From wikipedia.
The name Jesus is derived from the Hebrew name Yeshua, which is based on the
Semitic root y-š-ʕ (Hebrew: ישע), meaning "to deliver; to rescue."
[3][4][5] Yeshua, and its longer form, Yehoshua, were both in common use by
Jews during the
Second Temple period and many Jewish religious figures bear the name, notably
Jesus in the
New Testament, and
Joshua in the Hebrew Bible.
[2][1]
There have been various proposals as to how the literal etymological meaning of the name should be translated, including
Yahweh saves, (is) salvation, (is) a saving-cry, (is) a cry-for-saving, (is) a cry-for-help, (is) my help.
[6][7][8][9][10]
This early biblical Hebrew name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshuaʿ underwent a shortening into later biblical יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua`, as found in the Hebrew text of verses Ezra 2:2, 2:6, 2:36, 2:40, 3:2, 3:8, 3:9, 3:10, 3:18, 4:3, 8:33; Nehemiah 3:19, 7:7, 7:11, 7:39, 7:43, 8:7, 8:17, 9:4, 9:5, 11:26, 12:1, 12:7, 12:8, 12:10, 12:24, 12:26; 1 Chronicles 24:11; and 2 Chronicles 31:15 – as well as in
Biblical Aramaic at verse Ezra 5:2. These Bible verses refer to ten individuals (in Nehemiah 8:17, the name refers to
Joshua son of
Nun).
This historical change may have been due to a phonological shift whereby guttural phonemes weakened, including [h].
[11] Usually, the traditional theophoric element
Yahu יהו was shortened at the beginning of a name to יו
Yo-, and at the end to יה
-yah. In the contraction of
Yehoshua` to
Yeshua`, the vowel is instead fronted (perhaps due to the influence of the
y in the triliteral root
y-š-ʿ). During the post-biblical period the further shortened form
Yeshu was adopted by Hebrew speaking Jews to refer to the Christian Jesus, however
Yehoshua continued to be used for the other figures called Jesus.
[12] However, both the Western and Eastern Syriac Christian traditions use the
Aramaic name ܝܫܘܥ (in Hebrew script: ישוע)
Yeshuʿ and Yishoʿ, respectively, including the
ʿayin.
[13]
In both Latin and Greek, the name is declined irregularly:
Latin Greek nominative JēsūsIēsūs (
Iēsus)Ἰησοῦς
accusative JēsūmIēsūm (
Iēsum)Ἰησοῦν
dative JēsūIēsūἸησοῦ
genitive vocative ablative –
By the time the
New Testament was written, the
Septuagint had already transliterated ישוע
Yeshua` into
Koine Greek as closely as possible in the 3rd-century
BCE, the result being Ἰησοῦς
Iēsous. Since Greek had no equivalent to the Semitic letter ש
shin [ʃ], it was replaced with a σ
sigma , and a masculine singular ending [-s] was added in the nominative case, in order to allow the name to be inflected for case (nominative, accusative, etc.) in the grammar of the Greek language. The diphthongal [a] vowel of Masoretic Yehoshua` or Yeshua` would not have been present in Hebrew/Aramaic pronunciation during this period, and some scholars believe some dialects dropped the pharyngeal sound of the final letter ע `ayin [ʕ], which in any case had no counterpart in ancient Greek. The Greek writings of Philo of Alexandria[14] and Josephus frequently mention this name. It also occurs in the Greek New Testament at Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8, referring to Joshua son of Nun.
From Greek, Ἰησοῦς Iēsous moved into Latin at least by the time of the Vetus Latina. The morphological jump this time was not as large as previous changes between language families. Ἰησοῦς Iēsous was transliterated to Latin IESVS, where it stood for many centuries. The Latin name has an irregular declension, with a genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative of Jesu, accusative of Jesum, and nominative of Jesus. Minuscule (lower case) letters were developed around 800 and some time later the U was invented to distinguish the vowel sound from the consonantal sound and the J to distinguish the consonant from I. Similarly, Greek minuscules were invented about the same time, prior to that the name was written in capital letters (ΙΗϹΟΥϹ) or abbreviated as (ΙΗϹ) with a line over the top, see also Christogram.
Modern English Jesus derives from Early Middle English Iesu (attested from the 12th century). The name participated in the Great Vowel Shift in late Middle English (15th century). The letter J was first distinguished from 'I' by the Frenchman Pierre Ramus in the 16th century, but did not become common in Modern English until the 17th century, so that early 17th century works such as the first edition of the King James Version of the Bible (1611) continued to print the name with an I.[15]
From the Latin, the English language takes the forms "Jesus" (from the nominative form), and "Jesu" (from the vocative and oblique forms). "Jesus" is the predominantly used form, while "Jesu" lingers in some more archaic texts.
