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JESUS DERIVED
FROM THE NAME
ZEUS?
Exposing a popular Sacred Name Movement false
teaching.
INTRODUCTION
Some Sacred Name people teach this false doctrine; some do not.
Regardless of the position an individual Sacred Name person may
take, this fact remains: a large segment of the movement still believes
this lie. Promoting the Jesus = Zeus myth to new converts is an easy
way to get them away from saying the name of Jesus. It gives them a
reason to look down on, even hate, the name of Jesus. The teachers of
the movement use this lie as an appeal to the need many people have
to possess esoteric knowledge which gives them a superiority over
others. We know more than you know and if you knew where the
name of Jesus came from you wouldn't be using it, are not
uncommon attitudes.
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SECTION ONE:
It seems likely that this Sacred Name teacher has gotten the
Jesus/Zeus myth from Sister Dawn. It seems likely he has never done
any research for himself to ascertain the truth of falsity of the
statement he has made.
Probably without even knowing it, he is just parroting the same old
lie that his spiritual forbears parroted before him.
Bible Revelations
Where did this Sacred Name teacher get his research? He does not
bother to tell us. He cannot tell us; he didn't do any. He has simply
put his own spin, and not a very well thought out spin at that, on the
same trite and worn out Sacred Name Movement fiction.
He has no regard for the facts and the use made historically of the
Greek word Forging ahead, in Sacred Name Movement
fashion, he tips his hand by using the word “phonetically.” Here he
has told us the basis for his teaching; Jesus sounds like Zeus.
The sound alike theory, Jesus sounds like Zeus therefore it is
derived from Zeus, is pretty much the single and major basis for this
SNM lie ever being taught. Our teacher in this instance has, by some
Sacred Name Movement standards of research, done well.
He could be complimented on adding an interesting new twist,
Eli’Zeus = My God is Zeus. His reference is to Luke 4:27 in the KJV
where Elisha is spelled Eliseus. It just sounds too much like Zeus for
our teacher. He jumps at the chance to use his phonetically-like-Zeus
theory. His jump takes him off a cliff. His smash up leaves him in
ruins. The word Eliseus has nothing whatsoever to do with the word
Zeus. Just as the word Jesus has nothing whatsoever to do with the
word Zeus.
However, it was a beautiful dive until he hit the bottom.
Tobiyah
Here is one other SNM teacher who sees the necessity of sharing his
research with us. He gives us a nice picture of a page from a Latin
Dictionary. Of course, he fails to tell us what Latin Dictionary it is.
We look in our own Latin dictionary (D. P. Simpson, Cassell's New
Latin Dictionary, Funk and Wagnalls, N Y, 1968) and find under
article Zeus : “a kind of fish.”
Perhaps our teacher does not know that just quoting a book of some
kind does not necessarily prove your point. It certainly does not
prove your point unless it mentions your point. In this case, the Latin
Dictionary does not even hint at the Sacred Name Movement
teacher's point.
The quotation from the Latin Dictionary says not a single word
about Jesus being derived from Zeus. The Latin dictionary gives us
nothing about Ge Zeus. It does not tell us the name Ge Zeus means
the fish. Didn't this sacred name teacher notice this? Probably not.
The Latin dictionary says only that there is a kind of fish called Zeus.
What is most amazing about all this is that our teacher should
imagine he has by this means proven his point.
This Sacred Name Movement teacher has made a giant leap to
conclude that GE ZEUS means THE FISH in Latin. He wanted so
badly for it to be so, therefore, in his mind, it has become so. He is
then delighted to connect this to people displaying a fish on their car,
their desk, their refrigerator, their person, and etc. For him, this just
reinforces his point as proven.
Sacred Name people write me and call me to express astonishment
that I should say the Sacred Name Movement has pseudo scholarship
in it. This man's logical process and his conclusion do not even make
good nonsense. Calling it pseudo scholarship is giving it a
compliment.
In his attempt to preach this lie of long standing, he has only
succeeded in showing how little studying he has done and how little
of that he has even understood.
A number of Sacred Name people seem to think this false doctrine
is not taught among them anymore. In fact, the Jesus = Zeus theory is
still very much alive. From the beginning of the movement, shoddy
research was the basis for much of the teaching, particularly the
doctrine of the sacred name itself. That heritage is in no place more
manifest than in the doctrine of the name Jesus being connected with
the name Zeus.
All these witnesses have been given in order to show how rife the
Sacred Name Movement is with this teaching. It is a fact that a very
large majority of assemblies and individuals in the movement are
believers of this lie.
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SECTION TWO:
Some of the sacred name people have done research with an open
mind and are convinced they should no longer promote the Jesus =
Zeus falsehood. One former sacred name believer who is not a
christian and still has a great deal of love for the people in the
movement comments to me this way on the Jesus = Zeus myth: “As
you probably know, this doctrine is simply not true.” He encourages
SNM publishers to remove this false teaching from their literature.
Another sacred name teacher who is well known among the sacred
name internet community, says he has come to believe that Jesus is
not derived from Zeus. He now thinks that , Jesus, is a very
poor attempt to transliterate the name Yahshua into Greek.
These men and others within the movement have come to realize
that promoting this lie simply makes them, the movement itself, and
other teachings of the movement suspect. It shows that they have not
done and perhaps do not know how to do quality research. The more
astute and better informed sacred name people have stopped or are
in the process of stopping the propagation of this lie. All Sacred
Name Movement people and assemblies should take a page from
their book.
THE DICTIONARY
“ME. [a. L. Iesus, a. Gr. ' , ad. late Heb. or Aramaic Jeshua,
for earlier Jehoshua or Joshua (explained as ‘Jah (or Jahveh) is
salvation’), a frequent Jewish personal name.”
Here, the English Jesus can be seen to have derived from the Latin,
Iesus. Iesus then, is from the Greek , which is in turn from
the late Hebrew or Aramaic Jeshua. Jeshua was derived from the
earlier Hebrew Jehoshua - our English Joshua.
“(je’zus) [Lat. From Gr. Iesous, which is for Heb. Jeshua, a late
form of Jehoshua or Joshua...]”
The average Sacred Name teacher can quote nine kinds of research
attempting to prove his doctrine. Why can they not simply read the
dictionary about the derivation of the name of Jesus. It is not derived
from the word Zeus.
In view of the fact that The New Testament was not written in
either Hebrew or Aramaic, no ancient New Testament manuscripts in
these languages exist. Sacred Name teachers are therefore compelled
to go to the Old Testament in an attempt to recover a Hebrew name
which our Savior might have been called. They go, of course, to the
name of Joshua.
Disregarding the approximately four hundred year gap between
the writing of the last book of the O.T. and the birth of the Messiah
these teachers expect us to believe that the Hebrew spelling and
pronunciation of the name of Joshua remained static during these
years. None care to address the three spellings and pronunciations
for Joshua’s name during the time of the O.T.
There are three different spellings for the name Joshua in the Old
Testament. Yeshua in both early Aramaic and modern Hebrew is
iwhy.The spellings for this name evolved, along with the Hebrew
language, over a period of about one thousand years, the time of the
writing of the Old Testament.
The variations in spelling the name of Joshua have come down to
us in square Hebrew letters. The square Hebrew letters are in truth
the Aramaic alphabet. This is much like the English alphabet which is
simply the Roman alphabet with slight variations. The Jews forsook
their own alphabet and began to use the Aramaic after the
Babylonian captivity.
The spellings are written iwvhy, iwhy, and ivwvhy. Scriptural
references for these three biblical ways for spelling and pronouncing
the name of Joshua the son of Nun are:
* Judges 2: 7 ivwvhy
THE TRANSLITERATION OF
THE NAME JOSHUA IN THE SEPTUAGINT
Our Savior's name was given from heaven some four to eight years
B.C.E. It seems obvious that he was given the same name as was born
by the great leader of Israel, Joshua he son of Nun. We do not know
and cannot know how his name was written or spoken in Hebrew.
The name may never have been written in Hebrew at all, but in
Aramaic.
However, even if his name were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, we
have no record of it. Sacred Name teachers tell us that his name had
to have been spoken in Hebrew. More likely it was Aramaic. Whether
one or the other, there is still no record of it.
We do have the historical record. It is the New Testament. In every
case where the writers of this book transliterated the Messiah's name
into Greek they chose , Jesus, as the correct transliteration.
When Jesus was born into the mixed Hebrew, Greek, and Roman
culture of Judea and Galilee, it was already known how his name
should be transliterated into Greek. That had been settled about three
hundred years before. That Jesus lived in a mixed culture is shown,
among other things, by the sign above him at his death. It was in
three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Bear in mind that Galilee,
because of Gentile (Greek) dominance, is called in Scripture, Galilee
of the Gentiles. The area had been under Greek domination since
Alexander the Great, centuries before Jesus was born.
The transliteration of iwvhy (or whatever spelling of the Messiah's
name may have been used at that time), made by the apostles and
apostolic men when they wrote the New Testament, is ,
Jesus. No Healing Zeus. No son of Zeus. No Ie-Zeus. Just Jesus.
Here is a question for all of us. Will we trust the transliteration
done by SN teachers or will we trust the transliteration done by the
men who wrote the New Testament? I believe I will hold to the New
Testament book and its writers. One is able to see that on this point
as well as numerous others, Sacred Name teachers are left in a
position of shame.
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CONCLUSION
"IT'S A LIE"
Note: Quotations from Sacred Name sources and others have been
edited for spelling.
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CONTACT US
If you have comments or questions; if you are in a sacred name assembly; if you
came out of a sacred name assembly; if your story would help someone else, contact
us.
Our efforts are focused on one goal, getting a single person out of the Sacred
Name Movement.