Yahweh & Yehoshua
The Holy Name
by Bob Pickle
Yahweh is generally believed to be the correct
Hebrew pronunciation for Jehovah, a name used for God in
the Old Testament. Yahweh is a word that emphasizes an important aspect of
God's character, just as His other names in Scripture emphasize other
Christ is also called by a number of names in the Bible. His
common New Testament name, Jesus, corresponds to the Old Testament
"Joshua," which in the Hebrew is Yehoshua, and
in Aramiac Yeshua.
Some Christians wish to make the use of Yahweh and Yeshua
a test of fellowship. By some of these Christians, "Jesus" is
even said to be a name for Zeus or Satan, not Christ. Those
holding such views think that Hebrew was the language of Jesus and His
disciples, and thus of the original New Testament manuscripts. Thus,
they say, the original New Testament used the words Yahweh and Yeshua,
and so should we.
Are such ideas true?
The New Testament: Written in Greek or Hebrew?
Though a case might be made for the books of Matthew and Hebrews to
have originally been written in Hebrew,
there is no historical, Biblical, or prophetic evidence that the entire
New Testament was originally written in that language. Such an idea is based on pure
assumption and conjecture.
Nor was the New Testament written in the classical Greek of the
intelligentsia of that day. Instead, it was written in Koine, or common, Greek,
the universal language spoken by many of the common people throughout
the Roman Empire.
The New Testament calls Jesus Iesous (the Greek form
for Yeshua), and it calls God Theos ("God") and Kurios
("Lord"). If the New Testament writers could use
appropriate Koine Greek words to refer to God and Christ, surely it must be permissible for us to use
appropriate English words to refer to them too..
The Writers of the New Testament
Luke was a Gentile Christian, not a Jewish Christian. This fact is
suggested by Colossians 4:10-14, where Paul does not mention Luke with
his Jewish companions, but mentions him separately. It would therefore
be expected that Luke would have written in Greek.
John wrote his books long after the fall of Jerusalem while he was in
Asia Minor and around Ephesus, all territory of Greek-speaking peoples.
Revelation was specifically to be sent to churches in seven
Greek-speaking cities. This suggests that John's books were written in Greek,
not in a Jewish tongue.
Further evidence of this is the fact that John often used Roman reckoning of time
rather than Jewish, beginning the day at midnight (Jn. 19:14;
20:19). If he had really used the Hebrew tongue in his writing, one
would have expected him to use Jewish time as well.
Peter wrote his first epistle from Rome to "strangers
scattered" abroad in five provinces of Asia Minor (1 Pet. 1:1).
These people would have been fluent in the Greek language. It was in a
neighboring province that Paul grew up, and he used this fact to explain
why he knew Greek (Acts 21:37-39).
Aramaic Was Jesus's Language
Aramaic first appears
in Scripture as a language distinct from Hebrew in Genesis 31:47. In Palestine in
Jesus' day, Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the language of speech.
Though not the only places in the New Testament where Aramaic words
appear, the following verses indicate clearly that Aramaic, not Hebrew,
was the language Jesus used in everyday speech:
- Mark 5:41 ("Talitha cumi")
- Mark 7:34 ("Ephphatha")
- Mk. 15:34 ("Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani")
Might it be possible that when Jesus spoke in Aramaic, He always used the
Hebrew pronunciation for the names of God? Such a speculation would be
more difficult to prove than the idea that the entire New Testament was written in
Heathen Names Applied to God in Old Testament
Melek, meaning "king," was a common title for
Yahweh, used in Psalm 5:2; 10:16; 24:7-10; and many other places. You can use a Strong's
Concordance to find other examples. But Molek was
also the name of a popular heathen deity (Lev. 18:21; 20:2-5;
1 Kings 11:7;
2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 32:35; Amos 5:26; 7:43).
Ba`al, meaning husband or owner, is used to refer
to Yahweh in Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 31:32. As the reader
likely knows, Ba`al was a more popular heathen deity than Molek.
Since Yahweh is indeed our King and Husband, such
titles are very appropriate. And if the Bible writers could use such
titles for Yahweh, titles also used of pagan deities, then
it is possible that this issue is not quite as vital as some make it out
"Jesus" and "Zeus"
Does the name "Jesus" refer to Zeus? These two names in their
three common Greek forms appear (nominative, genitive-ablative, and
A transliteration into English of these forms would look like this:
As anyone can see, the only similarity between them is the
and that only in the nominative case. Such similarity of endings means nothing, for many Greek words
have the same case endings:
|head of grain
with Zeus on the basis of the
ending is like identifying
Congregationalism or Methodism with
atheism solely on the basis of their having the same -ism
ending. It just doesn't work that way. While "deity" is
derived from Dios, "Jesus" is not derived from Zeus.
Character, Reputation, Authority
In the KJV, shem is the typical Hebrew word translated
"name." It should be noted that shem in some
contexts denotes more than just a simple name:
- Shem is translated "fame" or "famous"
or "infamous" 9 times,
"renown" 7 times, and "base" once (Gen. 6:4; Num.
16:2; Ruth 4:11; 1 Kings 4:31; 1 Chr. 5:24; 12:30; 14:17; 22:5; Job
30:8; Ezek. 16:14, 15; 22:5; 23:10; 34:29; 39:13; Dan. 9:15; Zeph.
2 Samuel 7:9, the word "name" refers to David's reputation,
for God declares that He has made David a "great
Esther 3:12 and 8:8, the fact that the decrees were written in Ahasuerus' "name"
indicates that these new laws were backed by the weight of his
- God's "name" is synonymous with His
character in Exodus 33:19 and 34:5-7.
So to the Hebrew mind, a person's "name" was
not necessarily a word. "Name" might mean character,
authority, or reputation. Even in English, we still use the word
"name" this way. Some injure the family name while others make a
name for themselves. And how does injuring or making a name alter the pronunciation of their names?
Not one bit!
Our loyalty for the name of God should be more concerned with the
character the word represents than with the pronunciation of the word
itself. Aaron's feast to Yahweh in Exodus 32:5 was really a feast to
Satan. What made the crucial difference was not the pronunciation of the
name of God; it was the character of the deity being worshipped. We
might be using the right pronunciation of the name, but if our Yahweh is more like the
Zeus of the Greeks than the Yahweh of Scripture, we are worshipping a false