Yeshua (name)
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Yeshua () was a common alternative form of the name Yehoshua () in later books of the
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Second Temple period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...
. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling (), from which, through the Latin /, comes the English spelling
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
. The Hebrew spelling () appears in some later books of the Hebrew Bible. Once for
Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...
the son of Nun, and 28 times for Joshua the High Priest and other priests called Jeshua – although these same priests are also given the spelling Joshua in 11 further instances in the books of Haggai and Zechariah. It differs from the usual Hebrew Bible spelling of Joshua (, ), found 218 times in the Hebrew Bible, in the absence of the consonant () and placement of the
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...
() after, not before, the consonant (). It also differs from the Hebrew spelling () which is found in Ben-Yehuda Dictionary and used in most secular contexts in
Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...
to refer to
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
, although the Hebrew spelling () is generally used in translations of the New Testament into Hebrew and used by Hebrew-speaking Christians in Israel. The name Yeshua is also used in Hebrew historical texts to refer to other Joshuas recorded in Greek texts such as Jesus ben Ananias and Jesus ben Sira. In English, the name Yeshua is extensively used by followers of
Messianic Judaism Messianic Judaism is a syncretic Abrahamic religious sect that combines Christian theology with select elements of Judaism. It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a form of Christianity, including by ...
, whereas East Syriac Christian denominations use the name in order to preserve the Syriac name of Jesus. The 2004 film ''
The Passion of the Christ ''The Passion of the Christ'' is a 2004 American epic biblical drama film co-produced and directed by Mel Gibson from a screenplay he wrote with Benedict Fitzgerald. It stars Jim Caviezel as Jesus of Nazareth, Maia Morgenstern as the Bl ...
'', which was made in
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
, used Yeshua as the name of Jesus and is the most well-known western Christian work to have done so.


Etymology

The name , (transliterated in the English Old Testament as Jeshua), is a late form of the Biblical Hebrew name , (Joshua), and spelled with a in the second syllable. The Late Biblical Hebrew spellings for earlier names often contracted the theophoric element to . Thus, , , contracted to , . Yeshua in Hebrew is a verbal derivative from "to rescue", "to deliver". Among the Jews of the Second Temple period, the
Biblical Aramaic Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel and Ezra in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Targums — Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Hebrew scriptures. History During ...
/Hebrew name , was common: the Hebrew Bible mentions several individuals with this name – while also using their full name Joshua. This name is a feature of biblical books written in the post-Exilic period (
Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...
,
Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...
, and Chronicles) and was found in the
Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...
, though Haggai and Zechariah prefer the spelling Joshua.
Strong's Concordance ''The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible'', generally known as Strong's Concordance, is a Bible concordance, an index of every word in the King James Version (KJV), constructed under the direction of American theologian James Strong. Strong fi ...
connects the name , , in the English form Jeshua (as used in multiple instances in Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles), with the verb "to deliver" (or, "to rescue"). It is often translated as "He saves," to conform with Matthew 1:21: "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins". The name occurs in the Hebrew of the Old Testament at verses Ezra 2:2, 2:6, 2:36, 2:40, 3:2, 3:8, 3:9, 3:10, 3:18, 4:3, 8:33; Nehemiah 3:19, 7:7, 7:11, 7:39, 7:43, 8:7, 8:17, 9:4, 9:5, 11:26, 12:1, 12:7, 12:8, 12:10, 12:24, 12:26; 1 Chronicles 24:11; and 2 Chronicles 31:15, and also in Aramaic at Ezra 5:2. In Nehemiah 8:17 this name refers to Joshua son of Nun, the successor of Moses, as leader of the Israelites. In earlier English (where adaptations of names of Biblical figures were generally based on the Latin
Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...
forms), Yeshua was generally transcribed identically to "Jesus" in English. The name Yehoshua has the form of a compound of "Yeho-" and "shua": () is another form of , , a theophoric element standing for the name of God, (the
Tetragrammaton The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...
YHWH, sometimes transcribed into English as
Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...
), and , is a noun meaning "a cry for help", "a saving cry", that is to say, a shout given when in need of rescue. Another explanation for the name Yehoshua is that it comes from the root , , meaning "to deliver, save, or rescue". According to the
Book of Numbers The Book of Numbers (from Biblical Greek, Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi'', , ''Bəmīḏbar'', ; ) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and complex history; its final f ...
verse 13:16, the name of Joshua, the son of Nun was originally (), and the name () is usually spelled the same but with a added at the beginning. "Hosheaʿ" certainly comes from the root , , (in the
Hif'il In Hebrew, verbs, which take the form of derived stems, are conjugated to reflect their grammatical tense, tense and grammatical mood, mood, as well as to agreement (linguistics), agree with their subject (linguistics), subjects in grammatical g ...
form the becomes a ), and not from the word , .) In the 1st century,
Philo of Alexandria Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian Je ...
, in a Greek exposition, offered this understanding of Moses's reason for the name change of the biblical hero Jehoshua/Joshua son of Nun from Hoshea (similar to , meaning "He rescued") to Yehoshua in commemoration of his salvation: "And refers to salvation of the Lord" or being the Greek form of the name() (''On the Change of Names'' 21.121). Similarly, the
Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
renders
Ben Sira Ben Sira or Joshua ben Sirach (; ) was a Hellenistic Jewish scribe, sage, and allegorist from Seleucid-controlled Jerusalem of the Second Temple period. He is the author of the Book of Sirach, also known as "Ecclesiasticus". Ben Sirach w ...
as saying (in the Greek form of the name): " the son of Naue ehoshua Ben Nunwho ''according to his name'' became great unto hesalvation/deliverance of his chosen ones" () (Ben Sira 46:1–2). However,
Ben Sira Ben Sira or Joshua ben Sirach (; ) was a Hellenistic Jewish scribe, sage, and allegorist from Seleucid-controlled Jerusalem of the Second Temple period. He is the author of the Book of Sirach, also known as "Ecclesiasticus". Ben Sirach w ...
originally wrote in Hebrew in the second century BC, and the only extant Hebrew manuscript for this passage has "in his days" (), not "according to his name" (which would be in Hebrew), and thus does not comment on the name Yehoshua as connoting "deliverance": "Yehoshua Ben Nun, who was formed to be ''in his days'' a great deliverer for his chosen ones" ().


Archaeological evidence

Tal Ilan's Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity (2002) includes for "Joshua" 85 examples of Hebrew , 15 of , and 48 examples of in Greek inscriptions," with only one Greek variant as . One ossuary of the around twenty known with the name Yeshua, Rahmani No.9, discovered by Ezra Sukenik in 1931, has "Yeshu... Yeshua ben Yosef." The "Yeshu..." may have been scratched out. Photo of the "Yeshu... Yeshua bar Yehosef" ossuary and dual inscription. Two Jewish magical incantation bowls have been discovered both bearing variant spellings of Yeshua. Apart from the "Yeshua... Yeshua ben Yosef" ossuary, the only other known evidence for the existence of a Yeshua form prior to the material related to
Jesus in the Talmud There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus. The name used in the Talmud is " Yeshu" (), the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name ''Yeshua''. Many such passage ...
, is a graffito which Joachim Jeremias identified in Bethesda in 1966, but which is now filled in.


Pronunciation

In (, ), the Hebrew letter (, is vocalized with the Hebrew vowel (, a 'long' ''e'' like the first syllable of "neighbor" but not
diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
ized), rather than with a (, as Y'shua) or (, Yesh-shua). The final letter, () is (a voiced pharyngeal sound not found in Greek or English), sometimes transcribed (). The final represents the "patach genuvah" ("furtive" ''
patach Pataḥ ( ', , Biblical Hebrew: ') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme which is close to the " sound in the English word ''far'' and is transliterated ...
''), indicating that the consonant is pronounced after the ''a'' vowel, and the word's stress is moved to the middle syllable (the characteristics of the furtive patach can be seen in other words, such as , 'spirit'). Thus it is pronounced in Modern Hebrew. The Hebrew name of Jesus is probably pronounced , although this is uncertain and depends on the reconstruction of several ancient Hebrew dialects. Talshir suggests, even though Galileans tended to keep the traditional spelling for with for , they still pronounced the name similarly to the Judeans, as 'Yeshua' , who tended to spell the name phonetically as , perhaps reducing the name thus: > > , with the palatalizing (via
dissimilation In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonants or vowels in a word become less similar or elided. In English, dissimilation is particularly common with liquid consonants such ...
) before the . Qimron describes the general linguistic environment of Hebrew dialects by the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The articulation of the (along with other guttural phonemes , , and , as well as approximants and )
lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
significantly. Thus Hebrew pronunciations became less stable when two successive vowels were no longer separated by a consonant . The speakers optionally either reduced the two vowels to a single vowel or oppositely expanded them to emphasize each vowel separately, sometimes forming a furtive glide in between, or . For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls spell the Hebrew word (, 'seen') variously, recording both pronunciations: reduced () and expanded (). The Hebrew name Yehoshua generally reduced to Yeshua, but an expanded Yehoshua is possible, especially in Galilee, whose traditional orthography possibly reflects this.


Original name for Jesus

The English name ''Jesus'' derives from the
Late Latin Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in ...
name , which transliterates the
Koine Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic ...
Greek name . In the
Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
and other Greek-language
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
texts, such as the writings of
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
and
Philo of Alexandria Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian Je ...
, () is the standard Koine Greek form used to translate both of the Hebrew names: Yehoshua and Yeshua. The Greek or is also used to represent the name of Joshua son of Nun in the New Testament passages Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8. (It was even used in the Septuagint to translate the name ''Hoshea'' in one of the three verses where this referred to Joshua the son of Nun—Deuteronomy 32:44.) During the second Temple period (beginning 538 BC–70 AD), Yeshua first became a known form of the name Yehoshua. All occurrences of Yeshua in the Hebrew Bible are in 1 Chronicles 24:11, 2 Chronicles 31:15,
Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...
, and
Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...
where it is transliterated into English as Jeshua. Two of these men (Joshua the son of Nun and Joshua the High Priest) are mentioned in other books of the Hebrew Bible where they are instead called Yehoshua (transliterated into English as Joshua). The earlier form Yehoshua did not disappear, however, and remained in use as well. In the post-exilic books, Joshua the son of Nun is called both Yeshua bin-Nun (Nehemiah 8:17) and Yehoshua (1 Chronicles 7:27). The short form Yeshua was used for
Jesus ben Sirach Ben Sira or Joshua ben Sirach (; ) was a Hellenistic Jewish scribe, sage, and allegorist from Seleucid-controlled Jerusalem of the Second Temple period. He is the author of the Book of Sirach, also known as "Ecclesiasticus". Ben Sirach wr ...
in Hebrew fragments of the Wisdom of Sirach. (Some concern remains over whether these fragments faithfully represent the original Hebrew text or are instead a later translation back into Hebrew.) The earlier form Yehoshua saw revived usage from the Hasmonean period onwards, although the name Yeshua is still found in letters from the time of the
Bar Kokhba Revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded ...
(132–135 AD). In the documentary '' The Lost Tomb of Jesus'', archeologist Amos Kloner stated that the name Yeshua was then a popular form of the name Yehoshua and was "one of the common names in the time of the
Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
." In discussing whether it was remarkable to find a tomb with the name of Jesus (the particular ossuary in question bears the inscription "Yehuda bar Yeshua"), he pointed out that the name had been found 71 times in burial caves from that time period. Thus, both the full form Yehoshua and the abbreviated form Yeshua were in use during the Gospel period – and in relation to the same person, as in the Hebrew Bible references to Yehoshua/Yeshua son of Nun, and Yehoshua/Yeshua the high priest in the days of Ezra. An argument in favor of the Hebrew reduced form , , as opposed to Yehoshua, is the Western Syriac language, in which the pronunciation is ''Yeshuʿ'' .


East Syriac

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
and Classical Syriac render the pronunciation of the same letters as and . The Aramaic Bibles and the Syriac
Peshitta The Peshitta ( ''or'' ') is the standard Syriac edition of the Bible for Syriac Christian churches and traditions that follow the liturgies of the Syriac Rites. The Peshitta is originally and traditionally written in the Classical Syriac d ...
preserve these same spellings. Current scholarly consensus posits that the New Testament texts were translated from the Greek, but this theory is not supported directly at least by the name for Jesus, which is not a simple transliteration of the Greek form as would otherwise be expected, as Greek did not have a "sh" sound, and substituted ; and likewise lacked and therefore omitted the final (). Moreover,
Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...
(early 4th century) reports that
Papias of Hierapolis Papias () was a Greeks, Greek Apostolic Father, Bishop of Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, Turkey), and author who lived c. 60 – c. 130 AD He wrote the ''Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord'' () in five books. This work, which is lost apart fr ...
(early 2nd century) reports that Jesus's disciple
Matthew the Evangelist Matthew the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. According to Christian traditions, he was also one of the four Evangelists as author of the Gospel of Matthew, and thus is also known as Matthew the Evangelist. The claim of his g ...
wrote a
gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
"in the Hebrew language". (Scholars typically argue the word "Hebrew" in the New Testament refers to Aramaic; however, others have attempted to refute this view.)Buth, Randall, and Pierce, Chad. "Ebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἐβραϊστί ever Mean "Aramaic"?" Buth and Notley, ed., ''The Language Environment in First Century Judea''. Brill, 2014. The Aramaic of the Peshitta does not distinguish between ''Joshua'' and ''
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
'', and the Lexicon of William Jennings gives the same form of for both names. The Hebrew final letter () is equivalent to final in Syriac varieties of Aramaic. It can be argued that Aramaic speakers who used this name had a continual connection to the Aramaic-speakers in communities founded by the apostles and other students of Jesus, thus independently preserved his historical name Yeshuuʿ and the Eastern dialectical . Those churches following the
East Syriac Rite The East Syriac Rite, or East Syrian Rite (also called the Edessan Rite, Assyrian Rite, Persian Rite, Chaldean Rite, Nestorian Rite, Babylonian Rite or Syro-Oriental Rite), is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Liturgy of Ad ...
still preserve the name . In the
Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, only one reference is made to the spelling Yeshuaʿ, in verbatim quotation from the Hebrew Bible regarding Jeshua son of Jozadak (elsewhere called Joshua son of Josedech). The Talmud does refer to several people named Yehoshua from before (e.g. Joshua ben Perachyah) and after Jesus (e.g.,
Joshua ben Hananiah Joshua ben Hananiah ( ''Yəhōšūaʿ ben Ḥănanyā''; d. 131 CE), also known as Rabbi Yehoshua, was a leading tanna of the first half-century following the destruction of the Second Temple. He is the eighth-most-frequently mentioned sage in t ...
). In references to
Jesus in the Talmud There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus. The name used in the Talmud is " Yeshu" (), the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name ''Yeshua''. Many such passage ...
, however, where the name occurs, it is rendered Yeshu, which is a name reserved in Aramaic and Hebrew literature from the early medieval period until today, solely for Jesus, not for other Joshuas. Some scholars, such as
Maier Maier is a surname of German origin. It is a variant spelling of the more usual " Meyer", which is cognate with the English word "mayor", but with a different meaning. Individuals with the surname include: * Anneliese Maier (1905–1971), Germ ...
(1978), regard the two named "Yeshuʿ" texts in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a and 107b) to be later amendments, and not original.


Rabbinical commentary on the difference Yeshuʿ/Yeshuaʿ

In general rabbinical sources, the name Yeshuʿ is used, and this is the form to which some named references to
Jesus in the Talmud There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus. The name used in the Talmud is " Yeshu" (), the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name ''Yeshua''. Many such passage ...
as Yeshu occur in some manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud, though some scholars, such as
Maier Maier is a surname of German origin. It is a variant spelling of the more usual " Meyer", which is cognate with the English word "mayor", but with a different meaning. Individuals with the surname include: * Anneliese Maier (1905–1971), Germ ...
(1978) have argued that the presence of the name Yeshuʿ in these texts is a late interpolation. Some of the Hebrew sources referencing Yeshu include the , '' The Book of Nestor the Priest'', Jacob ben Reuben's , , , the works of
ibn Shaprut Shem-Tob ben Isaac Shaprut of Tudela () (born at Tudela, Kingdom of Navarre in the middle of the 14th century) was a Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and polemicist. He is often confused with the physician Shem-Tob ben Isaac of Tortosa, ...
, Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas, and
Hasdai Crescas Hasdai ben Abraham Crescas (; ; c. 1340 in Barcelona – 1410/11 in Zaragoza) was a Spanish-Jewish philosopher and a renowned halakhist (teacher of Jewish law). Along with Maimonides ("Rambam"), Gersonides ("Ralbag"), and Joseph Albo, he is k ...
. The name Yeshu is unknown in archeological sources and inscriptions, except for one ossuary found in Israel which has an inscription where someone has started to write first "Yeshu.." and then written "Yeshuaʿ bar Yehosef" beneath it. There are 24 other ossuaries to various Yeshuas and Yehoshuas. None of the others have Yeshu. All other "Joshuas" in the Talmud, rabbinical writings, modern Hebrew, are always Yeshua or Yehoshua. There are no undisputed examples of any Aramaic or Hebrew text where Yeshu refers to anyone else than Jesus. Some of rabbinical sources comment on the reasons for the missing from Yeshu, as opposed to the Hebrew Bible Yeshuaʿ and Yehoshuaʿ. Leon Modena argues that it was Jesus himself who made his disciples remove the , and that therefore they cannot now restore it. (Modena was a 17th-century polemicist and does not have reliable linguistic evidence for the claim.) A tradition states that the shortening to Yeshu relates to the Y-SH-U of the , "may his name be obliterated." Against this David Flusser suggested that the name ''Yeshu'' itself was "in no way abusive," but "almost certainly" a Galilean dialect form of Yeshua. But E.Y. Kutscher showed that the was still pronounced in Galilee, refuting a thesis by Paul Kahle.E.Y. Kutscher, Studies in Galilean Aramaic, 1976.


See also

*
Aramaic of Jesus There exists a consensus among scholars that Jesus of Nazareth spoke the Aramaic language. Aramaic was the common language of Roman Judaea, and was thus also spoken by Jesus' disciples. The villages of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, whe ...
*
Isa (name) Isa () is a Classical Arabic name which is the name given to Jesus in the Quran and other Islamic texts. The name Eesa (إيساء) or Isa in Arabic can also be interpreted as meaning “Yahweh is salvation” or “Yahweh’s gift”. It is de ...
*
Joseph (name) Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef (given name), Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mode ...
*
Josiah Josiah () or Yoshiyahu was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE). According to the Hebrew Bible, he instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Until the 1990s, the biblical description of Josiah’s ...
* Tikkun olam * Yahshua * Yahshuah


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeshua Names of Jesus Hebrew-language names