The journey of one name through at least five languages can be more fully understood if one hears the pronunciation of each form, and if one sees the Greek version and the Hebrew original in their own alphabets.
Of greater philological interest are the regional variations in spelling and pronunciation of this one original Hebrew name. While the proper Hebrew form Yeshua finds its source in the Tanakh (Old Testament), at the time of Jesus in the region of Galilee, it was often pronounced Yeshu and sometimes spelled accordingly.
The Hebrew name Yeshua is rendered, confusingly, into English as “Jesus” in the New Testament, but as “Joshua” in the Old Testament. So in Hebrew, Jesus is Joshua, and Joshua is Jesus.
During the time segment recorded by the four canonical gospels, roughly 5 B.C. to 30 A.D., the name Jesus and its regional variants was very common in the Roman territory “Syria-Palestina.” This popularity may have arisen from the fact that men were rarely or never given the names Moses, David, Solomon, or Aaron at that time; this was done out of reverence and respect. One of the names which was permitted was Joshua. Joshua was the successor to Moses, and thus as close as one could come to naming a baby boy after Moses.
Many other names in the New Testament were also very common at the time, including Joseph and Mary. The brother of Jesus, named James, also had a frequently-given name, but one which is also confusingly translated, because the same Hebrew name which is translated into English as “James” in the New Testament is translated as “Jacob” in the Old Testament. Thus, in Hebrew, James is Jacob and Jacob is James. Professor David Flusser writes:
Jesus ist die übliche griechische Form des Names Josua. Zur Zeit Jesu wurde der name Jeschua ausgesprochen, und so heißt manchmal Jesus von Nazareth in der antiken jüdischen Literatur. Manchmal heißt er dort auch Jeschu. Das ist fast sicher die galiläische Aussprache des Namens. Durch seine besondere galiläische Aussprache verriet sich ja auch Petrus nach der Festnahme Jesu (Mt. 26,73). Der Name Jesu gehörte damals zu den üblichsten Namen der Juden. In den Schriften des antiken jüdischen Historikers Flavius Josephus werden zum Beispiel zwanzig Männer dieses Namens erwähnt. Der erste ist der biblische Josua, der Nachfolger des Moses, der das Heilige Land erobert hat. Die antiken Juden haben aus religiöser Scheu bestimmte wichtige biblische Namen gemieden, unter ihnen David und Salomo, Moses und Aaron. Vielleicht war damals der Name Jeschua-Jesus so verbreitet, weil man den Namen des Nachfolgers des Moses stellvertretend benutzt hat.
Although much of this information may seem like so much linguistic trivia, it does offer the following significant suggestions: First, the details of the New Testament narrative square with data about the naming of people during that time; Second, Nazareth being located in the region of Galilee, the regional variation fits; Third, the concreteness and specificity of this philological data serves to keep our conceptualization of Jesus in the realm of the concrete and specific.
Jesus is not an idea or an archetype. Jesus is a physical individual, a flesh-and-blood human being, who lives in a historically-conditioned time and place exactly as other human beings do. The fact that this Jesus is divine and eternal does not minimize His historical specificity. It is for this reason that the creeds emphasize that He is simultaneously fully human and fully divine.
As with any human being, whether judged significant or not by historians, the amount of data which could conceivably be recorded about her or him is nearly infinite. If one were transcribe every word this person spoke, every journey this person took, everything she or he ate or drank, which clothing she or he wore, what others said or wrote about her or him, etc., the sum of the evidence would be overwhelming.
Thus the Gospel According to John concludes (21:25): “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
The New Testament, therefore, does not contain all, or even most, of the physical data about the earthly life of Jesus. On the contrary, it contains a selection from the large menu of facts. Given the doctrine of inspiration, we may deduce that the data given in the New Testament are sufficient for purposes for which the text was given.
The text was inspired not to satisfy our historical curiosity, but rather to enable humans to find spiritual peace, meaningful earthly lives, and blissful eternal lives. Therefore we find significant gaps, from a historian’s point of view, in the narratives about the childhood of Jesus.
To fill those gaps, some have sought non-canonical texts, most of which specious, not plausible, and often fabricated to serve an ideological purpose rather than to relate the data about Christ’s childhood. Professor Jürgen Roloff writes:
An keinem anderen Punkt werden die Evangelien den Erwartungen moderner biografisch orientierter Geschichtsschreibung so wenig gerecht wie mit ihren Aussagen über Herkunft, Entwicklung und Frühzeit Jesu. Als gegen Ende des 1. Jahrhunderts n.Chr. das Interesse an dieser Thematik erwachte, fand es nur noch verblasste, durch legendarische Motive überlagerte Erinnerungen vor.
While many details of the Messiah’s childhood years are missing, documented are His locations. Born in the Bethlehem, He spent some time as a refugee in Egypt, and was more at home in Nazareth. His identification with Nazareth is twofold: He spent formative years there, but it was also the home of His extended family.
Nazareth’s role as an ancestral home - the roots in Bethlehem were even further in the past - carries significance. Having been abandoned to gentile populations after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom (ten tribes) around 720 B.C., and after the exile of the Southern Kingdom (two tribes) around 586 B.C. - those two kingdoms being the fragments of the original unitary Israelite Kingdom which was split in a civil war around 930 B.C. - the region of Galilee, and the town of Nazareth within it, had been considered “heathen” territory for several centuries.
During those years, perhaps small numbers of Jews continued to practice their faith among the pagans who controlled the land.
Eventually, after the people of the Southern Kingdom returned from the Babylonian Exile and reestablished their residence, they began to expand northward, reclaiming the Galilean territory. This is an instance of the “theology of the remnant.” It is also an instance of a “Kairos” - a point in time, in this case a significant point: not only had the nation become spiritually refocused as it emerged from the Babylonian Exile, but Nazareth and the surrounding Galilee were spiritually reclaimed, thus becoming a ready and fitting home for the Messiah. Jürgen Roloff continues:
Zuverlässig, weil fest in ältester Überlieferung verankert, sind lediglich die Angaben über Jesu Herkunft aus Nazaret. Dieser im Hügelland von Mittelgaliläa, südwestlich vom See Gennesaret gelegene Ort wird als seine Vaterstadt (Mk 6,1), er selbst als „der Nazarener“ (Mk 1,24; 10,47) bezeichnet. Galiläa, der nördlichste Landesteil Palästinas, hatte eine ganz andere Geschichte durchlaufen als das jüdische Kernland Judäa. Nach dem Untergang des alten Königreichs Israel war die jüdische Bevölkerung stark dezimiert worden; fremdstämmige heidnische Menschen bildeten über mehrere Jahrhunderte die Mehrheit. Das steht auch hinter der alten hebräischen Bezeichnung „Heidengau“ (galil hagoijim Jes 8,23), die in das griechische Wort Galilaia eingegangen ist. Im Zeichen der von Judä ausgehenden Renaissance des Judentums wurde Galiläa durch die hasmonäischen Priesterkönige 104/103 v.Chr. erobert und anschließend planvoll rejudaisiert. Zugleich jedoch verstärkte sich die Präsenz der hellenistisch-römischen Kultur. Diese fand, gefördert vor allem durch Antipas, den Landesherrn zur Zeit Jesu, ihre Schwerpunkte in neu erbauten Städten wie Sepphoris und Tiberias, um von dort aus weithin auszustrahlen.
Historical data about the name and hometown of Jesus might seem to be mere historical trivia. After all, we certainly don’t need to know the linguistic details of German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew forms. As long as we know who “Jesus” is, that suffices.
Yet philological and geographical evidence are important reminders about the incarnational nature of God. Jesus isn’t merely a set of spiritual maxims. He is a flesh-and-blood man. He lives in a historically conditioned fashion as does every other human being. We can discuss this historical data about Him in the same way we can discuss historical data about anyone.
One tricky aspect (there are several) of the doctrine of the Incarnation is balance. Jesus is divine and He is human. He is truly God and truly man. He is fully 100% God and fully 100% man. This paradox requires careful placement of emphasis.
To fully emphasize His divinity, we recall His miracles, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His eternality, and His omnibenevolence.
To fully emphasize His humanity, we recall the mundane, physical, concrete, specific, historical and geographical facts of His corporeal existence - a corporeality which continues into the future, inasmuch as His Resurrection was a bodily one, raising the same form which walked the dusty roads of Galilee and ascending forty days later with it.
