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As I stated, the correct name for our Messiah is Yeshua, which is sometimes also spelled Y’shua. Anything other than that is probably not correct and is born out of this silly attempt by some well-intentioned people to find something that both does not need to be found and doesn’t exist (more on that in a moment). A good resource where the name is correctly pronounced is the movie Risen, a depiction of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah told fictionally from the perspective of a Roman solider.
So how did we come to the name “Jesus”? Well, hold on for the ride, as I take you through it at a rather fast pace. The true name for the Messiah is Yeshua, which is the direct English transliteration of the Hebrew יֵשׁוּעַ. When the Hebrew was transliterated into Greek, it would be written Ιησους. This would directly transliterate into English as Iesous. So, from Iesous, it eventually evolved into the modern English transliteration “Jesus”. Thus, despite some claims that the name “Jesus” is a pagan name, even going so far as to associate it with the Greek god Zeus, there is actually nothing wrong with using “Jesus”. I would, however, wonder why anyone who has been taught the correct name of Yeshua would ever want to keep saying “Jesus”, except perhaps in a situation where you are speaking to a group of people who have no knowledge of the name Yeshua and might be confused by it at first.
If we evolve directly from the Hebrew transliteration of Yeshua, we would come up with the name Joshua. This is because Yeshua is a shortened form of the name Yehoshua, which is the Hebrew form of Joshua, much like the name Tom is short for Thomas or Bill is short for William. Dr. Michael Brown has a short video that explains this very well called What Is The Hebrew Name For Jesus? It does not seem advisable to use the name Joshua in reference to the Messiah, however, because there are other key figures in Scripture and history with this name and we most certainly do not want to confuse them and the Messiah.
Lately, at the time of this writing, I have heard a Christian Pastor that I hold a lot of respect for using the phrase name Jehovah Joshua Messiah to refer to Yeshua. This is very reminiscent of what those involved with this Sacred Name Movement are doing with the name, always trying to come up with their own unique name for the Father or the Son. Technically this one would have some merit, as Joshua is a correct transliteration directly from Hebrew into modern English. Everyone else in the Bible named Yeshua or Yehoshua is named Joshua in English Bibles. However, there is an issue when it comes to the name “Jehovah”, as this is a completely wrong name that developed by Christians ignorant of coding done by earlier Jewish scribes to write the name of God in such a way as to tell the reader to say ADONAI or ELOHIM when reading the text. A more correct rendering of the Pastor’s “special name” for Messiah would be: Yahweh Yeshua HaMashiach. You’ll understand why in a moment.
The proper name of God the Father and Creator is Yahweh. This is made up of the Hebrew letter Yod-Hey-Waw-Hey, which is from the more ancient form of the Hebrew language. In time the letter Waw evolved into the letter Vav. It is the same letter, it is just the pronunciation that changed. This is why some people today write the tetragrammaton as YHVH instead of YHWH, though the latter is the more historically correct.
After the development of Christianity and the incorporation of Gentiles into the Body of Believers, some well-meaning Jewish scholars decided that the holy name of God needed to be protected so that it would not be accidentally blasphemed or desecrated by these young converts who loved their God but did not have the history of knowledge held by the Jewish people. What these scribes decided to do was altar accent markings that dictated what vowel sounds were made to properly pronounce The Name, and also stopped pronouncing the name and instead simply said: “Adonay” (Adonai), which is the Hebrew word for “Lord” and the reason why “LORD” is capitalized when written in some English Bibles.
In an effort to maintain this preservation, they went further and took the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yah-Weh) and inserted the vowels from “Adonay” into it, which if written in English would look something like “Yahowah”. This was never actually pronounced, however, it merely served as a reminder to pronounce Adonay/Adonai when the reader encountered the name in Scripture. There is another short video available from a group called The Bible Project called Word Study: YHWH – “Lord” that goes into a bit more detail about this.
Eventually, just as in the name “Jesus”, the letter “J” replaced the letter “Y”, the Hebrew “Waw” evolved into “Vav”, and those who didn’t know what the Jewish scholars were doing in an effort to protect The Name came up with “Jehovah/Yehovah” from “Yahowah”. What that means is that anytime you see a Christian minister teaching the names of God as Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Shammah, Jehovah Tsidkenu, etc., it should really be Yahweh Yireh, Yahweh Nissi, Yahweh Shalom, Yahweh Shammah, Yahweh Tsidkenu, etc. Messianic Rabbi K.A. Schneider explains this in his message Yahweh Yireh.
What you will find when you encounter people who are embracing this sacred name stuff is a host of variations, none of which have any historically known use. One thing that is very common is the use of the name “Yah”, which is a semi-acceptable short form of Yahweh, in the beginning of the Messiah’s name to create the form “Yahshua”. If you do a little bit of research from actual scholars in Hebrew and Semitic language you will find that they all discourage this as completely inaccurate. Again, Dr. Brown’s video speaks on this issue as well. Other forms I have seen include Yehusha, Jehoshua, Yaishua, Yawsha, Yahushawah, and my absolute favorite Yahawashi—I think that is what you call Messiah after he takes a bath. I once came across a list that had about 50 variations that people had come up with. Let me help you out: This is NONSENSE and does nothing to advance the Kingdom of God.
These people are merely trying to make a name for themselves at the expense of His holy name.
So, now that I have that out of the way, establishing that Yeshua is the correct name for the Messiah but “Jesus” is acceptable and that this is not about the name, but instead it is about the real Messiah from Scripture and a mythical character who is absolutely not the Messiah. Again though, I really don’t understand why anyone would want to continue using the wrong name of “Jesus” after learning His real name: Yeshua. But I’ll leave that alone, for now, let’s move on.
What is your understanding of the name?
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Who Is This Man Named "Jesus"? posted for students participating in interactive Bible study and those who are interested in learning the Biblical truth. Join
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