Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

2006/4/4, Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>:
> I can see the reason for the question, in that
> Joshua (Yehoshua) was written as Jesus (Yaysus) in
> the Greek New Testament.
>
> I personally question whether there was any attempt
> to make sure the pronunciation was other than the
> one recorded in the New Testament.

What do you mean exactly, whose attempt?  As the name Ιησους Yesous as
in NT is a Greek rendering of ישוע Yeshu, the name Yesous can't be an
original Hebrew. The "sigma" is usually added in Greek to names like
Yuda, Bar Abba, (Ch)ananya, Yeshu, because in Greek, masculin names
ending with a vowel didn't feel right in the nominative.
You are right then, the "essential version" of Yesous, such as its
genitive Yesou represents sort of what was heard. However, Greek is,
for example, not good at representing a ש Shin, so there are limits to
the sounds Greek can express. Then there is also the "eta" and
"iotacism" problem. But I think I won't elaborate as I'm on the verge
of going beyond "B-Hebrew" ;)

regards,
Herman Meester,
Rotterdam