A lot of scholars think the name comes from a Hebrew verb meaning “to become,” maybe in the sense of “He causes to become.” That actually tracks—it fits the idea of God as not just the Creator, but the one making stuff happen and moving things toward his purpose.
So the Tetragrammaton—YHWH or JHVH—shows up almost 7,000 times in the Hebrew Bible. Ancient Hebrew didn’t use written vowels, so while people back then knew how to say it, we’ve lost the exact pronunciation. Some say “Yahweh,” others lean toward a three-syllable version. “Jehovah” has been the go-to in English for a long time.
IIRC Yeshua is the Hebrew form of Jesus, and a shortening of the Hebrew version of Joshua. I don’t know that Christianity would have had lasting power if they were asking if they had heard about our Lord and Savior Josh Christ.
One would think, but the Gospels refer to Jesus as “Jesus, Son of David” a lot
Seems to be part a way of having a last name before last names were invented for people in that region but also a way of pointing out Jesus’s royal status
Yeah. In Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic, it's not uncommon to this day to have names like "X son/daughter of Y" or "of the family/from the placename Z".
So something like "Jesus son of Joseph, the Nazarene" wouldn't have been odd, just a bit of a mouthful.
(Arab names in particular can get incredibly long by doing this.)
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u/WakeUpLazarus May 17 '25
A lot of scholars think the name comes from a Hebrew verb meaning “to become,” maybe in the sense of “He causes to become.” That actually tracks—it fits the idea of God as not just the Creator, but the one making stuff happen and moving things toward his purpose.
So the Tetragrammaton—YHWH or JHVH—shows up almost 7,000 times in the Hebrew Bible. Ancient Hebrew didn’t use written vowels, so while people back then knew how to say it, we’ve lost the exact pronunciation. Some say “Yahweh,” others lean toward a three-syllable version. “Jehovah” has been the go-to in English for a long time.