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A Jew by any other name..
Oct. 21st, 2006 08:28 pmI have now had the second person ask me if the reason for my religion's name is because of the apostle Judas. Judging by the cultural, social and physical distance between the two queries leads me to think that this belief must be quite widespread.
Now, here's my train of thought on this subject:
1. The Torah and Jewish history is full of names which changed significantly when translated into whatever the dominant language was at the time. For example, Moshe is known in English as Moses, and his brother Aharon is usually referred to as Aaron. Furthermore, Jesus would be known in Hebrew as Yesu or Yeshu (someone please correct me on this if I'm wrong).
EDIT: Thanks Michael and Simon for correcting me. Jesus = Yeshua or Yehoshua
2. This is rather timely :) The festival of Chanukkah is coming up, when the Jews celebrate the people rose up against the Greek oppressors and the man who led them. The man's name? In English, Judah. In Hebrew, Yehudah. His name is sourced from one of Jacob's (Ya'akov in Hebrew) 12 sons.
3. The Greek occupation of Judah/Israel/Palestine predated the Roman occupation.
4. This leads me to believe a few things. From (1), that Hebrew names that end in vowels tend to have an S tacked on to the end when converted into the language that was dominant at the time of Jesus (Latin? Roman? Greek?). Secondly, that names that contain H in a medial position tend to lose it in the translation. Thirdly, in all names Y becomes J during translation.
5. From this I conclude that Judas' real (ie. Hebrew) name was probably Yehudah, a name the predates him considerably.
6. Independently of all the above points, there's also a case to be made about the stupidity of naming an entire race/religion that had already existed for a few thousand years after one man, no matter how infamous.
7. Another case can probably be made via the etymology of the name Judas/Judah/Yehudah. According to one of those baby-naming sites (not the best of sources I know, but I don't exactly have any good Jewish literature on hand):
JUDAS Greek form of JUDAH. Judas Iscariot was the apostle who betrayed Jesus.
JUDAH "praised" (Hebrew). One of the twelve sons of Jacob and ancestor of a large tribe in the Old Testament.
So there you go. Who am I to argue with the baby-naming site? :)
In other news, some friends and I are considering celebrating Chrismukkah this year. It'll be fun!
Now, here's my train of thought on this subject:
1. The Torah and Jewish history is full of names which changed significantly when translated into whatever the dominant language was at the time. For example, Moshe is known in English as Moses, and his brother Aharon is usually referred to as Aaron. Furthermore, Jesus would be known in Hebrew as Yesu or Yeshu (someone please correct me on this if I'm wrong).
EDIT: Thanks Michael and Simon for correcting me. Jesus = Yeshua or Yehoshua
2. This is rather timely :) The festival of Chanukkah is coming up, when the Jews celebrate the people rose up against the Greek oppressors and the man who led them. The man's name? In English, Judah. In Hebrew, Yehudah. His name is sourced from one of Jacob's (Ya'akov in Hebrew) 12 sons.
3. The Greek occupation of Judah/Israel/Palestine predated the Roman occupation.
4. This leads me to believe a few things. From (1), that Hebrew names that end in vowels tend to have an S tacked on to the end when converted into the language that was dominant at the time of Jesus (Latin? Roman? Greek?). Secondly, that names that contain H in a medial position tend to lose it in the translation. Thirdly, in all names Y becomes J during translation.
5. From this I conclude that Judas' real (ie. Hebrew) name was probably Yehudah, a name the predates him considerably.
6. Independently of all the above points, there's also a case to be made about the stupidity of naming an entire race/religion that had already existed for a few thousand years after one man, no matter how infamous.
7. Another case can probably be made via the etymology of the name Judas/Judah/Yehudah. According to one of those baby-naming sites (not the best of sources I know, but I don't exactly have any good Jewish literature on hand):
JUDAS Greek form of JUDAH. Judas Iscariot was the apostle who betrayed Jesus.
JUDAH "praised" (Hebrew). One of the twelve sons of Jacob and ancestor of a large tribe in the Old Testament.
So there you go. Who am I to argue with the baby-naming site? :)
In other news, some friends and I are considering celebrating Chrismukkah this year. It'll be fun!
