Matthew 1:20-21, “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

As this is the Christmas season my study partner keeps pushing me to do studies that address the holidays. I usually do not like following in lock step with everyone else but I guess it will not hurt to rise to the occasion and do a few studies that are Christmas related.

In Matthew chapter one we read the familiar story where Joseph discovers that his betrothed is pregnant and he knows that he is not the father.  He starts fretting over what he should do about this impending scandal when an angel appears declares that his beloved did not cheat on him, that she conceived this child through the Holy Spirit and that he should marry the old gal and call the child Jesus.

Now let’s stop right there. I can remember way back to the days I was a little child in Sunday School and church listening to the Christmas story and hearing the preacher, Sunday School teacher or the lucky dude who got to play the Angel of the Lord  recite those words “Thou shalt call his name Jesus.”  Then almost in the same breath I hear the words from Matthew 1:23, just two verses away “they shall call his name Emmanuel.”  Say what? I thought His name was to be Jesus?  As I discussed in an earlier study, names did carry the same purpose as it does today. Names were used to identify a person’s occupation or role. Like we would say, “Speak to the boss,” Or to the star high school basketball player, “Ok Michael Jordan, make that basket.” Or a man’s wife might say, “Ok, Hercules, carry the garbage out.”

In a preacher’s sermon which gives the expanded version of the story, they also add Isaiah 9:6 “And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Might One, The Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.” Now is it just me or am I the odd one out?  Did anyone stop to question why the angel said to only call his name Jesus and not all these other names?  What name are we to use when praying to Him?   Then I am constantly being chided or even scolded by some of my readers for not using Jesus’s Hebrew name Yeshua.  Shame, shame on me.  If anyone should know that the name Jesus is not really Jesus’s name it should be a Hebrew teacher.

I mean, like come on, can’t you give this dusty old professor a break, I haven’t even got past trying to figure out if I should be calling Him Emmanuel rather than Jesus.  After all that is the name Isaiah gave.  Or maybe I should be calling him by His ancient Hebrew title Mashiach which is Messiah or the anointed one. Perhaps I should use modern Hebrew and say Mashiah or maybe use the Aramaic form of Mesiha.

I will admit to hiding behind Shakespeare when I am questioned about the proper name to give to Jesus.  As he said in his play Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene II  “What’s in a name” That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

So what about this name Jesus. Just what name did the angel give to Joseph. Well, most Biblical scholars are coming into agreement that Joseph was a Galilean.  Archaeologists are quite certain that about the time of Jesus the people of Galilee spoke a Northern dialect of Aramaic.  We know that the angel said the name given to the child would mean one who will save the people from their sins.   In the Southern dialect of Aramaic this would either be Yeshoa or Yeshua.  We are not really certain which pronunciation would have been used as the Southern dialect has been a dead language for over a thousand years. This is identical to the Hebrew and even in the Hebrew we do not know if it is Yeshoa or Yeshua.  It would stand to reason that the angel would have spoken to Joseph in his own native tongue whether audibly or within his own thoughts.  Angels are spiritual beings and hence have no vocal cord so they would have had to communicate with Joseph through his spirit or his heart. Although the Bible does seem to indicate that angels can take on a corporal form so maybe the angel did speak audibly.  We do not know, but one thing seems to be certain Joseph heard the words in his own language which would have been in a Northern Aramaic dialect.  We thought this language was also extinct, but a number of years ago linguists found a tribe of people in Northern Lebanon who still spoke this dialect.  The Northern Galilean Aramaic form of Jesus’s name is Eshoa. So perhaps if someone scolds me for not using the Hebrew name Yeshua, I should correct them and say they should be saying Yeshoa or more correctly Eshoa.  That’ll put them in their place, I tell ya.

Oh, well moving on from sticking our tongues out at each other on the playground, let’s examine this word further. The name Yeshoa, Yeshua or Eshoa was a very popular name in the Biblical lands of the first century. One in every six male children were given this name. In English we would use the name Joshua.  The Semitic letter Yod  (a y sound) becomes a J in Latin. Even today in many Scandinavian countries they struggle with the J sound.  You know they say something like “Yumping Yimminy.”  Anyways, English grew out of the Latin and thus we carry over the Latin root.

Actually, the full Hebraic and Aramaic render of Yeshua  is Yehoshua.  It comes from a Semitic root word ysha and means to help, give aid, to save, rescue or deliver. The full name Yehoshua means Yahweh helps.  Actually, to be precisely it is a common cry that all of us make at one time or another, “help, Yahweh.”    When the name is translated into the Greek it becomes Iesous and of course in the Latin the first letter becomes a J and hence we arrive at Jesous or Jesus.

The name was popular in Israel because Joshua was the one who led the conquest of Palestine after the Exodus and helped to settle the twelve tribes of Israel. So whenever there was a  need to throw off foreign invaders they began naming their children Joshua or Yeshua as they did in the first century as a way of showing defiance to the Roman rulers. Even today it is a popular name in the Middle East. Christians in many Middle Eastern communities say they follow the Nazarene and use the Arabic letter for N which is shaped like a U with a dot above it to identify themselves so that there is no misunderstandings of which Yeshua they are referring to.

In my community where 85% of the population are Hispanic, the name Jesus is quite popular, although they pronounce it quite differently than I do.  I drive a bus for the disabled and one day last week I had to pick up a person whose name was  spelled Jesus. I called him on my cell phone and spoke in my native English language, “Is Jesus there?”  The response came back, “He sure is amigo and He is there with you too.”

So we do have a lot of names and pronunciations by which to call our Savior.  For myself I still get a little chocked up when I say the name Jesus. In my humble opinion I would say just call Him by whatever name gets you heart thumping for as Shakespeare said, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell sweet” and after all Jesus is the Rose of Sharon.