Jesus’ real name wasn’t Jesus, scientists claim — here’s why

Scientists say that the name of Christianity’s central figure wasn’t originally Jesus Christ — he went by another title in his mother tongue that’s nothing like today’s iteration, the Daily Mail reported.

Rather, Jesus the historical figure likely conversed in Aramaic, the native language of Judeah, the region in the Roman Empire where scholars believe the messiah and his disciples lived (now part of Israel and Palestine) — even though he was likely born and raised in Nazareth in Galilee.

“We cannot know for sure which languages Jesus spoke,” declared Professor Dineke Houtman, an expert on Judaism and Christianity from the Protestant Theological University in the Netherlands. “However, given his family background in Nazareth, we can assume his day-to-day language was Aramaic.”

“In the ancient world, most people didn’t have a last name as we understand it today,” said Dr. Marko Marina, a historian from the University of Zagreb in Croatia. “Instead, they were identified through other means, such as their parentage, place of origin, or other distinguishing characteristics.” Getty Images

This is supported by surviving papyrus documents from the Galilee region, which show that this was the common tongue among the Jewish population, as well as early Greek translations of the Gospel that recorded the son of God saying certain phrases in Aramaic.

In addition, “Jesus” with a hard “J” didn’t exist during the time he lived — “J” wouldn’t appear in written language until 1,500 years after his death.

Instead, his Lord and Savior would’ve gone by Yeshua or its variant Yeshu, which were two of the most common names in Galilee at the time — the equivalent of Liam of Olivia in the US today.

Meanwhile, “Christ” was actually not a surname, but rather an honorific meaning “God’s anointed one.” As a poor Jewish man, the real Jesus would have not had a fancypants title, but would’ve instead been referred to by his place of origin.

The “J” in “Jesus” would not be added until 1,500 years after his head. Adam Ján Figeľ – stock.adobe.com

“In the ancient world, most people didn’t have a last name as we understand it today,” said Dr. Marko Marina, a historian from the University of Zagreb in Croatia. “Instead, they were identified through other means, such as their parentage, place of origin, or other distinguishing characteristics.”

The professor added, “For example, someone might be referred to as ‘John, the son of Zebedee’ or ‘Mary Magdalene,’ with ‘Magdalene’ probably indicating she was from a place called Magdala.”

So Jesus, who is often referred to in the bible as “Jesus Of Nazareth” or “Jesus the Nazarene” due to his birthplace, would’ve been “Yeshu Narazene” in ancient Aramaic.

So how did his name get a linguistic resurrection as “Jesus Christ?” The answer lies in transliteration, the practice of translating the sound of the old language between languages. For instance, hello in “Japanese” translates to “konnichiwa” in English.

The figurine of the baby Jesus during midnight mass at the Royal Gniezno Cathedral in Gniezno, Poland, on Christmas Eve, 2024. PAWEL JASKOLKA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

So when the Gospel writers translated the New Testament into Greek, they tried to appropriate the Aramaic name Yeshua, which proved a phonetic challenge given that they didn’t have the correct sounds to do so properly.

So they formulated a plan B. “By the first century CE there was already a precedent for transliterating the Aramaic name Yeshua as Iesous,” explained Professor Candida Moss, an expert on early Christianity from the University of Birmingham, while discussing the second coming of Jesus’ name. “So, when Paul and the evangelists refer to Jesus — Yeshu/a — they use the already established Greek equivalent of Iesous with an ‘s’ sound at the end.”

She added, “When the New Testament was translated into Latin there was another slight shift, this time from Iesous was transliterated as Iesus.”

As for the provenance of the “J,” the letters “I” and “J” were interchangeable in text until the 16th century, when Italian grammarian Gian Giorgio Trissino made the distinction, scholars believe.

Come the 17th century, the “j” sound became so prevalent that translators put it into Biblical names.

In turn, “lesus” became “Jesus” and voila, “Jesus Christ” was born, so to speak.

Meanwhile, the other Yeshuas who hadn’t gone through such an epic letter-morphosis simply got changed to “Joshua,” hence the anglicized names in the Bible that people use today.

“This is a story of transliteration and of rendering a name into several different scripts from Aramaic to Greek, from Greek to Latin, and finally from Latin to English,” explained Professor Moss.

This nominal revelation isn’t the only aspect of Jesus’ life that’s blown people’s minds of late.

Many have been shocked to discover that JC’s birthday wasn’t actually on December 25 — Pope Julius I chose Dec. 25 likely out of convenience in the 4th century AD to celebrate on the same day as the pagan Saturnalia festival, which marks the winter solstice.