MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 7:26 pmWell, in writing the Pentateuch into Greek, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ was transliterated to Ιησοῦς and Ιησοῦς = Iesous (or, in at least in one document was represented by a
nomen sacrum or two which are commonly/universally thought to represent Ιησοῦς.
This is true. The Greek Ἰησοῦς is easily derived from יֵשׁוּעַ/Yeshua, which is a shortened form of יְהוֹשׁוּעַ/Yehoshua, as can be traced throughout the Hebrew scriptures. For example, Joshua son of Nun is called יְהוֹשׁוּעַ/Yehoshua in the earlier books but יֵשׁוּעַ/Yeshua in Nehemiah 8.17 and in the Dead Sea scrolls:
4Q175 (4QTestimonia), lines 21-30: 21 ~ At the moment when Joshua [ישוע, Yeshua] finished praising and giving thanks with his psalms, 22 he said, «Cursed be the man who rebuilds this city! Upon his firstborn 33 will he found it, and upon his youngest son will he erect its gates» (= Joshua 6.26). And now an accursed /man/, one of Belial, 24 will arise to be a [fo]wler’s tr[ap] for his people and ruin for all his neighbors. And 25 [...] will arise [to b]e the two instruments of violence. And they will rebuild 26 [this city and ere]ct for it a rampart and towers, to make it into a fortress of wickedness 27 [in the country and a great evil] in Israel, and a horror in Ephraim and Judah. 28 [... And they will com]mit a profanation in the land and a great blasphemy among the sons of 29 [Jacob. And they will shed blo]od like water upon the ramparts of the daughter of Zion and in the precincts of 30 ~ {in} Jerusalem.
4Q522, fragment 9, lines 12-14: 12 And now, let us establish the t[ent of mee]ting far from [...] 13 Eleazar [and Joshu]a the t[ent of me]eting from Beth [El ...] 14 Joshua [ישוע, Yeshua] [... ch]ief of the army ... [....]
The Talmud even uses another intermediate form of sorts for the son of Nun, יהושע/Yehosha, if you will, at
Sotah 34b.
All in all, Yehoshua, Yeshua, and Yeshu appear to be variants of each other in much the same way that the name on my birth certificate is Benjamin, but I went by Benje as a boy, and now as an adult I go by Ben. Yeshua and Yeshu appear as variants on the same ossuary:
Levi Y. Rahmani, Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel, page 77, ossuary #9:
ישו
....
ישוע בר יחוסף
Yeshu.
....
Yeshua‘, son of Yehosef.
Other examples of two different forms of the same name (one longer, the other shorter) appearing on an ossuary occur in #42 (Mattatya and Matya), #270 (Yehoḥana and Yoḥana), #370 (Yehuda and Yudan), and #468 (Martha and Mara).
And bear in mind that every time we would expect either Joshua the son of Nun or Joshua the High Priest from Zechariah in Philo or Josephus, the manuscripts give us Ἰησοῦς (or one of its grammatical inflections).
Jax wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:19 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 3:50 pm
Deuteronomy 31.2-3: 2 And he said to them, “I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and Yahweh has said to me, ‘You shall not cross this Jordan.’ 3 It is Yahweh your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. It is
Joshua/Jesus [
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, Ιησοῦς] who will cross ahead of you, just as Yahweh has spoken.”
Papyrus Fouad 266 (first century BC), column 65, fragment 96 (Deuteronomy 31.2-3):
XX
2 [καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς ἑκατὸν καὶ εἴκοσι]
XX [ἐτῶν ἐγώ εἰμι σήμερον οὐ δυνήσομαι ἔτι]
XX [εἰσπορεύεσθαι καὶ ἐκπορεύεσθαι יהוה δὲ]
08 [εἶπεν πρό]ς μ[ε οὐ διαβήσῃ τὸν Ιορδά-]
09 [νην τοῦτ]ον.
3 יהוה [ὁ θεός σου ὁ πορευ-]
10 [όμενος π]ρὸ προσώπ[ου σου αὐτὸς ἐξο-]
11 [λεθρεύσε]ι τὰ ἔθνη τ[αῦτα ἀπὸ προσώπου]
12 [σου κ]αὶ κατακλη[ρονομήσεις αὐτούς]
13 [καὶ
Ἰ]
ησοῦς ὁ πορε[υόμενος πρὸ προσώ-]
XX που σου καθὰ ἐλάλησεν יהוה.
Link.
Hey Ben, by any chance do you have a good link to the original fragment?
I uploaded the only image I have access to, which is fuzzy, here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4621&p=111899#p111899.
I can make out the final four letters (-σοῦς) pretty clearly:
- Papyrus Fouad 266, Column 65.png (219.36 KiB) Viewed 6034 times
The
ēta is less clear to me, and looks like it could be one of several letters (including the expected
ēta, of course), but the photo is not great, either, and the final four letters are pretty solid, matching exactly what we would expect to find at this spot in the text.