Saturday, December 23, 2017

There are not one but five Jesuses mentioned in the New Testament

There are no fewer than five separate individuals named Jesus in the Bible, which is not such a wonder since Jesus is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua.

The most famous Jesus, of course, is Jesus the Nazarene, also known as Jesus Christ or the Messiah; the semi-biological son of Mary, son-by-law of Joseph and monogenes Son of God. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, lived as an infant in Egypt, and in Nazareth until He was thirty years old. In the early days of His ministry he moved to Capernaum, and at the end of it He was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, tried by Pontius Pilate and executed at Golgotha. Three days later He resurrected and forty days after that He ascended to heaven.

The famous Jesus is one of five men named Jesus mentioned in the New Testament

Other men named Jesus in the New Testament are:

  • An ancestor of Jesus in the Lucan genealogy (Luke 3:29), and only according to some translations. In Greek this name is spelled Ιωση (Jose), which only the King James and Young translations properly transliterate. The Darby translation speaks of Joses. The New International Version and New American Standard translations have Joshua. And the American Standard Version has Jesus.
  • Joshua (Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8).
  • A fellow worker of Paul named Jesus Justus (Colossians 4:11).
  • A Jewish magician who Paul and Barnabas meet on Cyprus, named Bar-Jesus (a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic for Son Of Joshua).
The name Jesus was obviously quite common in New Testament times. The Roman-Jewish historian Josephus mentions at least twenty different people named Jesus in his works, one of these being Jesus son of Damneus, who became high priest when the previous high priest was deposed for executing James the Just, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth (Ant.20.9). Another Jesus Josephus wrote about was Jesus son of Ananias, who in 62 AD began walking about Jerusalem, loudly foretelling its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD .

All together, the name Jesus occurs 972 times in the New Testament; see full concordance.

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