Bible Science Forum

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Jesus of Palestine | What’s in a Name?

JD Hall discusses the name of Jesus, asserting that He was named Ἰησοῦς in Greek, not Yeshua in Hebrew. The Gospel of Matthew records His name in Greek, supporting the idea that He was known by this name in a multilingual first-century Palestine.

John Gideon Hartnett
6–9 minutes
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What’s in a name, you might ask? A lot apparently. This is something new I just learned today. Jesus was officially formally named by Gabriel the angel in the Greek language Ἰησοῦς, which was transliterated to Jesus in English. His name was never given in Hebrew as Yeshua.

The following I quote JD Hall @LostMyHats on X.com.

Let me fact[check] you[r] claim that Israel was never Palestine, but first I have to factcheck your calling of Him “Yeshua.”

His name isn’t Yeshua:

When Matthew 1:21 records the angel’s words to Joseph, “you shall call his name Jesus (Ἰησοῦν), for he will save his people from their sins” he does so in Greek. The entire Gospel of Matthew is written in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. His name wasn’t transliterated from Hebrew in that verse; it was given and recorded in the Greek form: Ἰησοῦς.

Had Matthew intended a Hebrew name, the text would have said Yehoshua or Yeshua. But it doesn’t. It gives the name in Greek form, as used in every surviving Greek manuscript of the New Testament.

The Holy Ghost inspired the Scriptures in Greek, then the name Ἰησοῦς is not a mistranslation or downgrade; it’s the canonical, God-breathed form of the name. Greek was chosen deliberately, and every New Testament writer, including the Jewish ones, used that same Greek name.

To re-cap for Jewish Supremacists who are often dumber and need more help:

•The angelic instruction was recorded as “Iēsous,” not “Yeshua.”

•The apostles preached in Greek using “Iēsous.”

But we should go further in this little de-brainwashing session. His name wasn’t just recoded as Jesus after the fact. It actually was Jesus. That’s how he was referred to by His contemporaries; Jews, Greeks, and Romans alike, within the multilingual world of first-century Palestine.

Palestine was not a purely Hebrew-speaking environment. It was a linguistic crossroads, with Greek, Aramaic, and Latin all in daily use. The average Jew under Roman rule knew Greek; most were fluent. Coins, inscriptions, and government decrees were written in Greek. Even the synagogue readings often came from the Septuagint.

Had someone yelled out, “Yeshua” in a crowd, Jesus wouldn’t have looked around. That wasn’t his name. He would have assumed they spoke to someone else.

[If] Matthew had wanted to preserve the Messiah’s name in Aramaic or Hebrew, he easily could have. We know that because he does exactly that several times in his Gospel.

In fact, when Matthew quotes Aramaic, he doesn’t transliterate it into Greek letters and hope readers “get it.” He explicitly preserves the words and then translates them for his audience.

His name isn’t Yeshua, and never was.

WAS JESUS FROM PALESTINE?

It’s actually a Zionist myth that Palestine wasn’t called Palestine until 135 AD. That’s Israeli propaganda, part of their ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians. I’ll explain:

Its root comes from the Philistines, known in official Egyptian records as “Peleset” – an early form of the word – in the Bronze Age, about 1200 BC.

And before Rome, Greek writers adopted the name for the region. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus explicitly refers to Palaistinē when describing the land between Phoenicia and Egypt, including Judea. So the name Palestine was given centuries before.

In Greek intellectual tradition, Aristotle references it as Palestine, showing this was common. So when Rome renamed Judea Syria Palaestina after the Bar Kokhba revolt, it was not coining a new term but deliberately reviving an ancient regional name.

Further, let’s get real. The Zionists who founded the modern Jewish ethnostate used the name Palestine, undermining whatever claim Israelis make that the name is illegitimate. These include Theodor Herzl, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, etc. they all used “Palestine.” Heck, Jewish residents were officially designated “Palestinian Jews.”

So the reason “Palestine” is perfectly fine is because that’s its name.

It would be most accurate to say Jesus was from Galilee, but he sure wasn’t from “Judea” or a Jew in the regional sense, but that’s another can of worms.

Let me repeat that. The Holy Ghost inspired the Scriptures in Greek, then the name Ἰησοῦς is not a mistranslation or downgrade; it’s the canonical, God-breathed form of the name. His name Ἰησοῦς is the lemma. In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (pl.: lemmas or lemmata) is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. Fundamentally Christ’s name is Iēsous, which was transliterated to Jesus in English. His name isn’t Yeshua, and it never was. It is Iēsous.

There is no need to call Him Yeshua if you are speaking English like many seem to think they need to, especially those from the Hebrew Roots cult. It is as if they believe it is more correct or proper to use the Hebrew form Yeshua. But it looks like that is fake news.

And Jesus was from Galilee not from Judea, hence He was a Palestinian. His mother was of one of the tribes of Israel (likely Levi, because her cousin Elizabeth is described as “of the daughters of Aaron” the Levite (Luke 1:5)), and not of Judah. Jesus step-father Joseph was of the tribe of Judah (Luke 3:23+). But Jesus actual Father was not of any tribe. He was/is God, who, by the way, is not Jewish or a Hebrew.

Since Israeli tribal lineage was determined by the patriarchal line, by that classification, the man Jesus was not Israeli but Palestinian as determined by His place of origin. Nazareth was/is located in the Lower Galilee region of northern Israel. So He was Palestinian, but He could be designated a Palestinian “Jew” after His step-father from Judah. Thus Christ is called the lion of Judah (Genesis 49:9) in that sense.

Why not just call Christ, Jesus?

What a wonderful name!

Jesus, What a Wonderful Name

Some call it progress and we must conform
Or we will be left by the change
This New world religion, serves the god of their choice
But salvation sill comes in One Name

That name is Jesus, Sweet Rose of Sharon
Spotless and pure Lamb of God, Jesus, the Lion of Judah
The promised Emmanuel, God’s Son, Jesus my Lord and Creator
Who witnessed and conquered the grave,
Jesus this worlds only Savior, Jesus what a wonderful name

All the great leaders who sleep in their graves
One day will bow and proclaim
He’s Lord of all glory, the crowned King of kings
All creation will thunder His Name

That name is Jesus, Sweet Rose of Sharon
Spotless and pure Lamb of God, Jesus, the Lion of Judah
The promised Emmanuel, God’s Son, Jesus my Lord and Creator
Who witnessed and conquered the brave,
Jesus this worlds only Savior, Jesus what a wonderful name

That name is Jesus
What a wonderful name
Jesus, what a wonderful name
What a wonderful name
What a wonderful name
Jesus, what a wonderful name

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The Good News – the Gospel

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Comments Welcome Below

8 responses to “Jesus of Palestine | What’s in a Name?”

  1. kirtapv Avatar
    kirtapv

    In fact Jesus comes from Yeshoua – you can have confirmation of this with the name Joshua (the leader of Israël after Moses). If you look at his name in Greek.

    Acts 7:45 and Hebrew 4:8 Joshua is exactly Ἰησοῦς. And you know the meaning of Yeshoua : Yahweh is Salvation. This name Yeshoua was common in the first century. And it’s not “by chance” that Jesus was named Yeshoua, but because of this precise meaning. Jesus is Yeshoua.

    And don’t forget that people were speaking aramaïc, very close language with hebrew, and in the synagogue they understood hebrew. So it’s clear that the name of Jesus was Yeshoua.

    And people were not speaking in Greek !! The Holy Spirit has chosen the New Testament to be written in Greek to be widely understood, but common people didn’t speak Greek ! And what would be the meaning of Ἰησοῦς Iessous ?? It has no sense to say that His true name was Iessous !

    His Name has a clear meaning. The first Joshua came from the other side of the Jordan, conquered Jericho and came in the land of Canaan. Jesus came from the other side of the Jordan, visited Jericho and healed people, then went to Jerusalem and gave His life for our salvation. The same name, Yeshoua, a parallel way, but a Great News of salvation, forgivness with the Saviour Yeshoua.

    So please, don’t forward wrong arguments concerning Jesus. It sounds like inspired by anti-semitism and has no biblical roots.

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    1. John Gideon Hartnett Avatar
      John Gideon Hartnett

      Of course His name Ἰησοῦς Iessous means the same as His name in Hebrew, Yeshua meaning salvation. JD Hall is not denying that.

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  2. Frank Hubeny Avatar
    Frank Hubeny

    There is evidence that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. See George Howard’s book Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

    Justin J. Van Rensburg provides an interesting study of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John from the Hebrew manuscripts of Vat. Ebr. 100 along with other Hebrew texts on the hebrewgospels site.

    Paul also defended himself in Hebrew in Acts 22. So, I don’t think JD Hall was right when he wrote, “Had someone yelled out, “Yeshua” in a crowd, Jesus wouldn’t have looked around. That wasn’t his name. He would have assumed they spoke to someone else.“

    Acts 22:1-2 KJV – 1 Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you. 2 (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

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    1. John Gideon Hartnett Avatar
      John Gideon Hartnett

      Frank, The following is a verbatim quote from JD Hall in response to your Comment.

      First, the appeal to a hypothetical Hebrew original of Matthew does not help the argument at all. Even scholars like George Howard acknowledge that the Hebrew Matthew traditions we possess are late, derivative, and dependent on the Greek, not independent apostolic originals. No extant Hebrew Matthew predates the Greek manuscripts, and the early church uniformly received Matthew in Greek. A speculative theory about an earlier Hebrew Vorlage does not overturn the linguistic reality of first-century Palestine or the textual history of the Gospels.

      Second, Acts 22 does not say Paul spoke Hebrew in the modern sense. “The Hebrew tongue” (tē Hebraidi dialektō) in Acts refers to Aramaic, the common spoken language of Judea, not classical or liturgical Hebrew. This is widely recognized across conservative and critical scholarship alike. Luke uses “Hebrew” as a cultural label for the Semitic vernacular, just as Josephus does. So Acts 22 proves only that Paul addressed the crowd in the common Jewish vernacular, not that Hebrew names functioned differently or more narrowly in public discourse.

      Perhaps it best that anyone really interested in the truth they ignore both me and the “Yeshua” people and ask someone without a dog in the fight like a language specialist, historian, or anthropologist what language dominated life in first century Palestine.

      You’ll discover very quickly that Hebrew was dead in Jesus day except in liturgy. That’s an acknowledged historical fact, including by the Zionists who “resurrected” Hebrew in the 19th-20th century.

      Meanwhile, the fact that Jesus and the disciples repeatedly quoted from the Greek Septuagint – an indisputable fact – should tell you all you need to know about this debate.

      https://x.com/LostMyHats/status/2006152238700323155

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      1. Frank Hubeny Avatar
        Frank Hubeny

        Thank you for the response. JD Hall’s claim in the last paragraph, “the fact that Jesus and the disciples repeatedly quoted from the Greek Septuagint – an indisputable fact”, assumes that the Hebrew bible during that time did not agree more with the Septuagint than the current Masoretic text does. We don’t know what they were quoting from especially given evidence that the Masoretic text changed in the 2nd century based on Henry B. Smith Jr’s study of the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.

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  3. Trevor Grace Avatar
    Trevor Grace

    Jesus was born in Israel and returned to Israel, according to Matthew 2:19-21

    19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” 21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

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    1. John Gideon Hartnett Avatar
      John Gideon Hartnett

      I wrote “the man Jesus was not Israeli but Palestinian as determined by His place of origin.” By that I meant where He hailed from, Nazareth, which is still in Galilee (Palestine) not Judea. Nationality being assigned by country of origin. And according to Moses He wasn’t of any tribe of Israel. Patrilineal evidence is needed to prove citizenship. His father is God, not Joseph. All genealogical evidence was destroyed by Titus’ army for all of the tribes, including Judah. God wanted to make sure it was all destroyed, because the Old Wife is dead and we are married to the New Bride though Christ. So from that moment around 70AD on legally Israel ceased to exist. No one could prove their lineage. Only the new nation under the New Covenant counts.

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  4. Trevor Grace Avatar
    Trevor Grace

    I would rather simply go on what the bible says: Matthew 2:1, that “… Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea”. It clearly says Judea, and not Palestine. Jesus was a Jew. Re his genealogy, likewise, let’s just stick to the bible. We are not to add or take anything, and especially not through a 20th-21st century political lens.

    Scripture traces His lineage through the tribe of Judah, culminating in the royal line of King David. “This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham…” (Matthew 1:1).

    Matthew then traces the line from Abraham through David and up to Joseph, who served as Jesus’ legal father in Jewish tradition (Matthew 1:2-17).

    Yes, Gideon, you’re right, although Joseph was not the biological father, but the legal standing of Jesus – as Joseph’s son, still firmly anchors Him in the line of David according to prevailing Jewish customs of the era.

    Luke’s Gospel provides another genealogical record, this time likely through Mary’s family line (Luke 3:23-38).

    So both Matthew 1 and Luke 3 shows us clearly, then, what God did, thus tells us: that Jesus descent is unequivocally from David and Abraham, foundational figures of the Jewish people.

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