# Joshua



## couturebum

hi!! i'm trying to look for my name in hebrew.  my name is joshua and i understand that my name in hebrew is 'yehoshua' which means jesus saves so im trying to look for that name with that meaning.  it is for a tattoo and i've seen many different transliterated 'joshua's' so if you can please help me. i've honestly been looking for months for the correct one. thanks


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## Nunty

Hi Joshua and welcome. 

Yehoshua means "God saves" (the name "Jesus" in Hebrew is very similar).

This is Yehoshua in Hebrew: יהושע
You read it from right to left, and I've spelled it like Joshua (Yehoshua) in the Bible.


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## couturebum

hi again!
i was wondering if u can make an attachment file for me so that i can save it? thanks!


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## Nunty

Just copy it and paste into Word or something. Or go to Thread Tools near the top of the page and click on "Show Printable Version" and print out the thread. It's short, not too much paper.


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## river

Nun-Translator said:


> Hi Joshua and welcome.
> 
> Yehoshua means "God saves" (the name "Jesus" in Hebrew is very similar).
> 
> This is Yehoshua in Hebrew: יהושע
> You read it from right to left, and I've spelled it like Joshua (Yehoshua) in the Bible.


 
I thought Yehoshua meant "the Lord saves"? Is "Lord" an alternate translation?


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## Nunty

It could be "the Lord", too, particularly in a religious Jewish translation. _Y-a_ (י-ה) * is one of the names of God; for this reason many observant Jews will not pronounce it or will add a sylable after it. Many English-speaking Orthodox Jews write G-d for the same reason, which is why I see the alternate translation as a possible way to avoid the problem gracefully.

However, my comment was in response to the poster who thought his name meant "Jesus saves", which it does not. I wasn't paying attention to the name "God" or "the Lord".



* I wrote this with a dash between the letters to try to avoid offense to the religious Jews who may be members or readers of this forum. Strictly speaking, there is no dash.


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## river

Thank you, Sister.  But in Greek, the Hebrew name "Joshua" becomes "Jesus," doesn't it?


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## Nunty

river said:


> Thank you, Sister.  But in Greek, the Hebrew name "Joshua" becomes "Jesus," doesn't it?


Yes it does. On the other hand, "Jesus" in Hebrew is ישוע (Yeshua) - no _ho_ in the middle. Some people shorten that to ישו (Yeshu), but that is not accepted by Hebrew-speaking Christians.


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## river

So is "Jesus saves" a possible translation of "Yehoshua."  Pardon me if I'm a little slow. I don't know a word of Hebrew.


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## Nunty

river said:


> So is "Jesus saves" a possible translation of "Yehoshua."  Pardon me if I'm a little slow. I don't know a word of Hebrew.



No, that's not quite right. We have established that:

1. Joshua is "Yehoshua" in Hebrew and "Jesus" in Greek (sorry, I can't make my Greek input work to spell it out).

2. "Yehoshua" in Hebrew means "God (the _ye_ part) saves (the _hoshua_ part)".

3. Jesus in Hebrew is "Yeshua", which is similar, but not the same.

The confusion may be because Hebrew derives words and names from roots of (usually) three letters. The various ways of inflecting the words and names changes their meaning. The root here can mean both salvation and victory, for instance.

To relate specifically to your comment above, "Jesus" is a possible translation of "Yehoshua", but not "Jesus saves" because we need the "saves" part of the name to make it "Jesus" in Greek.

Confused yet?


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## river

Oh! I see said the blind man.  Thank you.


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## Josh_

Hi Joshua (nice name),

Here is another thread that deals with the name. It is also written in a larger font if that helps.


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## Ratfink23T

Please forgive me if this is an inappropriate question....  How do we know that Jesus's name was "Yeshua" and not "Yehoshua"?  I know he was mentioned in Josephus, but did Josephus write in Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek?


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## Nunty

Hi Ratfink (great name!) and welcome 

Your question isn't inappropriate in the least, not in my books, at least. We don't know 100% for sure how Jesus was called by his Mom at home.  We do know that the name Yeshua was a name that was used among Jews during that time.

However, when I said that Yeshua is the name in Hebrew, I was referring to modern Hebrew. Hebrew-speaking Christians today say "Yeshua", and the Hebrew translations of the New Testament, which go back nearly a 100 years use "Yeshua".

I'm no expert on first century language and culture, but I beleive the daily language was Aramaic, not Hebrew, so the prononciation of the name was almost surely different.


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## Ratfink23T

Thanks very much!  

I'll probably have more questions since I'm very interested in the Quest for the Historical Jesus, but I'm hindered by no knowledge of Koine Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew.

RF


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## Amatus

river said:


> I thought Yehoshua meant "the Lord saves"? Is "Lord" an alternate translation?


Yehoshua means 'Jah (from the Divine Name Jehovah) saves, or is salvation', certainly not 'Lord', which is _Adon_.


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## mansio

Amatus said:


> Yehoshua means 'Jah (from the Divine Name Jehovah) saves, or is salvation', certainly not 'Lord', which is _Adon_.



There is no "j" sound in Hebrew so there is no Jah. 
The Jah you refer to is actually Yah because in the Latin alphabet "i", when used as the half-consonant "y", was written "j" in Renaissance times.

That way of spelling has been kept in Germanic and Slavic countries where Nadja is pronounced Nadya (or Nadia) and Sarajevo is pronounced Sarayevo.

As of the name Jehovah only the Witnesses of the same name keep that faulty pronunciation, as they have made it a dogma that the true name of God is Jehovah. Probably the founders of that religion were not aware that Jehovah was due to a faulty reading of the Hebrew Bible and besides that name was traditionally used by Christians in English-speaking countries.


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## Amatus

mansio said:


> There is no "j" sound in Hebrew so there is no Jah.
> The Jah you refer to is actually Yah because in the Latin alphabet "i", when used as the half-consonant "y", was written "j" in Renaissance times.
> 
> That way of spelling has been kept in Germanic and Slavic countries where Nadja is pronounced Nadya (or Nadia) and Sarajevo is pronounced Sarayevo.
> 
> As of the name Jehovah only the Witnesses of the same name keep that faulty pronunciation, as they have made it a dogma that the true name of God is Jehovah. Probably the founders of that religion were not aware that Jehovah was due to a faulty reading of the Hebrew Bible and besides that name was traditionally used by Christians in English-speaking countries.


 
Some fair comments, but I'd like to say a few things about the use of the name Jehovah in English.  This form is derived from the Jewish practice of inserting the vowels of _Adonai_ 'My Lord' into the Divine Name, and in the transliterated form it passed into Latin as Jehova(h).  The proposed classical pronunciation_ Yahweh_, although likely correct, is of fairly modern use in English.  The form Jehovah is not exclusive to the JWs; one finds it in many works.  This form of the Divine Name certainly sits easier on the English tongue than the probably correct more recent form.

Personally, I don't think the pronunciation matters, only the usage.


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## mansio

Amatus

We both agree.


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## jdotjdot89

Nun-Translator said:


> I'm no expert on first century language and culture, but I beleive the daily language was Aramaic, not Hebrew, so the prononciation of the name was almost surely different.




You are absolutely correct about the language of the day having been Aramaic.  It isn't necessarily true, though, that the pronunciation was entirely different.  Aramaic and Hebrew, while not the same language, are cognate languages (as I'm sure you know).  For those who don't know Hebrew, Hebrew and Aramaic are similar in a way like Spanish and Portuguese are.

For the one who mentioned it above, Josephus wrote in Greek.

Also, with regard to God's name being in the word יהושע, actually the whole of יהו is an abbreviation for God's name.  There should be a ה at the end of that, but God's name is not fully written out as a given in that type of context.  The שע means "saves" with artistic license given to incorrectly conjugate the verb.


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