JFJ Forums

I am a Christian, supporter of Israel, and I love the Jews for Jesus and other Messianic Jewish ministries as I believe the Jews are God's chosen people.  On another forum, there is a Jewish woman who seems to really know her stuff regarding the Torah, other Jewish books and Jewish history.

One of the areas in which she denies Christ being the Messiah is she claims the name Y'shua is a name for Jesus and names ending in a in Jewish history were female names while male names ending in a vowel were primarily ending with an o.  

My question is, is this always the case?  Is it possible for male names to end with an a, or has something regarding His name been lost in translation.  I am not doubting the deity of Christ or Christ being the Messiah in any way shape or form.  I very much believe and have for a long time.

I was just inquiring an answer regarding this as I am trying to witness to her, but this question has been tough to answer as I couldn't find an answer for her.  It has stumped me as it can be brought up by her in any thread regarding Christ being the Messiah.  She can always come back to trying to make the point Messianic Jews believe in a name they claim is male, but does not have a Jewish male name.

Please help.  If you wish, answer on here, or even visit my forum.  My name is the same on there, but with a space in between.  The lady's name is Hadassah.  She is very nice, but I wish she would believe in Christ.

the forum is www.etherzone.com/forum

Thanks.

The person you are talking to knows less than you think.  The name Y'shua occurs in the Hebrew Bible 26 times, every time referring to a male.  It is a shortened form of Yehoshua (Joshua) that became popular during and after the Babylonian exile (see Nehemiah 8:17).  The other references in are:  I Chron. 24:11; II Chron. 31:15; Ezra 2:2,6,36,40; 3:2,8,9; 4:3; 5:2; 8:33; 10:18; Nehemiah 7:7, 11, 39, 43; 10:9; 11:26; 12:1, 7, 8, 10, 24, 26.  Hope this helps.

Stephen is correct.

If you need another example, Elisha.

Thanks guys.  Her post was in response to an article I posted there:

Ruling for Messianic Jewish community.
http://www.cbn.org/CBNnews/359362.aspx

There was another time she mentioned the letter a reflecting a feminine gender name, but in this post she addressed the name Yeshua, probably referring to ending with an a, but I'm not sure.

She replied:
Jesus - Yeshua in Hebrew   is not correct.  The Hebrew word yeshua is feminine gender.  In the Hebrew language, as in most---if not all---foreign languages, there is no gender neutral.  All words have either a masculine or feminine ending.

I took the liberty of posting on Etherzone the info you responded to me with on this forum.

Thank you very much and I am sure it will help.

Rightwing,

If you want to add to the explanation for her.

Hebrew nouns do have a gender and female nouns have some typical endings which help identify the noun as female. But the feminine nouns (grammatical gender) does not refer only to females or feminine things (natural or physical gender) and masculine nouns (grammatical gender) doesn't only refer to masculine things (natural or physical gender).

Kelev in Hebrew means dog. The nouns grammatical gender is masculine, but the word can be used when referring to a female dog. Other languages have a grammatical gender for nouns, like French. Chien means dog in French and is also masculine but 'le chien' is also used to refer to a female dog.

Names in Hebrew work differently then nouns. There are no grammatical 'female endings' on names.

Thanks, Jans.  I have posted that as well.  Before I did, however, she had posted the following:

there is a tsere under the yod in those instances you cited, not a sheva, so it can't possibly be pronounced y'shua.

So, then Jesus' name really was Joshua?

What is a tsere , sheva and a yod?  

The tsere, shewa (sheva) and yod are Hebrew letters. As you know, Hebrew uses a different alphabet then English. When transliterating from Hebrew to English letters, it is not a letter for letter equivalent. Hebrew has some sounds which are different then what is available in the English alphabet.

So, when you write a Hebrew word using the English (Roman) alphabet, you go for what might cause a person to pronounce the word closest to the way it is said in Hebrew.

For example, the Hebrew word for blessed, when written in the Roman alphabet, can be spelled a few ways. Baruch, Barukh, are the two most common. The 'ch' or 'kh' is actually only one letter in Hebrew but English doesn't have an equivalent sound so using 'ch' or 'kh' tries to approximate the sound. The 'ch' actually sounds somewhat like the 'ch' in German like in Bach.

Ok, this is a long way around. Yeshua or Y'shua are the two usual ways Jesus Hebrew name is spelled in the Roman alphabet. The Y is used for the yod, and the 'e' or the apostrophe for the tsere. A tsere sounds a little like the 'e' in they, but due to Hebrew accents being on the last syllable, the tsere is very short. The Y'shua spelling is to try to get English speakers to cut short the first syllable to get closer to the Hebrew pronunciation. It's all about pronunciation when writing Hebrew words in English/Roman letters so the only really wrong spelling is one which would cause a person to totally miss the pronunciation. It's why you will see about 4 different spellings to Chanukah, Hannukah, Channukah, Hanukah. None are wrong.

For those who are more accustomed to Hebrew words, Yeshua is probably better but for those less accustomed to Hebrew words, Y'shua would come closer. Neither is really wrong. The only truly 'correct' spelling would be using Hebrew letters.


  

I couldn't say it better than Jans.  It really sounds like Rightwing's friend has a bee in her bonnet.

Or "straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel"...

prayers for her and Rightwing.