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The name "Jesus" is an Anglicized (English) form of the Greek name Yesous. In the first century Yesous represented the Hebrew name Yeshua, which in turn was a shortened form of the name Yehoshua.
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Early
Hebrew Bible1 |
Later
Hebrew Bible2 |
LXX Greek
(Septuagint) |
NT Greek |
| Hebrew & Greek |
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| Transliteration |
Yeshoshua |
Yeshua |
Yesous
(Iesous) |
Yesous
(Iesous) |
| English Bibles |
Joshua |
Jeshua |
Joshua |
Jesus,
Joshua3 |
1 Exodus 17:9; Deuteronomy 34:9; Joshua 1:1
2 Ezra 2:2; Nehemiah 8:17; 2 Chronicles 31:15
3 Luke 3:29; Acts 7:45; Hebrews 4:8
The Hebrew name Yehoshua consists of two parts.
(1) "Yeho—" is a shortened form of the Tetragrammaton [YHVH; in English Bibles: "the LORD"] when it is the first part of a name.
(2) "—shua" is an abbreviated form of the verb yasha, which means "to save, rescue, or deliver." Thus the name Yehoshua means "the LORD saves or delivers."
The New Testament reflects this Hebrew background in passages such as:
She will bear a son; and you shall call his name Yeshua,
for it is he who will save his people from their sins.
(said by an angel; Matthew 1:21)
There is salvation [Heb. yeshuah] in no one else;
for there is no other Name under heaven
that has been given among men,
by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)
God highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the Name which is above every name,
that at the name of Yeshua ["the LORD saves or delivers"]
every knee should bow,
of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Yeshua Messiah is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)
I have come in my Father's Name . . .
[Father] I have manifested Your Name to those
whom you have given to me." (John 5:43; 17:6)
An important point: "Yeshua" is the name God himself gave his son (Matt 1:21).
The name (and title) Christ comes into English from the Greek Christos, an adjectival noun used in the 3rd-century B(CE) Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) for men and things that were "anointed" with fragrant oil or with the Pneuma (Ruach) of God.
Leviticus 4:16 — The anointed priest [ho hiereus ho christos] shall bring in the blood ...
1 Samuel 2:10 — The Lord...will exalt the horn of his anointed [christos].
2 Samuel 23:1 — Faithful is David, the son of Jesse, and faithful is the man whom the Lord raised up to be (the) anointed [christos] of the God of Jacob.
Psalm 2:2 — The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered themselves together, against the Lord and against his anointed one [christos].
Daniel 9:25 — ...from the going forth of the command for the answer and the building of Jerusalem until (the/an) Anointed [christos] leader there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks . . .
In the Greek New Testament, the title Christos became so linked with Yeshua that it began to serve as his proper name: Messiah Yeshua.
"Messiah" itself is an Anglicized (English) form of the Greek word Messias which is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew word Mashiach, and possibly the Aramaic Meshichah.
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— |
Mashiach
(Hebrew) |
Meshichah
(Aramaic) |
Messias1
(Greek) |
Christos2
(Greek) |
Messiah |
1 Used only at John 1:41; 4:25
2 Used some 528x in the NT
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