All posts by David Stevenson

Does the name Jesus actually mean Hail Zeus

Does the name Jesus actually mean Hail Zeus

Question: “Does the name ‘Jesus’ actually mean ‘Hail, Zeus’?”

Answer: There are several strange and misleading teachings that make their rounds concerning the name of God and of Jesus Christ; one such false doctrine is the idea that the name of Jesus actually means “Hail, Zeus.” Promoters of this bizarre concept claim that anyone who uses the name Jesus is offering praise to a false god and is not saved. They go so far as to say a person must use only the Hebrew name for Jesus, since there is only one name by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12).

First, we will explain the “Jesus-means-hail-Zeus” theory, the best we can. Then we will look at the truth of the matter from a biblical perspective.

Those who teach that the name Jesus means “Hail, Zeus” usually start with the name of God, YAH (see Isaiah 26:4, NET). From that name of God, they take the Messiah’s name to be YAHSHUA, which they say means “YAH Is Salvation.” They contend that is the name used by the apostles and by the Messiah Himself; however, after the apostles were dead and gone, the Roman Church took over Christianity. In order to make their brand of religion more palatable to the pagans, the Roman leaders changed the name of the Messiah into a Greek/Latin hybrid, Iésous, which (supposedly) means “Hail, Zeus.” Since Zeus (or Jupiter) was the chief god in the Greco-Roman pantheon, the pagans had little trouble accepting this new demigod. By changing the Savior’s name, Christianity had been effectively stripped of its Hebrew roots, and the melding with paganism was a success. The Greeks’ savior could still be Zeus. In time, the word Iésous was further corrupted into Jesus in English.

As “proof” for their conspiracy theory that Jesus means “Hail, Zeus,” advocates point to the fact that the second syllable of Jesus (-sus) sounds similar to the name of the chief Greek god. Especially when Jesus is pronounced in Spanish, it becomes “evident” that people are “actually” saying “Hey, Zeus.” Added to these “proofs” is the fact that ancient sculptures of Zeus show him with a beard”just like modern-day pictures of Jesus!

What can we say to such far-fetched nonsense? First, not everyone who has a beard is trying to take the place of Jesus. Second, just because a certain word or word part sounds like another word is no proof of commonality. Basing theories of word origin on pronunciation is preposterous. Humorous sounds exactly like humerus, but there’s nothing particularly funny about the bone that goes from the shoulder to the elbow. Third, the Messiah’s Hebrew name is Yeshua, not Yahshua”the latter being a fabrication in order to make the name sound more like YAH.

Fourth, the Hebrew name Yeshua translates into Greek as Iésous. This is the name that the angel Gabriel commanded Joseph to name Mary’s child: “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The name Jesus is a simply a Greek form of Joshua, a common name among Jews. The same verse also alludes to the meaning of the name: the Lord was to be named Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins.” The name Jesus means “The Lord Saves” or “The Lord Is Salvation.” Whether you spell it Jesus or Joshua or Yeshua, the meaning stays the same, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with Zeus.

Names can and do translate. Changing a name from one language to another does not change the meaning of the name, nor does it change the character or identity of the person. Elizabeth becomes Elixabete, Isabella, Zsoka, or Eliska, depending on the language. But she remains the same girl. A man named Stephen can be called Stephanos, Stefan, Estevao, Teppo, or Estebe, depending on where in the world he is. But he is the same person, regardless of what we call him. Similarly, Jesus and Yeshua refer to the same Person”and it’s not Zeus.

We use the name Jesus, an Anglicized transliteration of the Greek, because Greek is the language that Matthew and Mark and Luke and John wrote their Gospels in and because English is the language we speak. The best translation of Iésous into modern English is “Jesus.”

Part of Timothy’s work as a pastor was to “command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths” (1 Timothy 1:3″4). Paul was concerned that “such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work”which is by faith” (verse 4). Conspiracy theories and myths regarding the etymology of Jesus’ name are distractions from the true work of God. We should not pay any heed to claims that the name Jesus means anything but what Scripture says it means: “The Lord Saves.”

Drink Poison

Drink Poison

Jesus said “It is written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Same thing here … if you knowingly put God to the test by drinking deadly poison YOU WILL DEFINITELY DIE unless the Father supernaturally intervenes and saves you by his grace. It is deadly to test God like this.

That verse was meant for his true disciples who while busily entrenched in the precious work of the kingdom of God, and accidentally eat/drink something deadly given to them, they will not be harmed.

The first thing I notice is that it’s in the past tense. Those present at the ascension were given these powers. That would include the apostles. This event is followed by Pentecost, wherein at least the languages portion of the promise is fulfilled. There follows stories of deliverance from demons, miraculous healings, and so forth. Paul is bitten by an asp, to no ill effect. john was fed poison and he survived

But this is a specific group, the ones who followed Jesus while he was among us. They’ve passed on. The gifts have served their purpose, and faded away. Hence, past tense.

Dust off our Feet

dust off our feet

There are situations in our lives where God calls us to stand firm, proclaim truth, and give patient testimony. Sometimes we need to continue until we see the results of that testimony. Other times God gives us the freedom to move on. We figuratively “shake the dust off our feet” when, under the Holy Spirit’s direction, we surrender those people to the Lord and let go. We have the freedom then to move into the next phase of ministry. Jesus’ instruction to “shake the dust off our feet” reminds us that we are only responsible for our obedience to God, not for the results of that obedience.

Easter is the most important feast day

Easter is the most important feast day

Easter is the most important feast day in the Christian calendar.

Regularly observed from the earliest days of the Church, Easter celebrates Christ’s resurrection from the dead, following crucifixion. It marks the end of Holy Week, the end of Lent, and the last day of the Easter Triduum (starting from the evening of Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday), as well as the beginning of the Easter season of the liturgical year.

The resurrection represents the triumph of good over evil, sin, death, and the physical body.

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a festival and holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Let’s start with Pascha (Latin) which comes directly from Pesach, the Hebrew word for Passover. Going back to the Hebrew Bible and the story of the first Passover, Moses tells the Israelites to slaughter a passover lamb and paint its blood on their door. The Lord protected the Israelites from death by passing over their doors and would not “allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down” (Ex. 12:23).

In the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7), Paul connects the resurrected Christ to Passover. He refers to Jesus as the paschal lamb who has been sacrificed for his people’s salvation. Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples during Passover, so it makes sense that the Feast of the Resurrection is connected with the Jewish holiday. Today, Christians celebrate the “Paschal mystery.”

English

English spoken today is not the same as 400 years ago

Image how ignorant someone must be to believe that the English spoken today is the same as 400 years ago.

According to the Global Language Monitor, around 5,400 new English words are created every year; it’s only the 1,000 or so deemed to be in sufficiently widespread use that make it into print.

Which effectively makes English one of the most progressive languages we have today.

Do some research before embarrassing yourself next time

Erhman-refutes-Ehrman

Erhman-refutes-Ehrman

http://crossexamined.org/is-the-new-testament-reliable-erhman-refutes-ehrman/

NC Chapel Hill Professor Bart Ehrman has made quite a name for himself as a critic of the New Testament documents.  The conclusions he draws in his popular best-selling book Misquoting Jesus cast doubt on whether we can accurately reconstruct the original New Testament documents. Ehrman appears to be at odds with most New Testament scholars– liberal and conservative– who have long agreed that more than 5,700 Greek manuscripts (many of which you can see here) and over 36,000 quotations from the early church fathers make reconstruction of the original quite certain.  In fact, there are relatively few places of uncertainty in the New Testament text and none of them affect any essential Christian doctrine.

Ehrman only appears to be at odds with this conclusion.  Once you read his academic works and the appendix of the paperback edition of Misquoting Jesus, you’ll get a different story. 

Bart Ehrman was mentored by Bruce Metzger of Princeton University who was the greatest manuscript scholar of the last century.  In 2005, Ehrman helped Metzger update and revise the classic work on the topic– Metzger’s  The Text of the New Testament.

What do Metzger and Ehrman conclude together in that revised work?  Melinda Penner of Stand to Reason writes,

Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare.  The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text.  The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.

Here’s what Ehrman says in an interview found in the appendix of Misquoting Jesus (p. 252):

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands.  The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

So why does Ehrman give one impression to the general public and the opposite to the academic world?  Could it be because he can get away with casting doubt on the New Testament to an uninformed public, but not to his academic peers? Does selling books have anything to do with it?  I don’t know.  I just find the contradiction here quite telling– the man who gets all the attention for casting doubt on the text of the Bible, upon further review, doesn’t really doubt it himself.

For those of you that would like a point by point refutation of Misquoting Jesus, click here for a paper by SES Professor Tom Howe

Eusebius

Eusebius

Eusebius has been described as follows: Jacob Burckhardt (19th century cultural historian) dismissed Eusebus as “the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity”. He has been also described as ” a political theologian”. He favored doctoring his history in his own words to “be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity”. Edward Gibbon (18th century historian-“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”) dismissed his testimony on the number of martyrs and impugned his honesty”. Most scholars, even today, are ignorant about Eusebius lying and forging for religious purposes.

Everyone a sinner

Everyone a sinner

1 John 1:8
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us

Ecclesiastes 7:20
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Isaiah 64:6
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away

Extremely ignorant people

Extremely ignorant people

There is no contradictions or errors in the Bible. Extremely ignorant people that have massive reading difficulties who don’t have a clue about context imagine there are errors and contradictions in the Bible.

All of these childish imaginary contradictions are very easily destroyed when the context is supplied.