Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>]

I'll be adding that title to my Amazon.com Wish List.  I firmly believe 
(or have rationalized to myself) that God has a sense of humor.  Or 
else I am in some SERIOUS trouble for the (not-always-so-) occasional 
humorous blasphemy.

On Nov 5, 2004, at 12:53 PM, Diana Duncan wrote:

> If you are a devout Christian who is going to be offended by this, 
> please don't read on.  Throughout, Levi who is called Biff refers to 
> Jesus as Joshua, which is his name in the vernacular.

Just a little classical philology to brighten your weekend:

Technically, both 'Joshua' and 'Jesus' could be considered vernacular.  
But neither is the original.  The Old Testament, written in Hebrew, has 
numerous people named "Joshua", including Moses' successor.  (Walls of 
Jericho, etc.)  The New Testament, written (for interesting if arcane 
reasons) mostly in Greek by Aramaic-speaking Jews who had learned at 
least some Hebrew, translates the Hebrew name "Joshua" to the Greek 
"Jesus".  As do most (Ancient) Greek names, "Jesus" ends in an 's'.  
Like Socrates, Anaxagoras, and so forth.  Like ending feminine French 
nouns in an 'e'.

Joshua is actually the Anglicization of the Hebrew name.  Jesus is the 
Anglicization of the Ancient Greek translation of the Aramaic version 
of the Hebrew name.  Neither language had or has a 'J', for example.

But this is probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know about 
classical interpersonal nomenclature and translation, so I will stop.

Cheers --

--
James Dasher
misterdasher dot com
IM misterdasher