ENGLISH, GREEK, LATIN, HEBREW.......

Exodus 3:13-14 - "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is His name?  What shall I say unto them?  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

Dictionary.com defines the tetragrammaton thusly:  "the Hebrew word for God, consisting of the four letters yod, he, vav, and he, transliterated consonantally usually as YHVH, now pronounced as Adonai or Elohim in substitution for the original pronunciation forbidden since the 2nd or 3rd century b.c."  The King James Version shows these Hebrew letters between Psalm 119:32 & 33; 40 & 41; and 72 & 73.  Those who speak Hebrew replace the tetragrammaton with the word "Adonai."  The King James Versions translates it as "LORD" 6510 times, "GOD" 4 times, and "Jehovah" 4 times.  Ironically, because Hebrew has no "J," the better transliteration would be "YeHoVaH" or "Yehovah."

According to Luke 23:38 and John 19:20, the superscription written over Jesus as He hung on the cross was written in Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew.  The name of Jesus was the Greek word Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous), translated "Jesus" 972 times and it is twice translated as "Joshua" (Acts 7:45 & Heb. 4:8); the Latin for Jesus is "Iesu," and the Hebrew is  יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (Yĕhowshuwa`).  So, all those who want to call Jesus by His biblical name, must choose between the three languages, or use their own!  While it is popular among those "Hebrew Roots" devotees to use the Hebrew (I suppose that would make them "more spiritual," at least in their own circles), the Bible is literally translated in thousands of languages, and believe it or not, people actually get saved (come to faith in Jesus Christ) in all of them!

On January 31, 1971, when I awoke, I was an atheist.  By noon, I had listened to three TV preachers talking about Jesus Christ, and after hearing the Gospel (the Bible says that it is in believing the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:3-4), that one is saved (Rom. 1:16; !0:13; etc.)!  I had been a Roman Catholic before I lost faith in faith, but I did not know Latin.  I had absolutely no knowledge of Hebrew or Greek!  And yet, here I sit forty-five years later, still believing in Jesus Christ; still writing about salvation in by faith in Jesus alone; still longing for Jesus to return for His bride!  Acts 4:10-12 says,

"Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Whom ye crucified, Whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole.  This is the Stone which was set at nought of you builders, Who is become the Head of the Corner (The Chief Cornerstone - Eph. 2:20 & 1 Pet. 2:6).  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

 

Whatever His name is in your language, it is the one that will save you!