Names can be funny things. Modern parents seem to want to create unique names for their children. One friend named his son Bridge for some reason; another named his boys Boston, Champ, and Chief. When I was younger, a family named Lear called their daughter Chrystal Shanda. (Say the full name out loud!) The Fogg family named their daughter Misty. I had a student in a college writing class whose name threw me when I tried to call the roll on the first day. In the roster it was Britanece. I took a stab at pronouncing it, but I got a dirty look from the guy; “That’s Britannica,” he insisted, “like the encyclopedia!”
I was saddled with a name I probably would not have chosen
had I known the trouble it would cause me. My first name is Clair, which is
fine since my dad was also Clair, and his dad was Clarence. But when Grandma
Ruthie changed her husband’s nickname, Clare, to C-l-a-i-r, she created my
nightmare. It’ s a fine word in the French; it translates in English to “clear.”
So far, so good. But in French, adjectives have gender; clair is
masculine, while claire is feminine. For seventy-odd years I have had to
give French lessons to inform people how to spell my name. For some reason
Americans decided that Claire is a woman’s name (and that’s the only spelling
they know), so when I appear in my maleness, they are confused.
I have learned to make jokes like, “I will have to Clairify
that for you.” Or I explain that in French, clair means clear or bright; obviously,
I am the bright one. In my brilliance, we named our first daughter DeAnna
Michelle drawing on the family name, Anna, and the Hebrew Hanna and Mikael: it
means “helper who is like God.” She is now a certified Christian counsellor, so
that worked out. My son we called Benjamin John from the Hebrew meaning “son of
God’s right hand” and the Greek Iōannēs (in English it’s John), meaning
“grace gift of God,” John being his maternal grandfather’s name. He has been a
gift to all he encounters, I am proud to say. Our last child we named Elissa
Joy. In Hebrew, Eli-sha-a means “god is awesome,” and “Joy” is self-evident.
She has been a joy without doubt.
In my experience, most modern parents don’t make that kind
of effort in naming their kids. In Bible times, names were very important. God
often told prospective parents what to call their child. More than once, a
prophet was told to name a child something that would foretell what was
prophesied. Isaiah was told to name a child Maher-shalal-hash-baz; how would
you like to carry that around for your whole life? The most memorable prophetically
given name is undoubtedly the one an angel told Mary and Joseph to call the
miraculous child that was coming to them. In our English translations we read
the name, Jesus. That’s fine, but it is interesting to follow the etymology of
that name.
First, a Bible translation lesson: the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The New Testament mostly in Greek. This was
fitting, since the first readers of the OT were Jews who spoke Hebrew and
Aramaic. Because Alexander the Great had spread Greek culture and language
across the “known world,” when God chose to send His Son, almost everyone could
read Greek. The New Testament therefore was written in Greek (with a touch of
Aramaic) to make it widely readable. By the fourth century, Greek was the
language of scholars, and Latin (the language of Rome) was more commonly read.
A priest in Rome named Jerome was tasked with writing a Latin translation of
all the Scriptures. His translation, called the Vulgate, became the
standard version of the Bible for centuries.
By the Sixteenth Century, Latin had become a language used
only by theologians and scholars, so, King James of England commissioned an
English translation. The translators used what original manuscripts they had
but relied heavily on Jerome’s Vulgate. The second most popular version
of the Bible in English today is the King James Version, only recently surpassed
by the New International Version after nearly 400 years of dominance.
Now we are back to names. The Latin (Vulgate)
translation of the Greek New Testament name for the son of Mary and Joseph was
Jesu. That’s where we get the English King James name Jesus. I think the
translators should have gone deeper than the Greek/Latin name. My thinking is
that the angel would have used the language of Mary and Joseph’s heart: Hebrew.
That would mean the angel would have told them to call their baby boy “Yeshua.”
That may sound odd, but follow me. The Hebrew behind the Greek, Ἰησοῦς (Yaysous) is “Yeshua.” Yayshua: Hebrew – Yaysous: Greek. The
English translation of Yeshua is Joshua which means “God saves.” If we are
going to do a proper job of translating this gospel passage into English, it
seems fitting to assume that the angel told Mary and Joseph to name their
miraculous baby Joshua, God’s Savior.
It is also curious to me that Jesus’ closest disciples never
called Him by His name except once when Philip told his brother, Nathaniel, he
had found the one, “whom Moses wrote about in the law, and the
prophets wrote about—Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth!” Even
there, he was not addressing Jesus. When the disciples did address their
Savior, they called Him Lord or Master or Rabbi. The two disciples on the
Emmaus Road called Him Jesus, but every other instance of the use of His name
was by those outside of His closest friends.
good one!
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