Why do some insist on calling Jesus "Yeshua" when this name is never once in the NT?

Excellent question! Contradicting people? No, you are questioning their statements and doing so politely, at least here. I'm one of those people. It's nice to see a fellow searcher.

You are correct. I use the term because Jesus (Yeshua) was Jewish. The Greeks had spent a long period of time as the conquerors of the Jews and were hated with a passion. Yeshua, despite Paul's rewrite of his teachings, was a Jewish man who claimed, like many people of his time, to be the Mashiach/Messiah, which at the time, despite Christian redefining of the term, meant the individual who would free Israel from its conquerors, not God, nor God's son. The term "Son of God" was used frequently during the period and meant "priest of God". Israel had been ruled by priest-kings before being conquered. To be the Messiah was to be of the line of priest-kings and to successfully overcome the Romans (during Yeshua’s time).

He failed at this task during his lifetime, and thus was not considered the Messiah by the Jewish people as a whole.

If he had claimed to be God, or even God’s son, then the high priests (who were appointed/approved by Rome at that time) would have had a law to put him to death. He never claimed that, despite Christianity redefining the words. A little research into Aramaic idioms will show this.

In addition, Inscriptions of the time evince that the commonly spoken Aramaic was mostly free of Greek influence on its vocabulary, unlike in later centuries (Meier, page 265), though the name Jesus was in use. It is to be noted that if he had gone by the name of Jesus, many Jewish people would have disliked him just for that, though the Jews have a number of written traditions of Yeshu, and often refuse to give him the full spelling of the Hebrew word for Savior, Yeshua, because, so they say, that being the name of the Savior, it should not be applied to a blasphemer. Some scholars indicate that it is pronounced Yeshu because the final syllabic was added latter, historically speaking.

When the Septuagint (Seventy) was created, translated from the Jewish scriptures into Greek,

When transliterating the Hebrew [wvy to Greek:

____y (yod – “ye”) becomes Ih (iota-eta – “ye” or “ee-ay,” Koine or Attic dialect)

_____v (shin – “sh”) becomes s (sigma – “s” [there is no “sh” sound in Greek])

_____w (vav – “u”) becomes ou (omicron-upsilon – “oo”)

_____It is necessary for a final sigma (ß) to be placed at the end of the word to distinguish that the name is masculine

_____Greek grammar rules require that the [ (ayin – “ah”) sound be dropped

Hence, we get the name “Iesous” (Ihsouß), pronounced either Ye-sooce or Ee-ay-sooce.

In Old English, “Iesous” was rendered “Iesus” (pronounced Yesus), which is remarkably close to Yeshua. However, it was spelled with a beginning letter “J,” which at the time had a “Y” sound. Later, when the “J” began to have a harder sound, the name became “Jesus.”

The name Jesus is actually of surprisingly recent origin compared to the history of the New Testament.

In the Old Testament the name of Yesu appears prophetically of the Messiah, approximately one hundred times throughout the Scripture. It has been translated variously as salvation, help and deliverance, although these expressions are also employed to translate other Hebrew words.

Some say Jesus is pagan because of its Greek linguistic origins. Some have even called our Messiah “Gee-Zeus,” implying that those who call on Him are actually called on the Greek god, Zeus.

However, a study of Greek grammar, or more specifically, Hebrew to Greek transliteration, shows there is no basis for this conclusion.

Let’s look at the various transliterations that the original Hebrew name, Yahushua (the old Hebrew version), went through to finally come upon the name Jesus. Starting from the name Jesus and working back through time, the first thing to understand is that the letter 'J' was unknown in any alphabet in form or sound until the 14th century. Therefore, it is at once impossible that anyone living during the time of the Messiah, i.e. ancient Rome, referred to Him as Jesus. Before the soft 'G' sound, currently attributed to the letter 'J', came into general use in England in the early seventeenth century, 'J' was pronounced with the consonantal 'Y' sound. Hence, the Latin rendition of Janaurius was pronounced 'Yanaurius'. Traces of this are still evident in our modern pronunciation of the word 'hallelujah'. Here the letter 'J' is plainly pronounced with a consonantal 'Y' sound. Prior to fourteenth century, the letter 'J' did not even exist in written form and the letter 'I' was the original letter used where 'J' now appears in words in the English language. Thus in Latin, during these times, Jesus was written Iesus and was pronounced 'Yesus'. This, in turn, was derived from the Greek version of the sacred Name, Iesous (pronounced ee-ay-sooce'). The Greeks transliterated this from the late Hebrew or Aramaic Yeshua. The 'sh' sound in Yeshua could not be properly transliterated by the Greek alphabet so this was replaced with Greek sigma s, a character that simply produced an 's' sound. Likewise, the 'a' ending in Yeshua was problematic because it had a feminine connotation in Greek (although it didn't in Hebrew). Hence the 'a' ending was changed to 'us' to make the name masculine. This was how the late Hebrew/Aramaic 'Yeshua' became the Greek 'Iesous'. Yeshua, in turn, was a syncopated variant or short form of the original Hebrew Yahushua.

Chronologically speaking then, the various transliterations can be charted as follows:

Language English transliteration

Early Hebrew Yahushua

Late Hebrew Yeshua

Greek Iesous

Late Latin Iesus

English Jesus

One of the ecumenical councils even considered the issue of translating his name back into Hebrew, but decided that the name was too well-known for that, so left it as is.

Is this decisive? No, but it is courteous of the likely position of “Yesu”, as would be the alternate choice, the “J” sound being recent and not pronounced in Greek, dropping the final syllabic for either reason.

Besides, his father was Joseph, his mother Miriam, his disciples had Hebrew names. Wouldn’t it be a bit odd if he had a Greek one?

More directly to the point, most people have little-to-no idea why they use the name, "Yeshua". Others have, it seems to upset some Christians, and they get a kick out that. Seems silly considering all the good Christianity has done over the centuries (Yes, yes, some bad things to, but an amazingly small percentage, all told). I am not a Christian, just a student of religion and belief systems in general, however I respect Yesu's teachings greatly, and Christianity's work and charity as well.

Great question.

If you still believe that Jesus was not a body manifestation of the very creator God, the word that formed the worlds made flesh, then you are still bound in a lack of revelation which is the central denial of the NWT rewrite; and the JW belief system. For it is not and was not the faith of the Apostles nor the plan of the only living God. God has laid aside all other names to set forth the Lord Jesus Christ; that at his name all things in earth below and heaven above should and will bow. For the first 300 years, until false doctrine defeated the true church; Christians were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord being his name under the title of Father; Jesus being his name under the title of Son; and Christ or Messiah being his name under the title of the Holy Ghost. Then as now, Jesus lives in his children; who are the believers and the true church in this ending hour.

The term Yeshua, and all its derivitives (Yahushuah, yahshuah, etc) are simply Hebraicly wrong. Jesus was never called any one of these in his lifetime. Yahoshua, which is Joshua is the closest.

""Greek originals only call him ίήδouς (which transliterates as Iesus or Jesus.)"" In actuality, the term in the Greek was more like IeZEUS, the two letters that make up the I and E are the letters for Son of...as in Son Of Zeus.

The term Yeshua was made up by Messianic "Jews" to make the Christian concept of Jesus even more palatable to the Jewish targets of their missionizing. The word simply does not appear anywhere to refer to Jesus until well after the creation of the "Jews" for Jesus by the American Board Of Missions To The Jews, as their San Francisco office.

Real Jews are not fooled.

Jesus Or Yeshua

For some I think it gives them more of a connection to the Jewish side of Jesus. If they insist you call Him Yeshua, and make some claim that it is wrong not to, they are sinning. However, there is nothing wrong with making that decision for yourself. I don't think there would be anything wrong with calling him King Josh, though, either.

He came to the Jew first. He was known by both. You cannot translate Jesus in Greek to anything--it is Hebrew for Yah is Salvation.

Are ya suggesting thing that the other translations of the name Jesus don't get used by other cultures and so forth?

If Jesus spoke Aramaic, why not call His name in Aramaic?

Because this name is a translation of Jesus, just like Joshua.

trasnlation of God and His name:

name of God - YHWH > Yahweh(hebrew dosent have any vowels, so we tossed some in, a and e) > LORD(English trans of YHWH, why its in all caps) > LORD God

name of Jesus - Iesous(this is the guy we call Jesus' actual name, trasnlated literally means 'YHWH is salvation') > Yesous > Yeshua > Jesus

Cuz His Name IS Holy & NOT to be taken in vain.