Names of Jesus and his family
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Most Western, Latin derived, sources agree that this man's name was Jesus (Latin: iesus). In the Greek alphabet, as recorded in the New Testament, it was ᾿Ιησοῦς. Using the scholarly reconstruction of Classical Greek, it would be pronounced [iɛːˈsuːs], however the New Testament was written in Koine Greek which was probably pronounced differently, in particular with the possible addition of the palatal approximant and variance in the pronunciation of eta, thus: [jɛːˈsuːs] or [jiːˈsuːs].
Given that this was an extremely common name in the first century Jewish world, this is quite credible. Josephus alone mentions some twenty or so men called "Jesus" in his writings, four of whom were high priests, and no fewer than ten belonging to the first century.
[edit] Jesus
This name is usually assumed to be derived from the Late Biblical Hebrew (ישוע) which is commonly spelled in English as Yeshua (IPA /jeʃuaʕ/). This name was a shortened form of Yehoshua, which literally means "'Yhwh' (is) a saving-cry", or figuratively "Yhwh saves". By the time of the first century, many were interpreting this as "Yahweh saves" or "May Yahweh save." This understanding is attested in the work of the philosopher Philo: "Joshua [᾿Ιησοῦς] means 'the salvation [σωτηρία] of the Lord'".[1] This popular etymology is also implied in Matthew 1:21.
The name is derived from the three-letter root yod-shin-`ayin (י-ש-ע) which has the meaning of "to save", but the name is not identical to the word "salvation" (y'shu`ah) or to any verb form such as "he will save" (yoshia`). It does not contain part of the name of God YHWH as the name Yehoshua` (Joshua) appears to do, although this name (yod-he-vav-shin-`ayin, י-ש-ה-ו-ע) could be considered a third person imperfect hiph`il verbal form of the same yod-shin-`ayin root.
The Masoretic Text indicates Yeshua is pronounced as יֵשׁ֣וּעַ (for example see Ezra 5:2). The yodh is vocalized with the Hebrew vowel, tsere, a long e (IPA /e/) as in "neighbor" (but not diphthongized) not with a shva (IPA /ə/) (as Y'shua) or segol (IPA /ɛ/)(Yesh-shua). The final consonant is the voiced pharyngeal fricative consonant `ayin (IPA /ʕ/), sometimes transcribed by "`" (Yeshua`), a sound not found in English. The "a" represents the patach genuvah ("furtive" patach) indicating the diphthongization of the "u" vowel due to the effect of the final `ayin - in simple terms the "a" is not an additional syllable but indicates a modification of the "u" vowel which due to the `ayin was pronounced somewhat like the oo of English moor as opposed to that of food.
[edit] Family
Both infancy narratives, in Matthew and in Luke, agree that his putative father was "Joseph" and his mother was "Mary", which is also attested by references elsewhere in the Gospel tradition and other first and second century texts.[2]
Although Jesus' best-known brother is referred to in English as "James" out of tradition, in ancient Greek documents this brother of Jesus is always identified as ᾿Ιάκωβος, or Jacob (Antiquities 20.9.1, Galatians 1:19), which was also a fairly common name, after the Hebrew patriarch. According to Mark 6:3, the other brothers of Jesus are named Joses (Joseph), Judas (Judah), and Simon (Simeon); these are three of the twelve tribes or sons of Israel. In Hebrew, the names of the brothers are Yaakob, Yosef, Yehudah, and Shimeon.)
