The main character in the Bible is Jesus Christ. Recognizing Him as our Lord and Savior and getting to know Him are essential. That is something that all Christians will agree upon—otherwise, they wouldn’t identify as Christians). On the other hand, some contend that it’s crucial to use the correct name and that He went by Yeshua rather than Jesus. Let’s examine the main points of this conversation.
Jesus’ name was not unique
The Bible makes it quite evident that Jesus Christ is wholly exceptional. He is the Messiah, the Son of God. He is the world’s Savior. “Therefore, to the glory of God the Father, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name,” according to Philippians 2:9–11. “Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.” This does not, however, suggest that the name “Jesus” was unique in and of itself. Jesus was given the highest name, which is [the title ‘Lord’]. God gave Jesus this name as a symbol of His total dominion as the universe’s king.
In fact, the name “Jesus” was widely used throughout biblical times. It means “the Lord is salvation” and is written יְהוϹשׁוϼעϷ or יֵשׁוϼעϷ in Hebrew. Numerous individuals bearing this name are mentioned in many scriptures, such as Numbers 11:28, 1 Samuel 6:14, Haggai 1:1, and Ezra 2:40. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins,” the angel told Joseph when he revealed the Messiah’s impending arrival (Matthew 1:21). Thus, because of its meaning, the common name given to the Son of God at His human birth was appropriate.
The name Jesus is frequently used in conjunction with another name or title in the Bible, such as “Jesus Christ” or “the Lord Jesus.” In order to differentiate Him from other individuals sharing the same name, people addressed to Him as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (see John 1:45).
Pronouncing and translating names
The original name is, as I mentioned earlier, יϵשׁוּעַ. We need to pronounce this name using a transliteration because the majority of us don’t speak Hebrew. Something like “yeh-shoo’-ah” would be the equivalent for English readers. People will pronounce it slightly differently even with transliterations because every language has a distinct phoneme.
Of course, this is not exclusive to the name Jesus. I’ll use my own family as an example. The formal name of my spouse is “Johannes.” This is usually shortened to “Johan.” This is a common name that is easy to say in Dutch. However, it didn’t take long for his name to change to “John” after he went to an English-speaking nation as a toddler. Though pronounced and spelled somewhat differently, the name is the same.
Years later, we moved to Germany. Whenever I was introduced to people, they had a hard time remembering and pronouncing my name. Sometimes we just settled with something similar like ‘Greta’ to avoid awkward situations. My husband’s name was not that problematic. Most people would pronounce it correctly, since it’s almost the same in Dutch and German. However, they would add an extra -n to the end, since ‘Johann’ is a common name in German speaking countries. We didn’t feel the need to correct them. This solution worked great for most practical purposes. In a similar way, the names of our children would be pronounced ‘in a German way’, a little different than we were used to. This was just one little adaptation we made when living abroad.
Pronouncing and translating the name of Jesus
We find a similar procedure in the Bible. Greek was used to write the New Testament, while Hebrew was used to write the Old Testament. Upon recording the words of the angel in Matthew 1:21, the name ֵ֙שׁוϼעַ was inscribed as Ἰησoῦς. Greek cannot be literally reproduced from Hebrew because it lacks the Hebrew “sh” sound. Furthermore, in Greek, names for men usually ended in -s (though this suffix might change to -n when the name was used in another context, like as an item). The name was then changed to “Iesus” when the Greek manuscripts were translated into Latin.
In a similar vein, every other language into which the Bible was translated had to select a spelling that the readers could understand and pronounce. While some languages changed the word slightly to more closely resemble the original pronunciation, others stayed more faithful to the literal spelling.
Let me give one last example to clarify this:
- In English, “Jesus” is written. This sounds like [j EE – z uh s] in phonetic spelling. That’s how those who speak English pronounce it.
- The spelling is very similar in Spanish: “Jesús.” However, the pronunciation is not the same as in English. Rather than the first syllable, the second is stressed. The sound of “j” is similar to the “h” in “hat,” whereas the sound of “ú” is similar to the “oo” in “food.” On this page, you can give it a try.
- “Jesus” is how we write in French. While the sounds are similar to those of Spanish, French, like English, emphasizes the first syllable.
I could compare many more languages with this list, but the idea stays the same. Words, including names, can be written and spoken differently in different languages. However, they all refer to the same entity or person.
Is it important how we spell and pronounce Jesus’ name?
The Bible tells us to “call upon the name of the Lord” to be saved (Acts 2:21). But it is not at all important in which language we do so. God will save “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9). These people don’t have to learn Hebrew first. In fact, the New Testament was written in Greek instead of Hebrew because this had become a more common language, which shows that language and spelling is not important to God. The message of the Gospel is! This is also confirmed by the story about Pentecost in Acts 2:1-11, where the apostles spread the good news about Jesus in people’s native languages, so that all could understand it clearly.
To the glory of God the Father, in whatever language—English, Dutch, German, Hindi, Hebrew, or Chinese—you are asked to humble yourself before the name of Jesus and acknowledge that He is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11).
