The KJV, Jesus, and Yeshua
Published by Rob Skiba May 20, 2015 at 2:54 PM
Every now and then the Jesus vs Yeshua debate rears its ugly head on my wall. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I DO believe there is power in the name of Jesus. I got saved in that name. I have personally been and have seen other people healed, set free and delivered in that name. I’ve even cast out demons in that name. There IS power in it – not as a word however, but rather as the “label” that applies to the One in Whom we’ve attached our belief while doing those things. The power is in the PERSON, not the label. This same Person is also known as Isa and Yeshua among other “labels” given to Him in multiple languages around the world.
But here is where I have a problem: I hear many anti-Torah (usually KJV Only) Christians saying, “There is power in NO OTHER NAME but ‘Jesus’ for there is NO OTHER NAME under heaven whereby men may be saved.” Christians who say such things, while being dogmatic about a word that is less than 400 years old, clearly have no clue what they are talking about. This is just another manifestation of the Sacred Name Movement – only in reverse. They are against the name of Yeshua, while claiming everyone is wrong if not using Jesus. And as they base their argument on ENGLISH translations, they are guilty of flawed, circular logic. Thus, it is nearly impossible to have any meaningful and productive dialogue with them. Here is a PRIME example of what I am talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAXQI8JALfk
OK. This is how we got the name Jesus:
It’s just linguistic evolution in transliteration of a Hebrew name through Greek, eventually to MODERN English. And as you can see, the name has nothing to do with Zeus either! So, we can toss that strawman out the window.
Our KJV English translation is only 404 years old. But the KJV Only crowd takes it as if it were the ORIGINAL Holy Spirit inspired Scripture itself. See this is where the seriously circular and incredibly flawed logic kicks in. They take the KJV as THE authority (it is after all the AUTHORIZED version). So, this is one manifestation of their logic: In Acts 4:12, it says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” But if the KJV had rendered His name as Fred, the KJV Only crowd would all be saying, “ONLY in the name of FRED are men saved! There is NO other name but FRED under Heaven…” See how ludicrous that is? His name was not FRED. Nor was it Jesus. The word/name Jesus didn’t even show up until some time after the KJV was first published. So, if you really wanted to be dogmatic, you’d have to go to war against the name of Jesus too. Because the KJV originally referred to Him as Iesous. Thus, if the KJV is the end all be all, then you MUST be saved in the name of Iesous, not Jesus, Isa, Yeshua or any other! SMH. Gotta love jacking with these people… because it’s so easy to do. If you are going to be dogmatic, then don’t be a hypocrite. Be dogmatic against yourself and get the KJV AUTHORIZED name right!!
The KJV actually tripped itself up with its own logic here:
Acts 7:44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;
The context here is clearly Joshua. But they rendered it as Jesus, because both English words come from the same Greek word, which comes from the same Hebrew word: Yeshua! Yes. Our Savior had the same name as the man who ushered the people of YHWH into the Promised Land. This is not a coincidence. In Numbers 13:16, Moses changed Hoshea’s name to Yahoshua (KJV: Jehoshua), which means “Yah is salvation.” As a name, Yeshua is just the short version of Yahoshua (probably not unlike what Rob is to Robert).
The simple fact of the matter is, the word/name “Jesus” is barely 400 years old. It post dates the KJV. Prior to that it was Iesous, which itself is derived from a word, which elsewhere was (correctly) transliterated into English as Joshua, which comes from Yahoshua/Yeshua. So, either Yeshua or Joshua are the correct English renditions of what the authors of Scripture referred to our Savior as when He walked this earth, with His given name. Thus, the KJV should have stuck with Joshua. Then, the KJV Only types would be much more accurate in saying, “There is no other name {Joshua} under heaven whereby men may be saved.”
The word “Jesus” has no inherent meaning apart from what we assign to it through our belief in the One to Whom the name has come to represent. But as a word, it has no definition. You can’t look it up in a dictionary/concordance and see a definition. It’s just a made up proper name. In fact, if you do look it up, this is what you will find:
Whereas, Yeshua is not a transliteration. It is a word, which does have inherent meaning. You can look it up and see that the name means salvation:
Isaiah 12:2 Behold, God is my salvation {Yeshua); I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation (Yeshua).
Again, I believe the name of Jesus, Isa and others have power. But, the fact remains, our Savior was a Jew, with a Hebrew name, which means salvation. He lived His name, thus we have salvation through it. Hence, Acts 4:12 is truly better understood with the name of Yeshua -“Neither is there salvation {Yeshua} in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Yeshua was a Jew, which means His Hebrew parents would have given Him a Hebrew name. We have further proof of this in the GREEK text of Acts:
Acts 26:
14 And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Yeshua was a Jewish man speaking in Hebrew to a man of the tribe of Benjamin. The KJV renders His name “Jesus” here ONLY in English, derived from the transliteration of the Greek Iesous, which itself is transliterated from the Hebrew name Yeshua as seen above. The fact that the text says He spoke His name in Hebrew firmly establishes His name in that tongue – despite what the sloppy English translations say.
Furthermore, we know that God’s name is not “the LORD.” That title replaced His name nearly 7,000 in the good ol’ NOT SO literal word-for-word KJV!
Exodus 3:
13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
14 And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.
15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.Exodus 15:3 The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.
Anytime you see Scripture saying “the LORD” is His name, you have a major problem. Because that is NOT His name. That is a generic title imposed onto the text, thus violating the commandment to not make His name come to nothing. Any concordance will show you that the Hebrew name of YHWH is what lies under the bogus translation of the English phrase, “the LORD” in our Bibles. That’s just a fact. Guys like Steve Anderson and Mike Hoggard and the like can protest all they want, but it won’t change the truth.
Beyond all of that, perhaps what is of more interest to me however is the obvious difference in those who prefer Yeshua over Jesus. Those who prefer Yeshua tend to bethose who are striving to obey the commandments of YHWH, just like Yeshua did. Those who prefer Jesus tend to be the ones in opposition to the commandments of YHWH. Neither group is perfect. Both fight, argue, point fingers and generally cause trouble here on Facebook and elsewhere. So, neither has room to think they are better than the other. However, that said, it is quite telling – to me anyway – that the fundamental difference in the two groups is: One group at least wants to and tries to do what the Savior did. The other group usually dogmatically fights against it. In general, those who use the name of Yeshua are returning to Torah in order to live out 1 John 2 – 5, while fully understanding that salvation is by Grace through Faith alone. They are merely trying to express their love for YHWH the same way people like David, Yeshua, Paul, Peter, James and all of the other authors of Scripture did. Whereas, in general, those who use the name of Jesus are often the ones mocking, ridiculing and preaching against the Torah and Moses and those who now desire to walk in the ways of YHWH. Those who use the name of Yeshua tend to be those who are keeping and rehearsing the Biblical Appointed Times of YHWH. Whereas, those who use the name of Jesus tend to be the ones doing neither, while eating pork and shrimp and celebrating the pagan holidays of X-mess and Ishtar Day.
Selah.
– Rob Skiba
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