Joshua H. Christ

It always bothered me how we call God, God. Why do we do that? “God” isn’t a proper name. It’s barely a title. Really, it’s more of a category. It’s as though we spend our lives looking for a long-lost father named Man. How can we claim a personal God with no name? 

I understand the naming of Jesus as the naming of the earthly manifestation of a particular being, in my view, that we refer to as “God”. Ok, we can name that version of God, but what is the real name of the actual being who manifested “in the flesh”, as it were? I now hold that name to be Enki, of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian lore. Enki, known in the Tanakh and the Old Testament as Elohim. Enki, in the form of Jesus, when asked directly, said “I am He”. More on that later.

BUT…all of that aside for now, let’s look at the name of Jesus. Yehoshua, in Old Testament Hebrew, meaning “YHWH saves” or “The Lord is Salvation”. By the time of Jesus, a shortened form of Yehoshua was used in the Hebrew Bible. This shortened form was “Jeshua”, which is what Mary and Joseph named their baby. Over time, as politics moved empires about the world chessboard, and language favored the dominant culture, Hebrew “Jeshua” became the Greek “Lesous”, and then the Latin “Lesus”, and finally to the English “Jesus” (hey-soos) with the hard J and hard Z sounds developing over centuries as vernacular in different parts of the world. 

So, kiddos, this means that a direct translation- done CORRECTLY- from 2nd Temple Hebrew “Jeshua” to Modern English would result in Joshua. Not Jesus. Joshua. 

Joshua H. Christ! Joshua Saves! Who’s A Joshua Freak? Know Joshua, Know Peace…No Joshua, No Peace. Joshua Take The Wheel. Joshua H. Christ On A Popsicle Stick! Joshua Is My Copilot (which is why he could take the wheel). Bumper stickers everywhere would have to be updated. Ridiculous, right? 

Speaking in expletives, however, just doesn’t sound the same. Proclaiming “Joshua!” when striking a thumb with a hammer, doesn’t have the same satisfying, gutteral oomph as “Jeezus!”. 

Funny thoughts. Relevant, never irreverent. Search and never settle. Words matter. Names matter. I am not suggesting that anyone start swapping Jesus for Joshua in popular culture or private ceremony. I am simply standing on facts that history is real and that things unfold in a particular way. People, behavior, and consequences occur in time and space…not just as an image on a church wall. Real things happened. Neither the passage of time nor the changing of perspective nor the weight of modern fantasies nor faith like a mustard seed may alter the fabric of “what actually happened already”.

The truth is, and always will be, simply what happened. It’s up to us to get down to that and worry about its meaning and how it all moves us today. It doesn’t matter two shits what Mary and Joseph named that baby. What matters is what little Jeshua did with his life. What matters more is exactly HOW he did it. What matters mostest is what comes next.

Footnote: This, obviously, is a tongue-in-cheek assessment of a name. I am not a linguist. An irreverent exploration of facts is as valuable a tool of study as a reverential one. This idea was drawn from a book I read years ago. It's a worthy read:

Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.