# The Christian name for 'Christian'



## ServusMagnaeReginae

Not having found a similar post I submit this question:  What is the Christian name for 'Christian' in modern Hebrew?  I know that the common word is נוצרי, _notzri_, but I hardly think that it would be in use by the Christian community.


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## JLanguage

As far as I know נוצרי would be correct in either case. There are very few Christians who speak Hebrew as a native language and amongst Arabic-speaking Christians within the state of Israel they would use the Arabic. What makes you doubt that נוצרי would be in use amonst Christians?


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## Egmont

WRF member Nunty is a bilingual (English-Hebrew) Catholic nun who lives in Jerusalem. You might send her a private message asking her to reply to this thread, since she might not see it otherwise. 

That said, as far as I know, Israeli Christians, or Hebrew-speaking Christians in general, use נוצרי. It comes from the name of the town Nazareth (נצרת); there's no reason a Christian would avoid it.


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## ServusMagnaeReginae

A Christian would likely want to emphasise Jesus' Messiahship, just as Arab Christians do who use مَسِيحِيّ _Masīḥī_ rather than the Koranic نَصْرَانِيّ _Naṣrānī_.  Plus the vast majority of Christians don't hail from Nazareth.


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## fdb

“Nazoraean” has a complicated history, which may or may not be of interest to people on here. The only occurrence of "Nazoraeans" (plural) in the New Testament is in Acts 24:5, where Paul's opponents refer to him disdainfully as the ‘leader of the sect of the Nazoraeans’, and in subsequent history ‘Nazoraean’ is usually used in a negative sense by non-Christians, including Jews and Muslims. Arabic-speaking Christians do (or did in the past) call themselves _naṣārā_, but the preferred self-designation today is definitely _masīḥī_, as was noted above.


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## Tararam

Wikipedia says "משיחיים". Though I must say, "נוצרי" is the one used.


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## GeriReshef

There is a difference in the name of Jesus: we would generally treat him in Hebrew as ישו though Hebrew speaker Christians would call him ישוע which is related to ישועה (solvation).

נוצרי, נצרות etc. are the prevailing terms, and are absolutely neutral (don't have any bad connotation).


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## airelibre

ישו is seen as derogatory because it is very similar to יש"ו (obliterate his name and memory), or so I have heard.


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## GeriReshef

airelibre said:


> ישו is seen as derogatory because it is very similar to יש"ו (obliterate his name and memory), or so I have heard.


Jesus appears as ישו already in the Talmud.
The acronym יש"ו you have mentioned is what we call a מדרש: a kind of popular/folkloric posterior "explanation"..


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## Abu Rashid

ServusMagnaeReginae said:


> A Christian would likely want to emphasise Jesus' Messiahship, just as Arab Christians do who use مَسِيحِيّ _Masīḥī_ rather than the Koranic نَصْرَانِيّ _Naṣrānī_.  Plus the vast majority of Christians don't hail from Nazareth.



I think this is a more modern usage, Arabic speaking Christians never used this term in the distant past. Remember that Arabic-speaking Christians were around for many centuries before Arabic-speaking Muslims, and the term used in the Qur'an was merely the one they used to refer to themselves at the time. Probably under influence of European Christians during the colonial period, they began to reject this term and use a translation of the European term. The term نصراني derives from the root meaning helpers or disciples, and so this term was one they probably held on very strong to, as it linked them with those who followed and helped Jesus (pbuh).


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## fdb

There is a discussion of this (rather complicated) matter here:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4145899


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