who was jesus
who was jesus
The spelling JESUS could not have been in any Bible before 1634 because there was no letter “J” in the European alphabets. All the earliest biblical documents (e.g. Codex Vaticanus, Papyri P Oxy 2, 5th. cent.) use cryptograms for the Lord’s name and title. Just as the Hebrew Torah used YHWH as a crytogram for the name of God (in this case the cryptogram was called the tetragrammaton) they used the symbol IC for the name of the Lord. When a Pharisee read the tetragrammaton YHWH in the Torah scroll he would pronounce it as “Adonai”.
When a Christian saw the cryptogram for the name of the Lord in the Gospels, he would pronounce the sacred Hebrew name “Yeshuah” (pronounced ee shoe). Though His friends knew His real name, it was never revealed in the Gospels - no disciple ever called Him by His real name, they always said “Master”, “Rabbi” etc.
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The Name Jesus
Sunday, April 4, 2010