I saw a page which stated two things:
- 1) As identified previously, the letter “J” is a recent addition to our language and is really only slightly older than America itself. It hasn’t been around a very long time, therefore, we can know for certain that Our Saviour’s name could not have been Jesus nor could Our Heavenly Father’s name have been Jehovah.
- 2) There is no question that the true and proper names of Our Saviour and Creator could have been transliterated properly in any phonetic based language. Many other Hebrew names were transliterated in Scripture. Why not this one? The most important Name of all!
I answered, with a footnote longer than answer itself, and here add a new one:
Ieshua transliterated to Greek Ιησους (oblique cases Ιησου).*
Ιησους transliterated into Latin Iesus or Ihesus or Jesus (oblique cases Jesu, except accusative Jesum).
Letter shape J is a pretty old device for distinguishing I from L when the L began to look like l. What is only slightly older than US is calling I one letter** and J another letter./HGL
*One could have expected a transliteration as Ιησουας as well, since dative would have been Ιησουαι, Accusative Ιησουαν, Vocative Ιησουα (exact match), but in that case Genitive would have been Ιησουου … so Ιησου in Genitive, Dative and Vocative (Ιησουν in Accusative, I think) and hence Ιησους in Nominative was simpler.
The -s ending is unavoidable in Greek masculine singular nominatives. Transliterate Iohanan, you get an Accusative Ιω'αννην (pretty close match) but the Nominative is still Ιωαννης, with an -s. Lithuanian is similar. Vladimiras Vladimirovičius Putinas = Владимир Владимирович Путин. Obviously in Nominative, in Genitive you get Vladimiro, in Dative Vladimirui …
** Under all the Middle Ages they were the same letter and used interchangably, as also u and v in Latin. In English you could distinguish uu/vv/w from u/v, but then uu was regarded as a digraph, as Ll in Welsh.
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