JD Hall on X, May 31, 2026
Calling Jesus “Yeshua” is next-level Judaizing, using a Hebraized version of His name because not even Jesus is Hebrew enough for them. Because His name isn’t “Yeshua.” It’s Ἰησοῦς (Matthew 1:21).
When specific words or phrases were important, Matthew records them in the native tongue. He does this in 5:22, 6:24, 27:23, and 27:46. But when citing the name of Jesus, he gives the Greek – Ἰησοῦς, not the Hebrew, Yeshua. In fact, Matthew is citing the Greek Septuagint in 1:23, only two verses later for “Emmanuel,” also.
In other words, had the angel named Him Yeshua, Matthew would have said so. Jesus’ name is the most important word imaginable (Phil 2:9-10, Acts 4:12). If it was Hebrew, he’d have used it.
If the Holy Ghost inspired the Scriptures in Greek, then the name Ἰησοῦς is not a mistranslation or downgrade; it’s the canonical, God-breathed form of the name. Greek was chosen deliberately, and every New Testament writer, including the formerly Jewish ones, used that same Greek name.
Jesus’ mother’s name was Greek. His brothers’ names were Greek. Half the disciples’ names were Greek. It’s silly to think that Jesus had a Hebrew name long after people stopped speaking it.
If the angel called Hm Ἰησοῦς, the Scriptures call Him Ἰησοῦς, the Apostles referred to Him as Ἰησοῦς, why are you insisting on the Hebrew?
Jesus quoted the Greek Septuagint – not the Hebrew Bible – roughly 60 times. People trying to be more Hebrew than Jesus need to chill with that nonsense.
Palestine was not a very Hebrew-speaking environment. It was a linguistic crossroads, with Greek, Aramaic, and Latin all in daily use. The average Jew under Roman rule knew Greek; most were fluent. Coins, inscriptions, and government decrees were written in Greek. Even the synagogue readings came from the Septuagint.
Had someone yelled out, “Yeshua” in a crowd, Jesus wouldn’t have looked around. That wasn’t his name. He would have assumed they spoke to someone else.
His name isn’t Yeshua, and never was.
What Judaizers often don’t understand is that Hebrew, as the Israelis speak it, is “re-invented” and contrived, and they probably wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation with anyone in the Bible.
The Hebrew spoken today is not the same language used by David or Jesus. In fact, Hebrew ceased being a spoken, living language nearly 2,000 years ago and had to be painstakingly reconstructed in the 19th and 20th centuries, largely by just making it up.
After the Babylonian exile (6th century BC), Jews largely shifted to Aramaic. By the time of Christ, Aramaic was the daily language of Judea; Hebrew survived only as a liturgical tongue used by priests and scribes (like Latin in medieval Europe). Jesus and the apostles spoke Aramaic and Greek, not conversational Hebrew.
From there, Hebrew completely disappeared as a spoken language. For the next 1,500 years, Jews used Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, or other regional tongues, reading Hebrew only in prayers or scripture recitation (with no idea how it was actually to be pronounced).
When Zionists in the late 1800s sought to create a Jewish national identity, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda essentially mede up a new “Hebrew” by inventing new words, importing grammar from European languages, and standardizing pronunciation artificially (mostly following Sephardic language models rather than any ancient sound system).
Linguists universally recognize that Modern Hebrew is an engineered language, not an unbroken descendant of Biblical Hebrew. Its vowels are Europeanized (because Jews in Israel are almost all Europeans), and its syntax borrows heavily from Russian, German, and Yiddish. Scholars call it “Israeli Hebrew,” meaning “not actually Hebrew.”
Thus, if David or Jesus heard modern Hebrew spoken in Tel Aviv, they would almost certainly not understand it. It would sound as foreign to them as Gaelic does to an Englishman; vaguely recognizable but completely changed in rhythm, sound, and structure.
Stop Judaizing.