Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Actually, Theosoteros. But you get what I mean.

Jax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 9:57 am

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:17 am Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus are reversible because Jesus is a personal name and Christ is an honorific (just as a certain famous Seleucid king can be either Ἀντίοχος Ἐπιφανής or ὁ Ἐπιφανὴς Ἀντίοχος). If both were personal names, they would not be reversible (Marcus Antonius, never Antonius Marcus). Jesus being a personal name is also why it is transliterated (יְהוֹשׁוּעַ to Ἰησοῦς), rarely translated; Christ being an honorific is why it is translated (מָשִׁיחַ to Χριστός) at least as often as it is transliterated (much like Σεβαστός and Augustus).

Just out of curiosity. Why wouldn't the Greeks translate a Jewish name? For instance Yeshua could have been something like Theosoteria.

Names are rarely translated. Not sure what more to say about that. Even today we rarely translate names. We use corresponding names (like John and Juan), but those are actually the same name, transliterated into two separate languages and pronounced differently. But we do not often take a name like Martinez or Benjamin and translate it as "son of Martin" or "son of the right hand." I imagine this is because the main purpose of a name is to identify, not to describe.

For honorifics, however, the whole point is to honor the person with a descriptive term, so translating the description makes more sense.

Sure for us but both the Greeks and the Jews had names that were regular words tacked together like Erosthanos meaning beautiful strength.

Jax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:11 am Sure for us but both the Greeks and the Jews had names that were regular words tacked together like Erosthanos meaning beautiful strength.

Our native English names also often mean something in English. Lots of surnames, for example, are just the names of medieval professions (Carpenter, Wright, Mason, Smith, and so on). Yet those names are rarely translated, say, into Spanish; they are transliterated (and then pronounced in a Spanish way). Or consider a name like that of the late actor River Phoenix; both of those words mean something to us in English, but Spanish speakers do not tend to call him Río Fénix; no, they call him River Phoenix. They transliterate.

Names that we use which are not native English words we just transliterate from the other language (Benjamin from Hebrew, Andrew from Greek, and so on.)

Likewise, in antiquity, many Greek names meant something in Greek, but they were transliterated, not translated, into Latin. Same for Hebrew names into Greek or Latin. This is very similar to our modern practice.

Thanks Ben.

No problem.

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:03 am No problem.

Would Theosoteros be right though? Just checking my grasp of Greek.

Jax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:16 am

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:03 am No problem.

Would Theosoteros be right though? Just checking my grasp of Greek.

Well, it looks like you are going for something like θεός σωτήρ, right? (God is Savior.) So the -os ending does not belong there, does it? (In Θεόδοτος, the two elements are θεός + δοτός, noun + adjective; the -os ending is part of the word.) Also, θεός/God is not quite the same as Yahweh, the personal name of the Jewish deity.

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:49 am

Jax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:16 am

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:03 am No problem.

Would Theosoteros be right though? Just checking my grasp of Greek.

Well, it looks like you are going for something like θεός σωτήρ, right? (God is Savior.) So the -os ending does not belong there, does it? (In Θεόδοτος, the two elements are θεός + δοτός, noun + adjective; the -os ending is part of the word.) Also, θεός/God is not quite the same as Yahweh, the personal name of the Jewish deity.

Ok cool. Theosotos. That makes sense. Just out of curiosity how would you write Yahweh is Savior in coine?

Sorry to be a pest. I just can't pass up any opportunity to learn from someone who knows what they are doing.

Jax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 12:33 pm

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:49 am

Jax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:16 am

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:03 am No problem.

Would Theosoteros be right though? Just checking my grasp of Greek.

Well, it looks like you are going for something like θεός σωτήρ, right? (God is Savior.) So the -os ending does not belong there, does it? (In Θεόδοτος, the two elements are θεός + δοτός, noun + adjective; the -os ending is part of the word.) Also, θεός/God is not quite the same as Yahweh, the personal name of the Jewish deity.

Ok cool. Theosotos. That makes sense. Just out of curiosity how would you write Yahweh is Savior in coine?

Sorry to be a pest. I just can't pass up any opportunity to learn from someone who knows what they are doing.

Well, Yahweh was rarely rendered in Greek after a certain period (in most manuscripts of the LXX/OG it is rendered as Lord/Κύριος), but there is some evidence (4Q120, for example) that it was rendered as Ἰάω in very early LXX/OG manuscripts. So....

Σωτήρ ὁ Ἰάω (ἐστίν). Iaō (is) Savior.

(Linking verbs are often omitted in Greek.)