Messiah, and not “in any other name… under heaven”, the name of the Messiah must be the name of Yahweh.

I AM COME IN MY FATHER’S NAME

In John 5:43 we read that our Savior said, “I am come in my Father’s name”. His Father’s name is “Yahweh”, therefore, He must be called “Yahweh” in one form or another. I understand that He was saying He came in the authority of and representing the Father, Yahweh. However, there is further proof in His own words that He actually had been given the Father’s name.

THY NAME WHICH YOU GAVE ME

Look at John chapter 17. In verse 11 we read, “And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.” (NASB) This is the only correct translation from the Greek manuscript. Again in the next verse (12) He speaks to the Father saying, “Thy name which Thou hast given Me.” (NASB)

THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON…

The great commission, as it is called, and the manner in which it was carried out by the apostles to whom it was given, gives us clear indication that the name of the Almighty and our Savior are the same. Yahshua is quoted in Matthew 28:19 as saying, “Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” To translate this into modern day English we would say, “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’s name”.

Without getting into the matter of the teaching of Trinity, Duality, or Oneness, it is clear that since there is only one name indicated here – “in the name” (singular) “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, and since we know the name of the Father is “Yahweh”, therefore, the name of the Son must also be “Yahweh” in some form. It is through the Son that the Father became our salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is verified by the way the apostles carried out this command. Throughout the entire book of Acts, whenever there is mention of how they baptized, it is always in the name of the Master, the Messiah. In the first gospel [good news] message preached after our Savior ascended to heaven we find Peter saying, “…Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Yahshua the Messiah for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (This is Acts 2:38 with “Yahshua”, which is what I am seeking to prove is the correct form of the Savior’s name, being used where the King James has “Jesus”.) Also see Acts 8:16; 10:48; 19:5 and 22:16. Many other verses in the “New Testament” could also be used to show that it is in the Savior’s name that we have salvation, but these should be quite sufficient for this abbreviated article.

THE NAME OF YAHWEH AND THE LAMB

Finally, in the last book of the Bible we find further indication that the Father and Son have the same name. In Revelation 7 verses 3-4 we find the servants of the Almighty are sealed on their foreheads. The number sealed is 144,000. Then, in chapter 14 we find the 144,000 mentioned again. Verse 1 says, “And I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads.” (NASB as per Greek) So the seal is the name of the Lamb, and (or “even”, as the Greek “kai” can be translated) the name of His Father on their foreheads.

In chapter 22 we find further clear indication that the name of Yahweh and the Lamb is on His servants’ foreheads as indeed being one and the same name. Chapter 22, verse 4, says, “and His name shall be on their foreheads.” So the name that is the seal of the Almighty on His servants’ foreheads in chapter 7, that is also seen to be the name of the Lamb and of His Father (Yahweh) in chapter 14, is spoken of again as being on His servants’ foreheads in chapter 22. It is spoken of as “His name” (singular). This obviously is referring to the name of the Almighty. Yet the antecedent of the pronoun His is both Yahweh and the Lamb as we trace it back to verse 1.

To summarize we see the following: (1) In Jer. 23:6 the Messiah was foretold to be called Yahweh our Righteousness. (2) Joel foretold that in the last days salvation would be by calling on the name of Yahweh, and the “New Testament” shows that this is fulfilled by calling on the name of the Messiah, and that there is salvation in no other name. (3) In John 5:43 the Savior states that He came in His Father’s name. (4) In His prayer as recorded in John 17 the Savior spoke twice to the Father concerning, “Thy name… which you have given me”. (5) In the “Great Commission” the name for baptism is spoken of as “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’s name.” Since the name of the Father is Yahweh and there is only one name mentioned here, it is obvious that the name of the Son must also be “Yahweh” in some form. That this command to “baptize in the name of the Father…” is fulfilled by baptizing in the name of the Son is clearly seen when we see that the apostles carried out this command by baptizing in the name of the Son. (6)

Finally, in the book of Revelation we see that the seal of the Almighty is the name of the Lamb and (or “even”) the name of His Father, and that this seal on the foreheads of the servants of Yahweh is His name, again indicating that the name of Yahweh is the name of both the Father and the Son.

Therefore, since the Son has the name of the Father Yahweh, and since His name is the same as that of the successor of Moses, the Son of Nun, that name, YHUSHUA (and its shorter form Y’SHUA) must have the name of Yahweh in it. Furthermore, since it is by speaking it rather than by writing it that we call on a name, when we call on the name of Yahweh for salvation through calling on the name of the Son, Y’SHUA, the sound of Yahweh’s name must be in it in some form. But this can only be so if the vowel assigned to it is sounded as “ah”, as in “Yashua” or “Yahshua”, rather than “eh”, as in “Yeshua” or “Yehshua”. To say that the name of the Father is implied in the term “Yeshua” is to ignore the fact that it is the sound of that name, not just something indicated, or implied, in the written form, that is used to give Him honor and praise.

So all in all it is a question of whether we accept the declarations of Yahweh’s own word that His name is in the name of His Son, or merely go by the theories of men as to how they think Hebrew should be spoken as respects the name given to our Savior. Even if there were no known scholars who questioned the validity of the Masoretic System of pronunciation as it relates to the Hebrew of Bible times, I feel we would still have to stand by Yahweh’s word. Those who followed so-called men of science when the theory of evolution was at its peak of popularity have since been shown to have been wrong by other true men of science who held firmly to the Bible teaching of Creation. And I believe those who insist on sticking rigidly to the rules of grammar men have developed for Biblical Hebrew, even when doing so contradicts what the Bible says, will in time be shown to be wrong as well.

That “Yahshua” (so written as to remove all ambiguity of pronunciation and to better show its connection with the Father’s name in written form) is the correct sound of the Savior’s name is clear according to the Biblical evidence (some of which we have considered). And this pronunciation of this common Hebrew name, which was given to our Savior at His birth as the ultimate “Salvation of Yah”, is confirmed by other findings as well. In the remainder of this article we will look at such findings.

THE GREEK FORM FOR HIS NAME COULD HAVE THE “AH” SOUND

First, let’s consider the Greek form found for this name in the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament writings. That form is written in Greek as Ihsous. This was transliterated into Latin as “Iesus”, and is therein pronounced as Yeasoos. This Latin form is also what is used to transliterate it from the Greek into English, and, as mentioned earlier, is the form that was used in the time of Middle English.

We will not deal with the last part of this Greek form, for it is not pertinent to our present concern. I will merely say that other than the final “s”, which was a peculiarity of names transliterated into Greek from other languages (probably in honor of their chief god Zeus), and the dropping of the short “a” sound at the end due to it being a very short sound, this is the way “shua”, the last part of the name under consideration, would be written in Greek.

The first vowel, “I”, is sounded like a “Y”. As such it is an accurate transliteration of the first letter of the name given to our Savior, which letter for letter is transliterated into English as Y’SHUA, when leaving out the unwritten vowel that we are about to consider.

Our main concern is the second letter, the “h”. This Greek letter, “h”, was most frequently sounded as the “ea” in “yea”. This explains why the Latin transliteration given to this second letter a considerable time after the New Testament writings were penned would be “Ie”, for in Latin “Ie” would be pronounced as “Yea”. If we went from the Latin backward, we would conclude (apart from the teaching scripture) that this name given to the son of Nun, and ultimately to our Savior, must have been pronounced as “Yeashua”, which is what some have concluded.

However, it has been found that this same letter was also pronounced as “ah”, even though less frequently. That this is so can be confirmed by a thorough study of names transliterated into the Greek Septuagint from the Hebrew scriptures. One example is the Hebrew name “Hashum” found in Neh. 10:18. In Hebrew, even according to the Masoretic vowel markings, this name, “Hashum”, had the “ah” sound for the first vowel. Normally the “ah” would be transliterated by the Greek letter called alpha, written as “a”. But in the Septuagint we find it written with the “h”. This is evidence that the letter “h” (called “eta”) could be used to represent the “ah” sound. There are a number of other examples of this, which I will be glad to supply to the reader upon request.

h AND a USED INTERCHANGEABLY

The Greek letter “alpha” (a) was always pronounced as “ah”. And the “h”, called the “eta”, was used interchangeably with the “alpha” in various dialects. For example the Greek word meaning “healing” is “iawmai” in one dialect, but is written as “ihwmai” in another. There are many examples of this interchangeable use of these two letters. In fact, strange as it may seem, the very name used for the Savior in the Greek New Testament writings as we have them today is such a case. In the Attic dialect the name of the goddess of healing is Iasw. Interestingly enough, the first part is an exact transliteration into Greek of the sound of the name of our Creator in the shorter form of “Yah”. (It was not uncommon for the Greeks to borrow the names of the “gods” of other nations and use them for gods or goddesses of their own making.) The last part the “sw” is the root of the Greek word for “health, healing, or salvation”. So literally Iasw would be taken to mean “Yah- Savior”, which is what the Hebrew name we find given to our Savior also means. This Greek name Iasw, which in this form would be clearly pronounced as “Yahso”, was written as Ihsoo or Ihsou in the Ionic dialect, and is the way our Savior’s name is represented in the Greek New Testament writings. Thus our Savior’s name as found in the Greek New Testament writings was definitely a dialectical form given to a term that originally very clearly had the name of “Yah” in it.

So although at a later date the translators into Latin of the New Testament, and other writings, used the more common sound of “ea” for the second letter in the Greek form used for the Savior’s name in the existing Greek translations and copies of the New Testament, it could very well be that those who lived in the time the New Testament writings were first written knew very well that the lessor used “ah” sound was correct, especially since most of the common people could not read anyway.

That these two letters, “h” and “a”, have a very close kinship in the ancient Greek of Biblical times is further seen by what we find in the William Watson Goodwin Greek Grammar. On page 33, section 147, we read, “The Ionic dialect is marked by the use of h where the Attic has a; and the Doric and Aeolic by the use of a where the Attic has h.”

The common sound given to represent the bleating of sheep is the “baa” sound. In the famous Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell & Scott, on page 313 we read “bh bh, baa, the cry of sheep, …”. Thus again the ancient Greeks did use “h” to represent the “ah” sound or something sounding close there unto.

SPEAKERS OF BIBLICAL HEBREW USED THE “AH” SOUND

Finally, during the time of the Maccabees it became common for Jews to change their names to Greek terms with similar sounds. As one author put it, “Once the Jews came under Greek influence, we note the tendency to replace or to translate Jewish names by similar sounding Greek names.” (Gerhard Kittel Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3, page 286 – as he quotes another author.) An example of this that is pertinent to our study is the choice of Greek names made by those living in those times when Biblical Hebrew was a living, spoken language who also had the same name as the son of Nun – the name given to our Savior. In A Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament And Other Early Christian Literature By Arndt & Gingrich we read, “It was a favorite practice among Jews to substitute the purely Gk. Name Iaswn for the Jewish-GK, Ihsous.” In other words, those who knew best how this name was pronounced back then in Bible times chose a name that without any ambiguity had the “ah” sound in it, for there is no question whatsoever that Iaswn was pronounced as “Yahson”. “Yahson” could well be taken to mean “Yah-Savior” since the “so” is the root of the Greek word “sozo”, meaning “to save”.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

So in closing, in summary we see that the Bible teaches that the Father and Son have the same name. We see that the name that Moses changed from “Salvation” to “Yah-Salvation”, which was given to our Savior, is written in the Greek New Testament writings in a form that could be sounded with “Yah” in the first part. We see that it is a dialectical form of a name which definitely has “Yah” in it. And we see that those who lived in the era of time when Biblical Hebrew was a live, spoken language, and had this same name, chose a Greek form that without any ambiguity or uncertainty had the “Yah” sound in it.

It is clear from scripture, and also backed up by other evidence, that the Father continues His name in the name of His Son. I close by quoting Psalm 72:17 as given in the center column reading of the World Publishing Co. edition of the King James Bible, in a copy I obtained many years ago. I don’t know if they gave this as a translation from some lesser-known manuscript, or whether they considered it as a good paraphrase of what it means. In any case, what it says is true. I quote, “His name shall be as a Son to continue His Father’s name forever: and men shall be blessed in him; all nations shall call Him blessed.” The Bible clearly teaches that as a Son our Savior does manifest the Father and does continue His name forever as “Yahshua”, which means “Yahweh-Savior”.

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