The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

[Secret Alias]

I also find the symbolism of the canonical gospels baptism 'in the Jordan' an unexpected place for Joshua's reappearance. Joshua and the Israelites (as the Samaritans repeatedly note) never touched the water, nor did the Israelites under Moses. FWIW the Samaritans identify his burial at Kefr Charis, nine miles south of Nablus.

[Ben C. Smith]

I may as well comment on the popularity of the name "Jesus" in century I, as well as the popularity of the name "Joseph," too. Richard Bauckham makes a good point concerning the lack of popularity of the names Moses, David, and Elijah in this period:

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, chapter 4: Why were the most popular names popular? Although the question is not strictly required for our purposes in this book, we shall attend to it briefly. It is very striking that six of the nine most popular male names are those of the Hasmonean family, Mattathias and his five sons (John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan), while the three most popular female names, Mary (Mariam), Salome, and Shelamzion (the longer form of Salome), were also the names of members of the Hasmonean ruling family. Since it was the Hasmoneans who won Jewish independence in the second century BCE and were the last Jewish rulers of an independent Jewish state, the popularity of their names into the period of Roman rule was no doubt patriotic. .... / The popularity of the names of the Hasmoneans illustrates the fact that biblical names, though widely used by Palestinian Jews in this period, seem mostly not to have been used for the purpose of recalling the biblical characters who bore these names (a purpose which seems to have been more commonly operative in the Diaspora). The names of the Hasmoneans were all biblical, two of them patriarchal (Simeon, Judah), but it was because of their Hasmonean use that they were popular. There may be some exceptions, such as the fact that Jacob (James) was the eleventh most popular male name. But most striking are that Joseph is the second most popular male name, very close to Simon in frequency, and that Joshua (Jesus) is the sixth most popular. Ilan has suggested that, as well as the five Hasmonean brothers known to us from 1 Maccabees, there was also a sixth brother called Joseph, mentioned in 2 Macc 8:22,163 where most scholars have considered the name a mistake for John. / .... / But it is also worth noting that among some famous biblical names that were not used at all by Palestinian Jews in this period were Moses, David, and Elijah. This conspicuous avoidance must also relate to the eschatological hope, in which three eschatological figures were required to lead the new theocracy: the royal Messiah (the son of David), the eschatological high priest (the returning Elijah), and the prophet like Moses. It may have been thought that to use these names for one’s own children would be a presumptuous expectation that these children were actually the expected eschatological deliverers. So the non-use of these names is itself a kind of negative form of evidence for the messianic hopes of the period.

So why were Joshua and Joseph so popular as boy's names? I suspect it is because these naming conventions came into play because of the Hasmoneans, and they happened to precede the more intense expectations of a Joshua or Joseph figure. The Hasmoneans may have had reasons to prefer a priestly and kingly approach to a warrior approach:

Michaël N. van der Meer, "The Reception History of Joshua in the Septuagint and Contemporary Documents," in Die Septuaginta: Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz, page 443: From the outset, one might expect a huge exploitation of the Joshua victorious battle scenes in the accounts of the successful victories of the Maccabeans against their opponents. Recently Katell Bertholet has explored the question whether the books of the Maccabees were modelled in some way after the biblical account of the conquest of the Promised Land, given the fact that the Maccabees presented themselves as law abiding faithful Jews engaged in a program of Reconquista of the Promised Land from the foreign occupants. The answer to this potentially highly significant question for the reception history of Joshua is very sobering: "Paradoxically, the Hasmoneaean remain in our memories the great warriors who nearly (re)conquered the 'promised land,' but in fact no document has reached us that allows us to say that the Hasmonaeans saw themselves as fulfilling God's command to Joshua" [Katell Bertholet, The Biblical Conquest, page 60]. Apparently, then, the Hasmoneans wanted to avoid any suggestion that they too had to (re)gain territory that had once belonged to others. Rather they seemed to have identified themselves with the great kings David and Solomon who ruled greater Israel.

But Hasmonean motivations and those of the common folk may have parted ways (assuming they were ever aligned) as the Hasmonean dynasty started to produce disasters like Alexander Jannaeus. The common folk (as exemplified in the Egyptian and Theudas) seem to have thought in terms of Joshua, a warrior who would kick out both the foreign pagan powers and the corrupt domestic authorities. No need on their part, then, "to avoid any suggestion that they too had to (re)gain territory that had once belonged to others." There is only one continuing stirps recorded for Ephraim on the pages of scripture, and that stirps passes through Joshua. Therefore, the Messiah ben Joseph/Ephraim could easily be thought of as a Joshua redivivus.

[Secret Alias]

But would someone write a book - the gospel - or the letters of Paul with the central premise that not Joshua per se but his very name was a holy name and indeed the name above all names? I have a problem with this. Joshua was sacred. The Greek spelling of Joshua adds up to 888 which is 'cool.' But the idea that Joshua = Yahweh is problematic when Moses = 345 and 345 + 543 (it's palindrome) = 888. There's a step missing or something missing IMHO. I think you're 80 percent right though. FWIW

[Giuseppe]

2. the Pentateuch is written in a way that naturally suggests that Joshua is a successor to Moses and Moses was the greatest human being that ever lived.

that is strongly decisive, I think. It opens the door to an anti-nomianist reading of Joshua as the guy who will do the contrary of what Moses did. We don't know how much old was that reading of an antithesis in the name.

[Ben C. Smith]

ok that Josha contains YHWH but the true name of YHWH couldn't be spoken.

Yes, but the point is that the name "Joshua/Jesus" could be the means by which our hero received the "name above all names."

why "Jesus" (="YHWH saves") and not "John" (="YHWH gives grace"), then?

Because of the eschatological expectations, like I already said: he was (supposed to be) Joshua redivivus, a Messiah ben Ephraim, and so on. That a Joshua narrative was in play seems implied by Theudas wanting to part the river and the Egyptian wanting to knock the walls down.

but the same name of Theudas is not casual. Theudas may be a form of Dositheus being in turn a variant of John ("gift of God"). Why don't you see eschatological expectations on the name Theudas/John too?

If there are expectations associated with the names Theudas and John (and I am not sure you have the correct etymology for Theudas, which seems to be a difficult one), they are not the same associations I am speaking of. The ones I am speaking of flow from those Hebrew predictions about a ruler coming out of Joseph or Ephraim. This is why I wrote:

Before any of that came Hebrew eschatological expectation.

Those expectations are what the early Christians are responding to. They are not simply making up stories and associations that "sound nice." They are, in their own weird religious way, making sure that God's promises are fulfilled.

[Secret Alias]

It opens the door to an anti-nomianist reading of Joshua as the guy who will do the contrary of what Moses did.

Really? Funny how no one we know ever came up with that stupid interpretation.

[Secret Alias]

Sanhedrin 43 Our Rabbis taught: Yeshu had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Nezer, Buni and Todah. When Matthai was brought [before the court] he said to them [the judges] ...

Todah as a name associated with Jewish messianism.

[Giuseppe]

It opens the door to an anti-nomianist reading of Joshua as the guy who will do the contrary of what Moses did.

Really? Funny how no one we know ever came up with that stupid interpretation.

John 1:17:

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

The "but" is adversative.

[Secret Alias]

So the 'Jesus' here is Joshua the Patriarch?

[Ben C. Smith]

But would someone write a book - the gospel - or the letters of Paul with the central premise that not Joshua per se but his very name was a holy name and indeed the name above all names? I have a problem with this. Joshua was sacred. The Greek spelling of Joshua adds up to 888 which is 'cool.' But the idea that Joshua = Yahweh is problematic when Moses = 345 and 345 + 543 (it's palindrome) = 888. There's a step missing or something missing IMHO. I think you're 80 percent right though. FWIW

The sacred nature of the name (of any name) is not constitutive, in my judgment; the nature and number of various names are what one talks about in order to justify ideas already held for other reasons.

What drives the whole thing forward is that set of prophecies on the pages of holy scripture: God's promises which must be fulfilled. That Joshua comes out to 888 is marvelous as a confirmation to the faithful, but what fuels the idea behind a Joshua figure in the first place is that set of predictions about the line of Joseph/Ephraim. Nobody may write an entire gospel or series of epistles on the premise that the sixth (IIRC) most common masculine name at the time was sacred, but it is easy to see why people might write gospels or epistles about the arrival of a redeemer promised by Jacob, confirmed by Moses, and then reconfirmed by psalmists and prophets.