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For example:
"The breath of our life, the LORD's anointed...." (Lamentations 4:20)
We have textual evidence, then, that Greek-speaking Jews before the advent of Jesus referred to the Mashiach as christos - that is, as "Christ." And later, in Hellenistic Greece during the time of Jesus, when some Jews came to believe that they had found the Messiah, they naturally would refer to him as ho christos - "the Christ."
Nu? So what?
My point here is simple. "Christ" is a good Jewish designation for the term "Messiah." I raise this issue merely to demonstrate to those who are caught up in the "Sacred Name" movement or to those who feel it is necessary to refer to the "Messiah" and disparage the use of the word "Christ" that there is no need to be pedantic in this regard: Christ means "Anointed One" in the same way that the word "Mashiach" does.
What about the name "Jesus"?
Now how about the name "Jesus"? Do we have a transliteration problem here? Need we get fussy about this and insist on referring to the Lord as "Yeshua" and drop the name "Jesus"?
The name Yeshua comes from Joshua's Hebrew name, Yehoshua, which sometimes appears in its shortened form, Yeshua (e.g., see Neh. 8:17). Now Yeshua, when transliterated into Greek, comes out Iesous (YAY-soos) (the final sigma is necessary in the nominative case to designate a proper name). In old English, the "y" sound was rendered as "j," and thus we obtain "Jesus":
To carp that Yeshua's name was incorrectly transliterated is like complaining that the Jews are called "Jews," rather than the more precise term "Y'hudi," a word that was likewise transliterated from the Greek Ioudaios and ultimately into the English word "Judean." In like manner we shouldn't speak about Judaism but perhaps should call it "Yoodaism"?
Nu? So what?
The so-called "Sacred Name" movement that purports that the "true name" of the Messiah is "YAHushua" or "YAHoshua" (or some variant thereof) is founded on faulty linguistics and esoteric doctrine. These people think that the sacred Name (YHVH) is best rendered as YAHWEH, and suppose that since Jesus said He came in His Father's Name (John 5:34), YAH must somehow appear in the spelling of this name. Hence we have YAHshua, or YAHoshua, or some other spelling. This interpoloation of the phoneme YAH comes at the expense of the original Masoretic text and standard Hebrew usage. Some in this movement go so far as to believe that you can only be saved if you pronounce the Sacred Name correctly! As a friend of mine pointed out, this teaching is inherently anti-semitic, since in order for this to be true, the "rabbis" must have corrupted the text and deceived the people. Moreover, the Greek New Testament text has been corrupted as well, since it does not directly contain the Sacred Name.
My point here is simple. Let's not get so hung up on our pronunciation of Hebrew terms that we become snobs -- or worse -- gnostics! For those raised with the Latin-based alphabet in English speaking countries, His Name is Jesus Christ - and it is good!
Shalom to you... and may the Lord Jesus Christ bless you.
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