Friday, June 12, 2009

On the Marcioinite spelling of 'Jesus'

The most striking new fact about Marcionite usage brought out by these treatises is that the Syriac-speaking Marcionites used a different transliteration of the name 'Jesus' from the orthodox. The ordinary Syriac for Jesus is [E-WAH-SHEM-YUD] pronounced 'Isho' by Nestorians but Yeshu' by Jacobites, which is simply the Syriac form of the Old Testament name Joshua. This form 'Isho' was used not only by the orthodox, but also by the Manichees. It was therefore a surprise to find that Ephraim in arguing against Marcionites, and certainly in part quoting from their books or sayings, uses the form 'ISU', a direct transcription of the Greek 'IHSOU (or IHSOUS). As it is always written [WAH-SEMKATH-YUD], never [WAH-SEMKATH-YUD-ALPHA], I suppose the pronunciation intended is IESU rather than ISU, but I have retained Mitchell's ISU (vol. i. p. li), not only for uniformity but also because it was desirable to emphasize the strangeness of the form [WAH-SEMKATH-YUD].

JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR. WHEN I LOOKED UP AISU IN JASTROW IT REFERRED ME TO ASI WHICH IS NECESSARILY THE VERB TO HEAL WHICH THE COMMUNITY OF THE ESSENES IS BASED ON. AISA is the Arabaic "Isa" presumably (it doesn't matter). If I can link the Greek "Jesus" to the verb to heal in their language then the parallel Aramaic form I just worked out might work (with your help).


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