
The name of Jesus is possibly one of the most familiar first names throughout the world, but scientists are pointing out that “Jesus” would not have been the name humanity’s savior would have been known by during his own time. Raised as a first century Jew, Jesus’s primary language would not have been English. “We cannot know for sure which languages Jesus spoke. However, given his family background in Nazareth, we can assume his day-to-day language was Aramaic,” said Professor Dineke Houtman of the Protestant Theological University in the Netherlands. Further evidence of Jesus speaking in Aramaic can be found in the Greek Gospels, where Jesus is quoted using Aramaic words such as “Abba” for “Father.”
Considering the hard “j” sound did not exist in Aramaic, Houtman stated that “Yeshua” was the most likely name. Archaeologist Rachel Hachlili agreed in her own study, allowing for the shortened version of Yeshua, Yeshu, as a possibility. Yeshua or its variations would have been very common in Jesus’ day. Scientists have also struggled with coming up with possible candidates for Jesus’s last name, which would not have been “Christ,” which served as a title for “God’s anointed one” or “Messiah.” 1st century names often focused on family heritage, such as where a person came from. “In the ancient world, most people didn’t have a last name as we understand it today. Instead, they were identified through other means, such as their parentage, place of origin, or other distinguishing characteristics,” said historian Dr Marko Marina, from the University of Zagreb. Dr. Marina cited “John, the son of Zebedee” or “Mary Magdalene” as examples, with “Magdalene” possibly meaning Mary came from the region of Magdala. Since Jesus is often referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth,” scientists believe his last name would have been referred to as “Nazarene,” making his full Aramaic name Yeshua or Yeshu Nazareen.
Yeshua would eventually become “Jesus” through the process of transliteration, which tries to translate the sounds from one language to the sounds of another. One example would be transliterating Mandarin words into English, with both languages having very distinct alphabets. Rather than simply translating the Mandarin symbol for “hello” into English, a transliteration would make the word “Ni Hao” to demonstrate how the word sounds in Mandarin. When Greek translators began work on the New Testament, they already had a precedent to follow from the Old Testament, which had been translated from Hebrew into Greek. “By the first century CE there was already a precedent for transliterating the Aramaic name Yeshua as Iesous,” said Candida Moss, an expert on early Christianity from the University of Birmingham. “So, when Paul and the evangelists refer to Jesus – Yeshu/a – they use the already established Greek equivalent of Iesous with an ‘s’ sound at the end.”
When the New Testament was translated into Latin there was another slight shift, this time as Iesous was transliterated to Iesus. In the 16th century, “I” and “J” were interchangeable, with Italian grammarian Gian Giorgio Trissino eventually distinguishing the familiar “j” sound so that by the 17th century “Jesus” had become the common name. Jesus’s actual name has been a source of contention in some Christian groups, with some pushing to refer to Jesus as only “Yeshua” at the risk of worshipping the wrong person. Yet, according to the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM), it’s not the exact name but the recognition of who Jesus is: “Some say that if we don’t pronounce Jesus’ name properly … then we are in sin and serving a false god; but that accusation cannot be made from Scripture. It is not the pronunciation of a word that makes us Christian or not. It is receiving the Messiah, God in flesh, by faith that makes us a Christian.”