Debunking the Yeshua Cult and its Campaign to Replace the Name of Jesus

Pre-Nicene Christian Television

Given the recent craze on social media among wild-eyed Evangelicals, Judeo-Christians and even some Catholics replacing the name of Jesus with 'Yeshua,' we decided to find out if there's a basis for their claims.  Episode hosted by Presbyter Darren Kelama and produced in association with the Journal of Pre-Nicene Christian Studies (ISSN: 3068-8469).  Ἰησοῦς = Jesus Pronunciation: Approximately "ee-AY-soos" or "yay-SOOS," with the emphasis typically on the second syllable ("SOOS").  Koine Greek alphabet: https://greekforall.com/learn-biblica...  Marcionite Church Inscription: Συναγωγή Μαρκιωνιστῶν κώμης Λεβάβων τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆος Ἰησοῦ Χρηστοῦ, προνοίᾳ Παύλου πρεσβυτέρου, τοῦ λχ' ἔτους ("Meeting house of the Marcionites of the village of Lebaba of the Lord and Savior Jesus the Good, under the oversight of Paul the elder.")  Marcionite inscription episode:    • The 'Jesus Rock' of Syria: Revealing Unedi...   Other Christian inscriptions:    • 'Pure Christianity' Hidden in Ancient Amul...   The Very First Bible (free ebook): https://www.theveryfirstbible.org/ Presbyter Monnet (French Pontiate):    / @eglisemarcionite   Marcionite Church: https://www.marcionitechurch.org/ Journal of Pre-Nicene Christian Studies: https://journal.pre-nicene.org/ Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. Fine, S. (2016). The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel. Harvard University Press. Harnack, A. (1924). Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God. Translated by J.E. Steely. Wipf and Stock. Hurtado, L.W. (2006). The Earliest Christian Artifacts. Eerdmans. Israel Antiquities Authority. (2024). Megiddo Prison Mosaic Excavation Report. Lanciani, R. (1857). Pagan and Christian Rome. Houghton Mifflin. Le Bas, P., & Waddington, W.H. (1860s). Inscriptions Grecques et Latines. Firmin Didot. Metzger, B.M. (1992). The Text of the New Testament. Oxford University Press. Neusner, J. (1999). Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine. University of Chicago Press. Ramsay, J.B. (1903). The Life and Works of Abercius. Oxford University Press.  Donate and support the channel: https://pre-nicene.org/Donate.html

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Presbyter Chat, in association with the Journal of Pre-Nicene Christian Studies,

00:05where your theological questions are answered through the lens of the very first Bible,

00:09hosted by Presbyter Darren Kalama from MarcioniteChurch.org.

00:14Today's question on Presbyter Chat comes to us from Margaret in Toronto, home of the Blue Jays.

00:22Hi Darren, I've been noticing that some people on social media have been casually replacing the name

00:28Jesus with the name Yeshua. Is there a foundation for this? What did the apostles call Jesus? I mean,

00:36how did they write and pronounce his name? Put me there in the first century. What would I have

00:42heard and seen written? Hi Margaret, and thanks for sending this in, but I count four separate

00:48questions packed in there, and as you know, that's only available with the Presbyter Chat Pro Plan.

00:55No, just kidding. That comes with the Premium Plan. Actually, wait, I don't think we have any plans,

01:02so just forget that. Instead, let's start by approaching all of these related questions

01:07as a homeowner with a wildly overgrown backyard wood. We're talking about 2,000 years of weeds and

01:16branches and junk that has filled the backyard, and it's a real mess. Now, the first thing Margaret's

01:23going to want to do is identify the boundaries of her backyard so that we have an idea of the scope

01:29and size of the job, a little perspective for what's ahead of us. And for purposes of this

01:36discussion, our perspective is that of the pre-Nicene Christians. So, our boundaries of the backyard would

01:43be Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and Perea regions of the Roman Empire, which were established as Roman

01:51provinces just before Jesus arrived on earth. Now, 300 years earlier, they and their main city of

01:58Jerusalem had been captured and tamed by Alexander the Great and were thoroughly Hellenized and

02:05immersed in all things related to Greek culture, clothing, arts, temples, and language. And let's go

02:12ahead and underline the word language several times. During the time Jesus was on earth and living in the

02:19region, everybody in the Roman Empire spoke Greek, specifically Koine Greek, K-O-I-N-E. Now,

02:27Koine means common, so common Greek. And why was it common? Well, because that's what everybody spoke

02:35and wrote. And it didn't matter who you were. Romans, Jews, Samaritans, Syrians, Egyptians,

02:41emperors, kings, priests, oracles, mayors, right down to the local shepherd and village wino.

02:47Hello, Olympia restaurant. Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, two Pepsi, one chip. Cheeseburger, cheeseburger,

02:52two Pepsi, one chip. Everybody spoke Greek and had been speaking nothing but Greek for 300 years.

03:00The money, even the coins passed around to pay Jewish temple taxes, were inscribed in Greek. Every

03:07leptin in drachma, Greek. The $5 word for a language that's so embedded into a culture is called the

03:15lingua franca. Even the names of the little towns were Greek. An example is Capernaum,

03:21founded in 200 BC by, you guessed it, Greeks. Every book of the New Testament originally written in

03:27what? Oh, that's right, Greek. Every epistle from the Apostle Paul? Well, it's all Greek to me.

03:34And as an aside, speaking ex-cathedra here, there's no doubt in my mind that when we look at

03:40Alexander the Great's Hellenization campaign and how it laid the foundation of a common language

03:46allowing for the growth of Christianity, well, it had to have been divinely guided or inspired in

03:52some way when we look at the big picture and the ensuing events. And now with all this,

03:58Margaret has a picture of the boundaries of her backyard. And she also knows what's underneath

04:042,000 years of overgrown weeds, branches, and debris. And that would be the Greek language.

04:11Simply put, the language of God, quite literally, as we'll soon see. Now, the first thing we want

04:17to do with this overgrown theological mess masquerading as Margaret's backyard is get in

04:23there and start pulling out all the dead stuff and big pieces of debris, the things that don't

04:29belong, especially the invasive species. So naturally, we'll start with anything written

04:35in Hebrew. Now, whether you're reading the New Testament spawned by the Catholic Church

04:40via the Latin Vulgate in 382 AD, the King James Bible version of 1611, or the First Christian

04:49Bible compiled by the Marcionite Church in 144 AD, none have the names Jehovah, Yahweh, or Yeshua

04:58written in them, not once. Go ahead and pause the episode right here. Take a look for yourself.

05:05We'll be here and we'll wait.

05:19It's interesting, isn't it? Complete canonical absence from every version of the New Testament.

05:25It's a deafening silence. And the absence becomes even more pronounced when we realize that of all

05:32the pre-Nicene Christian art, prayers, and artifacts, including the Dear Ali Marcionite inscription,

05:40not a single one contains the words Yahweh or Yeshua. And of course, none are written in Hebrew either.

05:48Some quick examples. The first Christian song, no Yeshua or Yahweh. The oldest Christian mosaic,

05:56no Yeshua or Yahweh. The oldest Christian prayer, you got it, no Yeshua or Yahweh. Now, this isn't a matter

06:05of interpretation. It's a matter of historical fact. If Yeshua was the authentic early Christian name,

06:13we would expect to find it somewhere in the archaeological record. And we don't. And to double

06:20check the absence of a Yeshua or Yahweh in the first Christian Bible, I talked with Presbyter Michael

06:27Monet of the Marcionite Church in France. Now, I asked him, are those names in there?

06:33The answer is obviously a reasoning no. Since Christ descended in a fully adult form to Capharnaum

06:41in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, he clearly cannot be described as a Jewish, because

06:46as the son of God, he is above all ethnic groups and his message is addressed to all nations.

06:52And by the way, Presbyter Monet is a native French speaker and he makes his points very quickly. So,

06:59in case you missed it, he says, quote, the answer is a resounding no. Since Christ descended in fully

07:06adult form to Capharnaum in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, he clearly cannot be described

07:13as Jewish, because as the son of God, he is above all ethnic groups and his message is addressed to

07:21all nations, unquote. Well, that sounds pretty final. But given the recent craze among wild-eyed

07:29evangelicals, Judeo-Christians, and lately even among some Catholics referring to Jesus as Yeshua,

07:37surely there must be a mistake. I mean, are we witnessing a form of mass psychosis or cultish

07:45delusion? What are we missing here? I mean, if we're going to start labeling people as delusional

07:51Judaizers, we better be pretty sure that we have our facts straight. So, to help us do this, we found

07:58the oldest inscription in the world dedicating a Christian church using the name Jesus. Now,

08:04remember, it's the oldest anywhere on the planet. This is the name carved into a rock. You can't edit it,

08:12can't change it, can't reinterpret it, can't reimagine it, can't play word games with it. It's carved

08:20into a rock. And when we look at it, what do we find? Well, first, the inscription is,

08:28surprise, written entirely in Koine Greek, and it's dated 318 AD. It's the dedication on the archway of

08:36a Marcionite Christian church discovered in Dear Ali Syria in the 1800s. And it reads,

08:42Meeting House of the Marcionites to our Lord and Savior Jesus the Good. And the name Jesus is spelled

08:50with the Greek letters Iota, Etta, Sigma, Omicron, Upsilon, Sigma. You can see that name on the cover

08:58art of this episode. Now, that's how the apostles wrote the name Jesus, and it's pronounced Ye-sous,

09:06with the emphasis typically on the second syllable, sous. Now, maybe the Greeks were having budget cuts,

09:13and couldn't afford any J's, but there it is, Ye-sous. When the apostles talked to or about Jesus,

09:21that's how they pronounced it. And if you asked Jesus what his name was, that's the answer that

09:27he would give you, Ye-sous. Now, I don't want to get too deep into the weeds or start diving into

09:33rabbit holes, but I don't think we should just gloss over the fact that the dedication reads to our

09:39Lord and Savior Jesus the Good. It doesn't say Jesus Christ, no, Jesus the Good. Christos, not Christos,

09:50with an E, not an I. We're reminded that the word Christ implies Anointed One or Messiah with roots

09:58in Judaism. Christos, or the Good, does not. The Christ version was born of a Jew in Bethlehem.

10:05Conversely, the Christos descended into Capernaum from heaven in fully human form in 29 AD,

10:13and he did it in the same way that he left earth after the crucifixion, by ascending and descending

10:20from heaven. And it is this latter version that is reflected in the first Christian Bible of 144 AD.

10:27You see, the Marcionite church inscription created an uneditable epigraphic record of the belief system

10:34of pre-Nicene Christians, including the Marcionites. And far from being a fringe group, they dominated

10:41the Christian landscape beginning with their founding in 144 AD. So much so that even early

10:48writers like Arrhenius admitted their churches and followers spanned the entire Roman Empire,

10:55making those with Messianic Jewish slash Judeo-Christian beliefs very tiny in comparison. And in that same year of

11:03144 AD, the Marcionites published the first Christian Bible, which consisted of the Gospel of the Lord and

11:11the Apostle Paul's original ten epistles. Everybody who read and listened to the Gospel of the Lord

11:17wanted to know more about Jesus the Good. And from Rome to the borders of Persia, their churches multiplied

11:24very quickly. But as we know now, that dominance didn't last. In 303 AD, Roman Emperor Diocletian

11:32declared war on Christians, burning Marcionite churches to the ground, killing believers and

11:38forcing everyone except Jews to worship pagan gods. And interestingly, historians say that Roman soldiers

11:47went house to house looking not just for any old Christian scriptures, but looking for specific types of

11:54scripture to burn and destroy. Many now believe that they were actually looking for copies of the

12:01Gospel of the Lord in the first Christian Bible of 144 AD. The merciless persecution lasted for ten whole

12:09years, and at the end of it, thinking that all traces of true Christianity had been erased, a new policy was

12:16announced with the Edict of Milan in 313 AD. And just like that, Christianity was once again allowed in

12:24the Roman Empire. Or rather, Judeo-Christianity was allowed. You see, the past had been erased and replaced.

12:33Replaced with a poison pill style of Christianity, where you sign up for Jesus, but get sold a Yahweh on the

12:41back end. And in 325 AD, at the Council of Nicaea, everything would be whitewashed and codified.

12:48By 382 AD, the Catholic Church, now the state religion of the Roman Empire, would issue its own

12:56version of a Bible, a completely different from the first, and thoroughly edited and Judaized. And

13:02instead of being in the original Greek, it was rewritten in Latin. And at the front would be stapled Torah

13:09books, featuring a Jewish deity named Yahweh. Today, those alien books are referred to as

13:17the Old Testament. So what does this mean for Margaret's overgrown backyard and the layers of

13:23debris covering it? Well, it tells us why we don't find the Hebrew names of Yeshua and Yahweh in Christian

13:31artifacts, prayers, and art, prior to the Diocletian genocide of 303 AD. Now, that's when

13:38Christianity had been erased and replaced with Judeo-Christianity. And we're reminded of the

13:45phrase, it is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled. And

13:52only a fool or a Judaizer would replace the name Jesus with Yeshua once they know the facts. Think about

14:00it. The archaeological evidence, the textual and epigraphic record, and the theological traditions

14:07all point in the same direction. The Greek Jesus, which became Jesus in English, represents the

14:14authentic Christian tradition. Scholars and denominations should prioritize this historical

14:21evidence over modern, agenda-driven reinterpretations when discussing the name of Christianity's central

14:29figure, don't you think? Now, the textual evidence is overwhelming and consistent. The entire New

14:35Testament, written in Koine Greek, uses Jesus without exception. And other early Christian inscriptions tell

14:42the exact same story. The Abersaeus inscription, dating to around 190-200 AD, uses the Greek Jesus.

14:51The Megiddo mosaic from 230 AD reads, To God, Jesus Christ, spelled as Jesus. Even the Alexa Minos

15:00Graffito, a piece of anti-Christian mockery from around 200 AD, uses the Greek name. So what's striking

15:09is that pre-Nicene Christian artifacts are universally devoid of Yeshua or references to an alien deity named

15:18Yahweh. And this reflects theological reality. But for an academic deep dive on the subject,

15:25you can check out the September issue of the Journal of Pre-Nicene Christian Studies.

15:30And for a free copy of that First Christian Bible, you can visit theveryfirstbible.org. And I'll also

15:38have links to everything discussed in the show notes. Now, as you reflect on today's episode,

15:44I'm going to leave you with another fact that may help put all of this in perspective and help you

15:49understand how the erase and replace model works. Did you know that the Vatican itself was built

15:56directly over a Marcionite church and cemetery? And don't take my word for it. You can take a guided

16:03tour of it underground the next time you visit the Vatican in Rome. May our Father's Holy Spirit find

16:10and guide you in these confusing times and lift the veil from your hearts and minds. I'm Darren Kalam,

16:16and we'll see you next time on Presbyter Chat.

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