Examining the true name of the Messiah.

What is the Messiah's name?

Does the Messiah's name derive from the name Yahweh?

"His name is Yahoshua!" "There was no J sound before 400 years ago!" So go the common arguments, against pronouncing the name of the Messiah, as Jesus. But is this correct? No.

While an independent symbol for the J sound is a relatively recent addition to the English language alphabet, the phoneme for J was represented by the letter I/i, prior to the letter receiving a hook, in order to separate the phoneme for J, with a symbol of its own. The phoneme for J was spoken in Egyptian, Phoenican/Paleo-Hebrew and Latin, however, there is no J sound in Babylonian Aramaic which is commonly called 'Modern Hebrew', and it is from here where much of the confusion regarding the J sound arises, as many people mistake the Babylonian Aramaic pronunciation, of the Messiah's name, for Paleo-Hebrew.

The letter Y in Modern English is not derived from the Greek Letter, upsilon, but from the Middle English letter, yogh. The phoneme of this character was derived from the Old English form of the letter g. In Old English the letter g represented the 'yeh/yeeh/yuh, yoh' sounds. For example, in Old English 'yarn' was spelt 'gearn', and 'yeast' was spelt 'giest'. Since the word Jesus was derived by way of transliteration, this being the representation of the sounds of the Hebrew word Jehshua (shortened form of Jehoshea) through Greek, and Latin, using the closest corresponding sounds; 'Jesus' would have been spelt 'Gesus' in Old English, if it were to be spelt 'Yesus' in Early Modern English - if this name was truly meant to be derived from a 'Yahoshua' phonemic origin. The King James bible of 1611 doesn't render Jesus/Iesus, as Yesus, because it wasn't trying to represent the Middle English yogh phoneme, but the Jud/'Yod' of Classical Hebrew.

From the 1611 Kings James Bible we can see the use of the y, representing the phoneme for yogh, or Old English g (in brackets), and the 'I' representing the phoneme for 'J'.

Genesis 5:20 | "And all the dayes (dæg) of Iared (Jared) were nine hundred sixtie and two yeeres (gere), and he died."

Further examples highlight a difference between the use of 'Y' as in "Yes", and 'I' as in "Jesus", representing distinct phonemic origins and use.

Matthew 17:25 | "Hee saith, Yes (Gese). And when hee was come into the house, Iesus (Jesus) preuented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom doe the kings of the earth take custome or tribute? of their owne children, or of strangers"

Jesus' name is transliterated from Ancient Greek, which derived its alphabet from Phoenician/Paleo-Hebrew.

The Hebrew spelling of Jesus or Jehoshua is Yod/Jud-Hey-Vav-Shin-Ayin or Yod/Jud-Hey-Vav-Shin-Vav-Ayin. The 'shva' under the 'yod/jud' signifies the "Jeh" vocalization. This is also seen in names such as Jehowseph (J'oseph), Jehonatan (J'onathan), Jehoyaqim (Jehoiakim), Jehoshafat (Jehoshaphat) and Jehoram (Jehoram). The reason many believe that the "Jeh" should be vocalised "Yeh" or "Yah" is simply because they believe this is the proper name of the Father "Yah" / "Yahweh". If Yahushua were to be the actual name of the Anointed One of Israel, his name in Hebrew would have to be spelt Yod-Hey-Shin-Vav-Ayin. This spelling is not found anywhere in the scriptures. What is found is the spelling for Jehoshua (Jehoshea), and its shortened form Jeshua which is written in the Hebrew as Yod/Jud-Shin-Vav-Ayin. It is from this truncated form of the name, of which Jesus is derived.

When transliterating Yod/Jud-Shin-Vav-Ayin -- the Hebrew name Jeshua to Greek:

Jud/Yod - "je"> transliterates by pairing iota-eta (Ih). Modern Greek vocalises eta/heta as a long e sound, however Ancient Greek vocalised the eta/heta as the heth, or as the consonant sound /h/. This mean the iota-eta would have been vocalised as "Jeh" (Hebrew) or "Yeh" (Babylonian Aramaic), not as the modern vocalisation of "ee-ay".

Shin - "sh"> transliterates as sigma (s) because there is no equivalent letter for the "sh" sound in Greek.

Vav - "u" > the final u sound transliterates as the dipthong omicron-upsilon (ou) vocalized as "oo" because upsilon alone would not create the correct voicing needed.

Ayin - "ah"> the rules that govern Greek grammar dictate that this letter not be vocalized, and is due to the fact that it is not allowable for masculine names to end with a vowel during the transliteration process from the Hebrew to Greek.

The final sigma (V) or "s" on the end is part of the standard transliteration from other languages to Greek. Greek nouns and names almost always have case endings, so the sigma (V) or "s" is added at the end of the word to distinguish that the name is the masculine form, and also makes it declinable.

This transliteration provides us with the Jehshua / ΙΗΣΟΥΣ / Jehsous / Jesus name, and common pronunciation.

This is also supported by the transliteration of Jason from Greek to English.

Acts 17:7

GRK: οὓς ὑποδέδεκται "I'άσων" καὶ οὗτοι

KJV: Whom "Jason" hath received: and

Romans 16:21 N-NMS

GRK: Λούκιος καὶ "I'άσων" καὶ Σωσίπατρος

KJV: Lucius, and "Jason", and Sosipater

The J sound /ʤ/ as in Jar, Jersey or Jesus is not new. This sound was represented by the resting cobra hieroglyph in Ancient Egypt. The Israelites sojourned in Egypt for 430 years and were well aware of the /ʤ/ phoneme.

Consider, why would the English scholars who translated the Bible, have used a J instead of Y, when the symbol for Y already existed - if it was their intent to have J pronounced as Y? As I have previously shown, the Y symbol came from the Middle English letter, Yogh. Nowhere do we find Jesus spelt Gesus (Old English) or Yesus (supposed Early Modern English deriviation of Old English Gesus) using the yogh, with the latter two pronunciations representing the 'Yee' sounds. In Early Modern English translations of the scriptures (1611 KJV), we see words beginning with "I" and "Y" providing distinct sounds. See Matthew 17:25 "Yes" ("Ye" phoneme from yogh) and Iesus ("Je" phoneme from the Iota/Jud). While the letter Y in Middle English was used interchangeably to represent a short I sound (syngyng / singing), it could only do this between consonants, or with a consonant directly after it. It could not replace an I to make a short "I" sound, in words which had a vowel after the I, as a vowel after an I made a "J" sound, not "Y" sound.

The symbol which represented the phoneme for "J" /dʒ/ in Old English was an "I" (when used before a vowel), with this same phoneme /dʒ/ being represented by the resting cobra in Egyptian Hieroglyphs. This means the /dʒ/ sound has been in use for thousands of years. Modifying an existing symbol to differentiate the numerous sounds that this symbol "I" could make, (depending on its placement within the word ie. before a vowel, or before/after, or in between a consonant), is simply the development of the written language, not the spoken language. While Babylonian Aramaic has no "J" /dʒ/ sound like Egyptian and Paleo-Hebrew do, the "shva" under the yod represents a Jeh (Hebrew) / Yeh (Babylonian Aramaic) sound, never Yah. No where in scripture do we find Yahushua (Yod-Hey-Shin-Vav-Ayin) written.

Jehoshea, Jehshua, Jehsus, Jesus. The name above all names.