Showing Respect to the Name

In Jewish tradition a name is very important. In fact names are pretty important in a lot of cultures from ancient times. There is some kind of idea (or maybe its more of a feeling) that a name is closely linked to the essence of a person. In ancient Egypt it was believed that by knowing the true name of a supernatural entity (or of a powerful person) you had power over them, and could command them by their true name.

So is there almost universal disrespect for Yehoshua bar Yosef by naming him by a name he never knew in his short life? How many of the people who insist that the chronicles of his life are literally (word for word) true ever baulk at calling him a name he and his contemporaries never used? None ... well very few to say the least.

In case you hadn't guessed, I am talking about the person more familiarly known as Jesus.

One of the Bible stories tells of how his name was chosen. 'Chosen' is probably the wrong word, since it was more of an instruction, or at the very least a strong suggestion, that the new child should be given a certain name. The trouble is for historians and chronologists alike - there is actually no contemporary record of his name. By the time the gospels were written his name had been handed around and mangled by ears accustomed to Greek and Roman and recorded in New Testament Greek - so we have Ιησους i.e. Iesous which became Jesus. So you have apparently, according to his own legend, a name being given by God and then universally ignored and replaced by a name made up by Greek writers.

So all the people who want to praise his name ought to perhaps rethink the name they want to praise.

And then you have 'Christ' - from which the name of the religion is derived. Well, first of all, its not a given name - nobody in his own time and circle would have used the word. Its Greek in origin and means something like 'annointed' (its related to the word 'chrism' being the oil used for annointing). Remember that Pilate used the abbreviated term 'INRI' - from Latin for 'Iesous of Narareth, King of the Jews'.

However it was a title used very in the early of the religion (since it appears in the book of Acts)- though interestingly the associated word 'Christian' appears to be been first used as a rather derogatory term by those of the citizenry of Antioch who were not members of this new movement. It is important to realise that in the very early history of Christianity it was view by almost everyone as a Jewish schismatic group - just another curious school of Judaism. So finding a name, and one that implied a limited cult appeal, was a useful way of separating these newcomers from the body of mainstream orthodoxy.

And so people around the world now praise a name that was a piece of made-up Greek - and treat it as though it had divine authority rather than simple centuries of lazy acceptance.