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Goodbye Jesus

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The Real Reason Jesus Is Mispronounced, ...


falemon

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As we all know, Jesus (oft pronounced Gheezus) is actually meant to be pronounced, Yeshua.

 

The reasons of this are a combination of transliteration, as well as changes in the English language. But there's something that everyone's missed out.

 

If a priest pronounces it as Yeshua, then the congregation will also know that christ is called Yeshua, no matter how it is pronounced. Also the following priest would undoubtedly know this too, since he would have been schooled by someone who knows the name.

 

So we clearly have a broken link, as somewhere along the line the 'gospel' was taught by someone who did not know this, and passed on the faulty pronunciation to his congregation, and now we all follow that.

 

To paint a picture:

 

"Yeshua" -> disciples -> early church -> christians -> Roman Catholicism -> Europe -> England (1600)

 

Up until this point, we can say that there was a long line of the name being passed along, then suddenly.

 

"Gheezus" -> congregation -> more churches -> widespread christianity

 

So we can conclude that the christianity we have today must stem from a relatively new root which does not descend from the early church. In essence it must stem from an individual (or a group) who had never even gone to a church, instead they just picked up the book and went along and started their own church.

 

So when did this happen? Well we know that when KVJ was written, the 'j' was still using the Germanic 'i' sound, so it wasn't then. So when did was the French 'j' introduced? Well thanks to Shakespeare, who borrowed many French words for his literature, by the time he had his way with our vocabulary we had a lot of French influence in our language. But it wasn't until (IIRC) the 1800's that the French form was officially established.

 

Either way it's interesting to think that this religion can spring back so easily from people who did not, and still may not even believe in it. It is a great source of income and power. There are people right now who are billionaires because of this book, leading churches of devout followers.

 

Reminds me of The Book of eli.

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JadedAtheist

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It would seem to me that the pronunciation of Jesus' name simply adapted to everyday pronunciation, perhaps due to the influence by a group who as you said, may have been ignorant of the proper pronunciation. Catholic priests are familiar with Latin and Greek since ancient times, and the original name would've been clear to them and scholarship was performed in French, Latin and German (at a much later point) as well, so those leaders outside the Catholic church would also be familiar with the right pronunciation. So learned people would never have forgotten the right way to say it, so it would have been a bottom up influence; the congregation influencing the everyday pronunciation.

 

Interesting to hear about how the change of the J occurred though, always wondered about that myself.

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