I got a great deal on a couple of books:
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The Gospels for All Christians : Richard Bauckham (Paperback, 1997) |
| Condition: Brand New | ||
| Price: $2.50 | ||
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Four Gospels, One Jesus : Richard A. Burridge (Paperback, 2005) |
| Condition: Very Good | ||
| Price: $2.00 | ||
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But it seems like I’ve been waiting forever for them to come in. It’s a terrible thing to go out to the mailbox every day with a glimmer of hope that there will be a padded envelope from an independent seller, only to have my hopes and dreams shattered by the sight of bills and junk mail. One of the upsides to ordering from Eisenbrauns, Amazon, or CBD is that they ship within a day or two of the initial order (sometimes CBD ships the same day!), and it’s never media mail. But this is the price one pays for frugality. Nevertheless, I hate waiting!
B”H
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth 
Ahem. How big of a to be read pile do you have right now?
A little wait can’t hurt that much.
But you’re gonna have to break down and get _The Jesus Legend_ sooner or later.
Chuck: Pretty big, but most of the books I get are used as reference material, so me reading them straight through isn’t something that’s going to happen any time soon. And yes, a little wait CAN hurt that much! And the only thing keeping me from getting The Jesus Legend is that Greg Boyd is one half of the writing team, and I’ve vowed to never read him.
where did you find these two books for those prices?
Nick: Half.com
Nick,
Can’t promise you the prices of Half.com, but I can guarantee that we (Eisenbrauns) ship promptly, usually the next day. Further, you know whom to contact if they get lost : )
Besides, does anybody from Amazon or CBD read your blog?
James
James: I’ve updated the post to include your fine establishment, which I link to every chance I get. ;) And I do appreciate the personal interest you take in the lives of your (potential) customers. :)
I’m interested in the Burridge book and especially his view of the genre of the gospels as biography. I think the book you are getting is building on his earlier work on that issue and answering the “so what” question. It sounds good. The Bauckham book doesn’t really interest me that much. Maybe an article or something but not a whole book on the topic.
Bryan
Nick,
I totally understand your feeling of unsettledness when it comes to waiting for a package in the mail, especially books. If I received a new book in the mail every day, I’d feel like it was my birthday or Christmas every day of the year. Do you have any other reasons for being turned off to Boyd, other than his choice to be a vegetarian?
Bryan L: Yeah, Burridge pretty much leads the field on that topic. Can’t wait to see what he puts forth in this book. And I’m pretty much interested in all things Bauckham. He’s like my Fee. ;)
Shaun: I knew you’d understand! You know what’s crazy? Even when I haven’t ordered any books or I’m not waiting on review copies from publishers, I still walk out to the mailbox hoping that I’ll find a book in there. And it’s pretty much Boyd’s vegetarianism that bugs me. There’s always a bit of hyperbole in my saying I won’t read him, but at the moment he’s not at the top of my list.
Nick
I have a question, and thought maybe this is an appropriate avenue [being your blog, specifically this spot] to choose to ask you. A friend of mine claims that the origin of the english word “Jesus” has pagan origins, in that it is derived from the word Zeus, the god of greek mythology. Hence, he claims that it is blasphemy to pronounce the messiah’s name as Jesus. Could you help clear up this confusion and tell me where this idea comes/came from? Is there any books/resources that your aware of that explains the origins of where the english word “Jesus” comes from, which would demonstrate that there is no connection between Jesus and Zeus?
Troy: Yeah, every once in a while someone will repeat some nonsense like that. I don’t really know where such strange claims come from. “Jesus” is just an transliteration of “Ιησους” which was used in the LXX to translate יֵשׁוּעַ or יְהוֹשֻׁעַ — Below you’ll see it in Hebrew → Aramaic → Greek → Old English → Modern English.
יֵשׁוּעַ → יְהוֹשֻׁעַ → Ἰησοῦς → Iesus → Jesus
The “J” is a relatively new letter and replaced the “I” but there’s no truth to the claim that “Jesus” has pagan origins. The name “Zeus” appears in the Bible in Acts 14:12-13:
The bolded words are Ζεύς in the accusative case (Δία) and in the genetive case (τοῦ Διὸς). I’m no expert but I don’t even see a morphological resemblance with Ἰησοῦς (acc. Ἰησοῦν; gen. Ἰησοῦ) and Ζεύς (acc. Δία; gen. Διὸς), do you?
Is your friend by any chance a “sacred name” proponent? Does he insist that we call Jesus Yeshua?
A sacred name proponent? Well, maybe. So far, he’s been very “gnostic-like” in that he feels like he has been revealed what he refers to as “hidden truth in plain site.” He does insist on calling Jesus by his Hebraic name. A guy named Lew White, who appears to reside in my city, seems to have been very influencial on him. White, author of a book called “fossilized customs,” also has a website. In one of his articles, he says:
Where did we get the form “JESUS” from? The Jesuits (They defend the form using the Greek and Latin, hoping you’ll never discover what you are about to read).
The form “YESHUA” is from the acronym “YESHU”, a mutilation of Yahushua’s Name used by unbelieving Yahudim during the late 1st and 2nd century CE. The letters in “YESHU” stood for the sentence, “may his name be blotted out” (from the scroll of life). This “Yeshu” acronym is the real root of the form “JESUS”, after going through Greek, then Latin:
YESHU (remember, this is an acronym, meaning “may his name be blotted out”, referring to the scroll of life). A rabbinic word-play, from the original Hebrew words:
“Yemach Shmo u’Zikro” NOTE: There’s not actually a letter “W” in the Hebrew alef-beth; the letter “W” is a rather new letter to our own alpha-beta. It’s called a “DOUBLE-U” for a reason; our letter “U” is a perfect match with the sixth letter of the Hebrew alef-beth, now called a “WAW”. (More accurately a “UAU”).
Acronyms are abbreviated messages, like “SCUBA” stands for “self contained underwater breathing apparatus”.
YESU IESOU – Going into Greek, the letter “Y” became an IOTA because Greek has no “Y”; also, the sound of “SH” was lost, because Greek has no letters to make this sound. The letter combination “OU” is a diphthong, arising from the Greek attempt to transliterate the sound “OO” as in “woof”. Our letter “U” and the Hebrew letter “WAW” does this easily. JESU is used also.
YESOUS IESOU: took on an ending “S” to form IESOUS, since the Greek wanted to render the word masculine with the ending “S”. Going to Latin, the diphthong “OU” became “U”.
JESUS: In the early 1530’s, the letter “J” developed, causing a tail on proper names beginning with the letter ” i “, and words used at the beginning of sentences. This “J” is really the letter “IOTA”. Many European languages pronounce “J” as the letter ” i “, or a “Y” sound. They even spell Yugoslavia this way: “Jugoslavia”.
Now you know. Tell everyone you know, and don’t allow the Jesuits to succeed at this horrifying deception. Yeh-Zeus is not our Messiah; (The true name, Yahushua, means Yah-is our-salvation)
Troy: This Lew White seems to be a “sacred name” proponent as far as I can tell. He’s correct that YESHU is an accronym for Yimach (not yemach) Sh’mo Ve-zichro which means “may his name and memory be blotted out.” We see this used in various rabbinic writings such as the Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 43a) and Toledot Yeshu.
But he is incorrect that Yeshua comes from that. Yeshua (ישׁוע) appears in the Hebrew Bible in the following texts: Ezra 2:2, 6, 36; 3:2, 9; 10:18; Nehemiah 7:7, 11, 39; 8:17; 9:4-5; 12:8. He’s also incorrect with regard to “Jesus” coming through Latin. It’s a transliteration of the Greek without need for the Latin.
And lastly, you’ll notice that Hebrew names don’t begin with “Yah” — that’s an invention of the “sacred name” group. Here is something that my friend Nachman, who is a native Israeli and life-long Hebrew speaker, as well as a yeshiva and seminary educated teacher said to me concerning this issue a couple of years back:
For real Nick, thanks. I do appreciate your posts. I have another question.
What do you make of Acts 7:44 and Hebrews 4:7?
Acts 7:44 (KJV) 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;
Isn’t this scripture referring to Joshua, son of Nun rather than the Savior? Also, same thing with Hebrews 4:7.
Hebrews 4:7 (KJV) Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
Can you tell me why it is translated Jesus, intead of Joshua?
Troy: As far as I can tell, in the KJV they always translate Ἰησοῦς as Jesus. I don’t know their exact reason — I’m guessing they just wanted to be consistent. We know from the context who is being mentioned, and technically, it’s a proper rendering, so I don’t think it’s too big a deal.
Yeah, that makes sense. I can see how that may very well be the case. I thought I might ask you about a quote by Celsus, and some thoughts related:
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There is evidence that although the name of Yahushua was written in Greek as IhsouV, it may have actually been pronounced the way a Hebrew speaking person would pronounce it. Around 178 CE, a pagan by the name of Celsus engaged in written debates with Christians. In one of them, Celsus (speaking of Christians) said:
“But of course they think otherwise: they assume that by pronouncing the name of their teacher they are armored against the powers of the earth and air. And they are quite insistent on the efficacy of the name as a means of protection: pronounce it improperly, they say, and it is ineffective. Greek and Latin will not do; it must be said in a barbarian tongue to work. Silly as they are, one finds them standing next to a a statue of Zeus or Apollo or some other god, and shouting, “see here: I blaspheme it and strike it, but it is powerless against me for I am a Christian.” Celsus on the True Doctrine, A Discourse Against the Christians, R. Joseph Hoffman (page118 )
Notice that Celsus was quoting Christians as saying that the name of “their teacher” (Yahushua no doubt) must not be spoken “improperly” and that it must not be spoken in a “Greek” way or “Latin” way, but in a “Barbarian tongue” for it to be effective. Of course, to the pagans the Hebrew language was nothing more than a barbarian language. This lends evidence that even though the name of Yahushua was written as IhsouV, there were at least some people speaking it in the Hebrew way. The Greek alphabet simply lacks the letters necessary to correctly convey how the name is pronounced in Hebrew.
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Any thoughts about this, Nick?
Troy: Well, my first thought is that there is plenty of doubt about anyone ever being named “Yahushua.” ;) I don’t have much in terms of context to go on, and I don’t own that book so I can’t check it out. I searched Origen’s Contra Celsus and the only thing that was similar was this:
He seems to be defending Christians not calling God “Zeus” by making a point with regard to people who use incantations and spells. I don’t know if this is related to what the author quoted from Celsus or not. I also don’t know how persuaded I’d be from a lone source from antiquity attesting to this practice of Greek speaking Christians pronouncing the name in a Hebrew way (which would be nothing like Yahushua). I need a bit more to go on.