Use in Modern Hebrew As A Name For Jesus
The term Yeshu was used in Hebrew texts in the Middle Ages then through Rahabi Ezekiel (1750) and Elias Soloweyczyk (1869) who identified Jesus with the character of the Toledoth Yeshu narratives. Likewise Yeshu Ha-Notzri is the modern Hebrew equivalent for "Jesus the Nazarene" though in Christian texts the spellings Yeshua and Yeshua Ha-Notzri are preferred, as per the Hebrew New Testaments of Franz Delitzsch (BFBS 1875) and Isaac Salkinsohn (TBS 1886).
Danish missionary Kjaer-Hansen argues that this modern Israeli usage of Yeshu resulted from the influence of Klausner who used the term for Jesus in his Hebrew works believing it to be a correct Hebrew equivalent. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the "father of modern Hebrew", had instead used Yeshua for Jesus (the name used in Maimonides and the expanded Josippon) but, Kjaer-Hansen argues, this choice lost out to Yeshu as a result of Klausner's influential Hebrew work on Jesus titled Yeshu HaNotzri published in 1922. Kjaer-Hansen, notes that many Jewish writers have assumed that "Yeshu" is a correct Hebrew name for Jesus and have used it without intending any disparagement, but advises against its usage due to its probable origin as a derogatory term.
Read more about this topic: Yeshu
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or hebrew:
“The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
—Bible: Hebrew Genesis, 3:5.
The serpent’s temptation, spoken to Eve.