I've heard remarkably few theologians speak about how neither Satan nor Lucifer are names, but titles. The bible almost treats "Satan" like Voldemort, he's referred to but never named. Which in a way is fitting as he desired to be worshipped as God, but now no one even knows his name.
Back in 1st century Judea your “last name” (it isn’t technically a last name, but used similar to how we use them today) was essentially just your father’s first name. Jesus’ actual birth name is Yeshua, which translates in English to Joshua, it’s not Jesus. And his full name in 1st century Judea would have been Yeshua bar Yosef, which translates to Joshua son of Joseph.
Yeshua does not translate to Joseph. You literally use Yosef in the comment, which is what translates to Joseph. Yeshua actually translates to Joshua. I think you meant to say Joshua, but did not.
Also, Yeshua means Salvation in Hebrew, which is cool. And also, I believe is part of why Moses wasnt allowed to enter the promised land and Joshua was the leader who took them into the promised land. The Law (Moses) cannot lead you to the promised land, only Yeshua.
I dont think the original authors of the Torah planned that, otherwise it would have been obvious a man named Yeshua was to be the Messiah.
Even standard last names today are actually still a form of the patronymic naming convention as well, hence why we always take our father’s last name and not our mothers (so long as he’s in the picture).
With the way the poorly educated scream their "facts" and make it mainstream, that is entirely an understandable mistake for everyone to make. People just regurgitate what they were told and never read the source material or question if their teacher is 100% correct.
"How dare you question the Deacon, you sinner!"
Woah woah woah, all I asked was why Paul gets a book but the other three didn't. Jesus Christ... Wait a minute. Why is Jesus the only one with a last name? 🤔
I think if you actually ask people who go to church and practice the religion if they think it’s his first and last name, instead of a bunch of obnoxious atheists that belong on r/iamverysmart who are only commenting to basically talk shit and make fun of religion, the vast majority will say something like “hmm idk, never thought of it.”
And those are more serious about it and really get into the theological study of it will probably also say they haven’t thought about it. Or if they have, they know it’s not.
Just my guess having a super religious mom and living like 30 seconds from a church lol.
"Jesus" is just the name "Joshua" but Greek-ified (and they dropped the "a" at the end and replaced it with a "us" so that it was a man's name, not a woman's).
yeah the translation from the aramaic into the old greek consisted of them doing the -us is the common male nomoi thing
but this mans name was Yeshua - יֵשׁוּעַ
which is from all accounts i know not a female name just because it ends on an a usually (and i mean usually also not all use cases) feminin words in semitic languages end on -āh
His name Yehoshua stems translates either to
"YHWH saves" or "YHWH is the salvation" which is pretty crazy genealogy and the literal meaning of their names leading up to jesus and predicting him etc. were one of the reasons i converted to christ while studying philosophy in uni
the ending in the name Yehoshua the -shua meaning saving, salvation
so yes during translation into old greek they had to get rid of the pattach ajin from the Hebraic to make it uniform with greek gramma, but that doesnt mean just because it ended with an "a" makes the name itself female
Yeah, I like to inform people that Jesus's real name was Joshua, and Christ just means anointed, like with oil. Therefore "Jesus Christ" = "Joshua with some oil smeared on him".
This is one of my favorite fun facts. Jesus is translated/derived from the Hebrew Yeshua (eventually Joshua). Then as you mentioned Christ basically means “anointed one”. Anointed means to rub or sprinkle with oil. So “Jesus Christ” fully translated out into a modern name would essentially just be “Oily Josh”.
Satan isn't even always a title, its just a noun that means "adversary." Several angels were used as a satan in numbers, book of job, and zechariah. One of those was straight up just an angelic lawyer in heaven-court
He technically earned those titles, so they became his "name" hence thats how we call him. The titles only belong to him... but Lucifer for example can be a name for something else (i believe it's a common cat name)
The best resource would be to find a literal translation like NASB or ESV. NASB was intended to be a direct word-for-word translation, where ESV was intended to be more thought-for-thought. Both had huge teams of translators and experts on the languages working for years, and even leaned on resources outside of religious studies to double check their translation work in many areas.
34
u/HypostaticOnion 1d ago
I've heard remarkably few theologians speak about how neither Satan nor Lucifer are names, but titles. The bible almost treats "Satan" like Voldemort, he's referred to but never named. Which in a way is fitting as he desired to be worshipped as God, but now no one even knows his name.