Two names and a variety of titles in the New Testament are used to refer to Jesus.Names and Titles of the Lord Jesus Christ. by Charles Spear 2003 pages ix-x In Christianity, the two names Jesus and Emmanuel that refer to Jesus in the New Testament have salvific attributes.Bible explorer's guide by John Phillips 2002 page 147All the Doctrines of the Bible by Herbert Lockyer 1988 page 159 After the crucifixion of Jesus the early Church did not simply repeat his messages, but focused on him, proclaimed him, and tried to understand and explain his message. One element of the process of understanding and proclaiming Jesus was the attribution of titles to him.Jesus: a Gospel portrait by Donald Senior 1992 pages 145-147 Some of the titles that were gradually used in the early Church and then appeared in the New Testament were adopted from the Jewish context of the age, while others were selected to refer to, and underscore the message, mission and teachings of Jesus. In time, some of these titles gathered Christological significance.The Titles of Jesus in Christology: Their History in Early Christianity by Ferdinand Hahn, Harold Knight, George Ogg 2002 pages 11-12
Christians have attached theological significance to the Holy Name of Jesus.Outlines of dogmatic theology, Volume 2 by Sylvester Hunter 2010 page 443Jesus: the complete guide by Leslie Houlden 2006 page 426 The use of the name of Jesus in petitions is stressed in John 16:23 when Jesus states: "If you ask the Father anything in my name he will give it you." There is widespread belief among Christians that the name Jesus is not merely a sequence of identifying symbols but includes intrinsic divine power.Theology of the New Testament by Georg Strecker, Friedrich Wilhelm Horn 2000 page 89Spiritual theology by Jordan Aumann 1980 page 411
Names
Jesus
In the New Testament the name Jesus is given both in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, and Emmanuel only in Matthew. In Luke 1:31 an angel tells Mary to name her child Jesus, and in Matthew 1:21 an angel tells Joseph to name the child Jesus. The statement in Matthew 1:21 "you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" associates salvific attributes to the name Jesus in Christian theology.Matthew by Thomas G. Long 1997 pages 14-15The Gospel of Matthew by Rudolf Schnackenburg 2002 page 9
Although the precise difference between a 'name' and a 'title' may be open to interpretation, 198 different names and titles of Jesus in the Bible are listed in Cruden's Concordance, first published in 1737, and continuously in print ever since. The first index of the book (following the royal dedications and author's preface) is entitled "A collection of the Names and Titles given to Jesus Christ", with 198 names listed, each accompanied by a biblical reference.A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament: or a Dictionary and Alphabetical Index to the Bible (commonly called Cruden's Concordance), Alexander Cruden MA, 1737 (first edition), and successive editions (publishers vary). ISBN varies, but, for example, for the edition published 1984 by Hendrickson Publishers, Massachusetts, USA.
During his lifetime, when the need for specificity arose, a patronym or toponym would be added to his given name. These forms of address have been translated into English as "Jesus son of Joseph," "Jesus of Nazareth" and "Jesus the Nazarene."
Etymology
There have been a number of proposals as to the etymological origin of the name Jesus. The name is related to the Biblical Hebrew form Yehoshua`(), which is a theophoric name first mentioned in the Bible in referring to one of Moses' companions and his successor as leader of the Israelites. This name is usually considered to be a compound of two parts: Yeho, a theophoric reference to YHWH, the distinctive personal name of the God of Israel, plus a form derived from the Hebrew triconsonantal root y-š-ʕ or י-ש-ע "to liberate, save". There have been various proposals as to how the literal etymological meaning of the name should be translated, including:"שׁוע", Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company 1987)Talshir, M. H. Segal, A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Tel Aviv: 1936), p. 146.Strong's Concordance H3091Philo, De Mutatione Nominum, §21Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius, Hebrew and English Lexicon With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (Hendrickson, 1985), . Cf. Blue Letter Bible, H3442
YHWH saves YHWH (is) salvation YHWH (is) a saving-cry YHWH (is) a cry-for-saving YHWH (is) a cry-for-help YHWH (is) my help
This early Biblical Hebrew name (Yehoshua`) underwent a shortening into later biblical (Yeshua`), as found in the Hebrew text of verses Ezra 2:2, 2:6, 2:36, 2:40, 3:2, 3:8, 3:9, 3:10, 3:18, 4:3, 8:33; Nehemiah 3:19, 7:7, 7:11, 7:39, 7:43, 8:7, 8:17, 9:4, 9:5, 11:26, 12:1, 12:7, 12:8, 12:10, 12:24, 12:26; 1 Chronicles 24:11; and 2 Chronicles 31:15—as well as in Biblical Aramaic at verse Ezra 5:2. These Bible verses refer to ten individuals (in Nehemiah 8:17, the name refers to Joshua son of Nun). This historical change may have been due to a phonological shift whereby guttural phonemes weakened, including [h].Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Harvard Semitic Studies: Scholars Press 1986), p.25 Usually, the traditional theophoric element Yahu was shortened at the beginning of a name to [Yo-], and at the end to [-yah]. In the contraction of Yehoshua` to Yeshua`, the vowel is instead fronted (perhaps due to the influence of the y in triliteral root y-š-ʕ). During the post-biblical period, the name was also adopted by Aramaic and Greek-speaking Jews.
By the time the New Testament was written, the Septuagint had already transliterated ישוע (Yeshua`) into Koine Greek as closely as possible in the 3rd-century BCE, the result being (Iēsous). Since Greek had no equivalent to the Semitic letter shin [sh], it was replaced with a σ sigma [s], and a masculine singular ending [-s] was added in the nominative case, in order to allow the name to be inflected for case (nominative, accusative, etc.) in the grammar of the Greek language. The diphthongal [a] vowel of Masoretic Yehoshua` or Yeshua` would not have been present in Hebrew/Aramaic pronunciation during this period, and some scholars believe some dialects dropped the pharyngeal sound of the final letter (`ayin) [`], which in any case had no counterpart in ancient Greek. The Greek writings of Philo of AlexandriaPhilo Judaeus, De ebrietate in Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt, ed. P. Wendland, Berlin: Reimer, 1897 (repr. De Gruyter, 1962)vol. 2:170-214, Section 96, Line 2. and Josephus frequently mention this name. It also occurs in the Greek New Testament at Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8, referring to Joshua son of Nun.
From Greek, (Iēsous) moved into Latin at least by the time of the Vetus Latina. The morphological jump this time was not as large as previous changes between language families. (Iēsous) was transliterated to Latin IESVS, where it stood for many centuries. The Latin name has an irregular declension, with a genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative of Jesu, accusative of Jesum, and nominative of Jesus. Minuscule (lower case) letters were developed around 800 AD and some time later the U was invented to distinguish the vowel sound from the consonantal sound and the J to distinguish the consonant from I. Similarly, Greek minuscules were invented about the same time, prior to that the name was written in capital letters: or abbreviated as: with a line over the top, see also Christogram.
Modern English Jesus derives from Early Middle English Iesu (attested from the 12th century). The name participated in the Great Vowel Shift in late Middle English (15th century). The letter J was first distinguished from 'I' by the Frenchman Pierre Ramus in the 16th century, but did not become common in Modern English until the 17th century, so that early 17th century works such as the first edition of the King James Version of the Bible (1611) continued to print the name with an I.Image of the first edition of the King James Version of the Bible, Gospel of Luke. From http://nazirene.peopleofhonoronly.com/. Retrieved March 28, 2006.
"Jesus" forms "Jesu" is a remnant in modern English of the declension and use of grammatically inflected case endings with some proper nouns in Middle English, which persisted into Early Modern English to around the time of Shakespeare. The form Jesu is often a noun of address, "Jesu!", but may also stand for other cases, such as genitive, as in Latin. The form "Jesu" was preserved in hymns and poetry long after it had fallen out of general use in speech, for example in poet laureate Robert Bridges' translation of Johann Schop's wording for the English translation of Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and in T. S. Colvin's hymn, Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love, based on a song from northern Ghana.Hymns and Psalms, Methodist Publishing House, 1983, nr 145 During the late 19th century, as Jesu was increasingly seen as antiquated, some churches attempted to update the wording of hymns containing "Jesu" to "Jesus".The New American Church Monthly Charles Sears Baldwin, Selden Peabody Delany, Charles Carroll Edmunds - 1917 Volume 1 - Page 34 "And of the same nature is the offense of the Commission in reversing the decision of the General Convention of 1895 on the issue of the addressive form "Jesu!" in hymns. The subject came up in the House of Deputies, and after full discussion, " In modernizing hymn texts the use of "Jesu's" or "Jesus'" could cause problems where the metre only allowed two syllables, "Je-su's".The Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer. Edward Henry Bickersteth - 1872 "On the other hand, the vocative of the sacred name Jesus seems, from the plaintive euphony of the Greek form, Jesu, ... When used in the genitive case, it should be either Jesus' (not Jesu's) or, when the metre requires three syllables, Jesus
Significance of the name
Christians have attached theological significance to the name of Jesus from the earliest days of Christianity. Devotions to and feasts for the Holy Name of Jesus exist both in Eastern and Western Christianity. The devotions and venerations to the name Jesus also extend to the IHS monogram, derived from the Greek word for Jesus ΙΗΣΟΥΣ.Christian sacrament and devotion by Servus Gieben 1997 page 18The Continuum encyclopedia of symbols by Udo Becker 2000 page 54
The significance of the name of Jesus in the New Testament is underscored by the fact that in his Nativity account Matthew pays more attention to the name of the child and its theological implications than the actual birth event itself.
Reverence for the name of Jesus is emphasized by Saint Paul in Philippians 2:10 where he states: "That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth".
The use of the name of Jesus in petitions is stressed in John 16:23 when Jesus states: "If you ask the Father anything in my name he will give it you." Many Christian prayers thus conclude with the words: "Through Our Lord Jesus Christ". There is widespread belief among Christians that the name Jesus is not merely a sequence of identifying symbols but includes intrinsic divine power, and that where the name of Jesus is spoken or displayed the power of Jesus can be called upon.
Emmanuel Matthew 1:23 ("they shall call his name Emmanuel") provides the name 'Emmanuel' (meaning God is with us).Who do you say that I am?: essays on Christology by Jack Dean Kingsbury, Mark Allan Powell, David R. Bauer 1999 page 17 'Emmanuel', which is taken from Isaiah 7:14, does not appear elsewhere in the New Testament.