Q. ...concerning the scriptural Word as it relates to the articles on your website (The True Names of Elohim: Exposing the Ultra-Messianics & Messianic Heresies). So I did visit your link above concerning the Name but the conclusion you come to is that the name Jesus is perfectly fine to use when witnessing to others, so of course I have to disagree. It serves no good purpose to perpetuate falsehood. As a matter of fact one of the redeeming virtues of the 144,000 is that no deceit/deception is found in their mouth (Rev.14:5). The name and title Jesus Christ is a deception because that name or title cannot bring salvation according to the 100% perfection of the Savior. The Savior is spiritually perfect (Ex.12:5) without fault, spot, wrinkle, or blemish and His name must have this same attribute and quality of perfection but the name and title 'Jesus Christ' is a bastardized, mongrelized hybrid, comprised of 3 different languages none of [them] Hebrew. A perfect Hebrew Israelite Savior must have a perfect Hebrew Israelite name (Matt.5:48) therefore the name and title 'Jesus Christ' is complete falsehood. Do you not agree? (BH, USA, 8 December 2022)

A. That Yah'shua (Jesus) was perfect and sinless we are in full agreement; that His Name saves, when called upon, in the original sense that is meant in the Scriptures, is, of course, not in dispute. Our disagreement hinges on what is meant by the 'saving Name', what is also meant by 'perfection, and the motives people have in saying and doing what they say and do.. Were there one, immutable language on the earth, which does not evolve or change over time, which does not therefore have to be translated into other languages that are also, themselves, changing and mutating over time, then there would probably be no issue, because we would at once be in agreement as to what the Divine Names were in the one, unchanging language bequeathed to humanity by the Creator. And yet, even were that the case (a static, divine language which everyone spoke and wrote the same in every generation), would it then automatically follow that we were using those Divine Names in our hearts for the right reasons - with the same pure motives? We don't, alas, live in a static world at all. Language is continually in flux, even Hebrew, as we know from Modern Hebrew which is very different from classical or biblical 'Hebrew' (whatever that may be). Everything on earth changes and decays - our languages, DNA, culture, physiognomy, interpretations of Scripture, etc.. Even my own language has mutated almost beyond recognition in the space of one generation. People don't speak or communicate in the same way they did when I was growing up.

That unpleasant reality poses a number of challenges, I'm sure you'll agree, even when it comes to the way names are used. When I was born, in the UK babies were named after relatives, as was the general rule in the first century too. Yet we read in the New Testament of an even earlier tradition in the story of the surprise (for then) naming of Zechariah and Elizabeth's child according to revelation, for John (or Yochanan) was not apparently in use among Zechariah's family...because originally names were supposed to be given prophetically, the reason being that that names was supposed to reflect temperament and/or life's mission or some other truth. As we both agree, I'm sure, Yah'shua was named because of his identity and what His mission on earth consisted of - Yah saving humanity from its sins.

So I would maintain that your line of reasoning is problematical on a number of levels. First, you must define what 'perfection' is in the context of Yah'shua's (Jesus') statement that we be 'perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect' (Mt.5:48; cp. 19:21; Heb.11:40) which I assume is key to your line of argument - that's the subject of a whole essay in itself. Rather than do that (which is too big a project for this short answer), the burden is on you to prove that 'being perfect' means, or includes, pronouncing the Name(s) of Deity without flaw - correct laryngeal warble, correct undulations of the tongue, and correct contortions of lips, etc., etc.. To this day I have never been able to find any mitzvah (commandment) remotely hinting that we had to be linguistically perfect in that sort of way. The way we make speech is very complex and on a certain level unique to each individual. Yet in spite of those differences, we still understand each other on a non-linguistic, spiritual or even psychic level. We are gifted to be able to see beyond the limitations of language to essential meanings. We know that (or ought to in our scientific generation) and we must naturally presume that Yahweh knows that. I learned that lesson when I was young as I tried to have a conversation on a train journey in Europe with a Turk who knew no English and I who knew no Turkish (except a few geographical place names). We fumbled our way through a conversation in our respective versions of 'pidgin' German. What we lacked in detail we compensated for by being able to communicate very generally. We met somewhere inside. We parted knowing each other a little better and on friendly terms. (Mind you, the gift of tongues would have come in handy had I been trying to minister the Gospel but this was before I became a believer).

OK, down to brass tacks. Fact #1: nowhere does the Torah ever command ANYONE to pronounce words of any kind perfectly, whether in the realm of the sacred or the mundane. Indeed, the Bible even admits to dialectical variations within Hebrew, as you would expect of any language (e.g. shibboleth and sibboleth difference between two of the tribes - Judg.12:6). Messianics can't even agree on what the correct pronunciation of the Divine names is which means someone is not being 'perfect' by your definition and cannot therefore achieve the 100% purity that you seem to require. The Father's Name anciently was definitely pronounced Yahweh (as we know from Greek transliterations of the time) but today Jews have lost the 'w' sound and have substituted in 'v' calling Him 'Yahveh' (or at least the non-superstitious ones). Germans, Scandinavians and many others can't articulate the 'w' sound easily and so call him 'Jahveh' since in the Germanic tongues 'J' is used to articulate the 'Y' or 'I' sound when used as a consonant. The French, and therefore the English, evolved down a different road, using the French 'J' which is pronounced quite differently (as in 'Jesus' before that 'J' replaced the earlier 'I')...I am sure you know all this but I include it for our general readership who may not.

Had the Torah made such a demand (and I'm assuming your quibble is that names like Jesus Christ are PAGAN...most ultra-messianics take that line, saying Jesus=Zeus, which is easily proven to be nonsense), then would not the apostles have demanded that Greek converts from paganism, where the names of heathen gods were common first names, change their pagan names immediately? Yet what do we find? No such imposition was ever made. Not once. You can search the New Testament and the historical records and you will see that pagan converts consistently retained their old names. There was no apostolic outrage at this, no instruction anywhere in the pastoral and general epistles to change these dreadful names at once. It was unimportant to the apostles so either they were careless or some modern ultra-Hebraists are making demands that Scripture does not. You can go and check for yourself. There are lots of them scattered throughout the Messianic Scriptures. One example should suffice for illustrative purposes: a Jew (of all people) called Apollos (Ac.18:24), a word related to the Greek version of hell, Apollyon (Rev.9:11). Even the Hebrew of the first century AD had acquired some loan words from Greek, a common enough phenomenon - if you go to India and Pakistan and listen to the various languages there (I listen to Tamil a lot), you will find lots of English words that have been borrowed. Well, the Jews did the same. Where, do you suppose, the well-known Hebrew word 'Adonai' came from, meaning 'lord' or 'master'? It's a loan word from the Greeks, Adonis, which was one of their gods which became used generally as of 'lord' or 'master'. The Hebrews doid the same with Phoenician. You can't stop languages mutating and borrowing from their neighbours. Goodness, my own English is plastered with Norwegian, Swedish and Malay because I find these loan words better at expressing certain concepts than English, or simply out of unconscious habit.

Many Messianics are known for their linguistic 'puritanism', believing they are somehow holier than more 'profane' Christians who use far less Hebrew than they are. Taken to an extreme, as some messianic groups do, you can end up with an entirely new Hebrew-English hybrid language which no one else but those in their little group can understand - a bit like the street talk of some parts of the Afro-American community in the USA. No one understands them and they wonder why it's hard for them to get jobs.

My point is simple - the puritanical demands by certain segments of the modern messianic community never existed amongst the earliest believers. Only later, in British colonial times, do we find cultural pressure for former Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, animists, etc., to drop their old pagan names in favour of English Christian names like 'John', 'Mark' or 'Calvin' (to name but three of hundreds). And it's still going on today...but it's not biblical. I understand the motive, which isn't at all bad, but, like circumcision (and don't start me off on a discussion about that - I have a whole website on that you can read) in the New Covenant, is religiously unimportant. That's something many messianics find hard to grasp because they have been inculcated with Talmudic Jewish ideas about 'purity', the same spirit Yah'shua (Jesus) had to confront in New Testament times (e.g. ritual washing).

When I first became messianic I briefly fell under that spell (that's all it is) and stopped using as many pagan-originated names as I possibly could until I realised how ridiculous and impossible it all was. Communicating with unbelievers and outsiders is the main thing, not linguistic puritism! Any full-time missionary will tell you that. We have to communicate in their language to reach them. Once they know the living Yah'shua (Jesus) - once they have been spiritually regenerated - then we can start discipling them in the finer points of doctrine and practice. It's what the Jerusalem Council decided to do under the leading of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) and that was about bona fide Torah, not imaginary commandments (traditions).

History is important because it gives us an extra layer of knowledge and witness to the Scriptures. And the first believers, from the first day, were not verbal puritans. Indeed, first century Palestine (it's the scholars' word for the Holy Land so don't be upset), the Judeans were multi-lingual...99 per cent of them didn't even speak Hebrew but the Aramaic of Babylon! They spoke Greek for trade and if they occupied positions of importance, Latin too. They would have referred to Elohim as 'Deus' and 'Theos', just as we use the word 'God', else non-Judeans wouldn't have understood them (unless they were highly educated, which almost no one was back then). Likewise the Greeks would have referred to Yah'shua as 'Iesous' or something similar because that was the only way they were able to articulate His Name in their own tongue. That's the reality of life. The early believers, Judean and Gentile alike, did not inhabit the modern legalistic, ultra-messianic universe.

So - fact - pagan converts retained their old pagan names, which were often those of 'gods', without apostollic opposition or complaint. Why? Because they knew these 'gods' weren't real. Instead of getting all 'uppetty' and fearful that they were acknowledging demons (and I don't for a moment deny demons are real), they took a realistic perspective and chose not to live in fear - the fear that comes from legalism, because they did not view 'perfection' and 'purity' in those terms. Were perfection and purity important to them? Absolutely. Should we regret that historically the Divine Names were lost as the Gospel spread further afield? Definitely. The names are important for what they teach us. Do we, as Messianic Evangelicals, use the Hebrew or pagan names in our worship and private conversations? Hebrew. But when we are fellowsipping with other believers who use Jesus, we don't get bent out of shape and refuse to communicate with them using their own terminology for the purpose of building bridges. Do we use the Hebrew names in their presence? Absolutely. We want to inform and persuade them to adopt them non-compulsively. Some do, some don't, for they have their 'puritans' too with some crazies even claiming 'Jesus' was the original name of the Saviour 'because the King James version' says so. You understand what I mean. When I am witnessing on the street? I use Jesus because that's the only name they know, or if I am a guest speaker in a Christian church, though I will start using the Hebrew names and start telling them why I do without making that the main thing, because it isn't - salvation is. Does that make me liberal? Hardly (as anyone who knows me will tell you) - I am staunchly 'conservative' when it comes to theology. But some things in Scripture, like names, clearly needed no conservative voice defending them. Indeed, as Jewish superstitions mounted, owing to the influence of Talmudic Judaisers, we find the Tetragrammaton in both block-Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew being substituted into the Greek translations of the New Testament, giving (supposed) ammunition to Hebrew primacists and linguistic puritans. But they were no different from us, really, because there are groups who do the same thing in modern messianic translations - just look at an RSTNE or am ISRV or any number of messianic versions and you'll see the same practice at work. There were 'purists' back then too. It doesn't phase me one way or the other. I know what each group is trying to do and mostly their motives are good. However, when they start trying to force their superstitions on me, that's when I must put my foot down, as I am doing here. Because to maintain something is a sin when it isn't is not acceptable. Let vegetarians be vegetarians and linguistic perfectionists be linguistic perfectionists if they want to be, I'm fine with that, but I'll not be bullied or falsely guilted.

The thing is with names, what's important is meaning, at least in the traditional sense of Hebrew names, and in particular, Divine Names. A reason, I suspect the apostles didn't expect converts to change their old pagan names was because they didn't want them to dishonour their parents who gave them the names originally, without any religious malice aforehtought (obviously), and so not create unnecessary antagonisms. Honouring parents is one of the 10 Commandments and clearly there is a hierarchy of mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah - sometimes lesser commandments come in conflict with higher ones, like rescuing an animal stuck in a ditch on the sabbath - you don't leave it in the ditch to suffer for fear of 'doing work' and breaking the sabbath. Compassion and care for life comes first, animal or human. It's evidently the same thing with outer forms like names, because that's clearly what they are - I'm sure no one ever accused Apollos of 'being' like the god/demon 'Apollo'. Likewise, fortuitously and prophetically, I believe, my parents called me 'Christopher' but I am not going to be such a puritan, let alone dishonour my parents, by changing it to 'Messiahopher' or 'Mashiachopher', let alone change it altogether. Actually, I do have a Hebrew name (Lev-Tsiyon) - all those who operate in the Melchizedek Priesthood in our congregations do but these do not replace our birth names - they are supplemental to them. No one should ever need to change a birth name unless it is personally abusive or demeaning in someway - like calling a girl after the names of an all-male soccer team as one thoughtless and stupid British father once did.

We need to be very careful in not making demands on believers that the New Testament, in conjunction with the Tanakh (Old Testament), does not make. Clearly the apostolic emphasis - from Paul to Peter - was always on spiritual realities. We're told not to make people offenders for a word (or, for that matter, mispronunciation or for any other triviality). Names are important because of who gave them and what they mean. All my children have prophetic first names - I made diligent enquiry of Yahweh before naming them, and on one occasion He told me to change one because the original one I gave myself. In most cases I was given their names before they were born. Some of their names honour relatives, at least, their middle names. And some of them have prophetic first names that relatives have too, so 'killing two proverbial birds with one stone'! That way parents and inlaws were satisfied. Indeed some of my children have three or four first names both to ensure their prophetic ones prevail and to keep all relatives happy. It's all worked out well.

Now I completely understand messianics who don't want to take Elohim's Name in vain in any way. Neither do I, so I can respect that. Basically, that means not usuing it casually or as a swear-word. It is to be treated with respect. That is why I inform everyone I meet who claims to be a believer, given the opportunity, of the True Names but I don't press them. That's true of all teachings where there are disagreements amongst believers. Am I ever tough or uncompromising about any doctrinal teachings or practice? Absolutely, and you only have to read my writings to know this. Calvinists, charismatics, ultra-messianics, and others who I believe to be seriously misrepresenting the Gospel get no quarter from me because they have crossed the line into blasphemy. I have no time for hell-fire and damnation preachers trying to scare people into Heaven either because that never leads to true conversion...to cite but one example. That's the first point.

My second point is this: calling upon the name of someone in Hebrew parlance essentially means calling upon the spiritual substance, reputation and character or everything he REPRESENTS. A shem tov or good name is what all true believers should strive for. The important thing with names is not with pronunciation but with meaning, something we've largely lost in the West. YAHWEH means 'I am that I am' (i.e. the absolute power and reality in the Universe) and Yah'shua means ('Yah saves/delivers [from sin and from adversaries]').

Now it's true that 'Jesus' per se doesn't actually mean anything in any language and there's a reason for that - it's not a 'name' in the sense that Yahweh or Yah'shua are but simply a transliteration and gradual modification of languages over time. It's the nearest thing to someone speaking a different language trying to say 'Yah'shua'. Is deception involved? Not at all. The problem is articulation and grammar. The burden of proof that someone using 'Jesus' is trying to deceive is again upon the critic. In my article I showed the linguistic history of the name, a progression that was neither secretive nor done with malice aforethought. It's just what 'happens'.

I have lived in many countries and been exposed to many languages and what seems to us to be easy to speak in English, and to the ancients in Hebrew, is really hard for some because their brains aren't formed to pronounce the way ours is unless you are a trained linguist and scholar with the ability to pronounce many languages accurately. In Malaysia most of my Chinese friends called me 'Clissfer'; in Norway, 'Kreesh'. Had I been famous then over several generations you can imagine how some of those variants might have evolved. In my life I have had to work with Malay, Cantonese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, and French (to name the main ones) so I am aware of the difficulties. I used to teach an international bunch of students from dozens of nations and some of them found it really hard pronouncing my name. As a teacher, I never penalised them for struggling with pronunciation because the most important thing was understanding, reputation and identity. None were trying to mock me - and my identity was never in doubt. They knew exactly who I was and those hearing them mispronounce my name knew they were talking about me. It was all good. I never felt disrespected.

I too believe in perfection - ironically I am accused of being a perfectionist myself but I judge myself rather than others - but by 'perfection' I mean that kind of perfection which is to be fully human in Messiah as the perfect Elohim (God)-Man. So to demand that I always pronounce the Saviour's Name the Hebrew way is neither consistent with love nor reason. It is making man an offender for a sound or a spelling. So I have absolutely no problem with those who transliterate or indeed even translate the Divine Name. Indeed, did not Yahweh Himself translate His Name to 'I am that I am' for Moses? (Some people have even tried to make out that the 'I am That I am title' is a proper name and so they call Yahweh, 'Hayah' (which is actually a verb). Where I absolutely do have a problem is when people use blasphemous names like 'Jehovah', 'Yehovah/Yahovah' and yet I do not judge even those people until I have informed them what this word actually means in Hebrew; only then will I persist in challening them if they still continue to ignore the truth and say or write the blasphemous anyway...especially ministers...because Yah absolutely is not 'perverse' as the name suggests.

So you have to cut people some slack. Life and living is all about some pretty fine balances. The sin of offense is literally (as John Bevere so well puts it) the 'bait of Satan' (I recommend His book and video series of the same name). I am not going to get offended over trivialities and break fellowship with fellow non-messianic believers, who are clearly overflowing with the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God), for no good reason because pronunciation and spelling isn't an issue of character, morals or ethics which are the most important things. We need to first and foremost be concerned with loving people before we start criticising the way they speak. "By this all men will know that you are my talmidim (disciples), if you love one another" (John 13:35, NIV), not 'if you know how to spell and pronounce My Name correctly).

Likewise I don't get bent out of shape because people struggle to understand what the true Sabbath is because it is conceptually hard for many people to wrap their minds around the lunisolar Creation Calendar because they only know the Catholic Gregorian one - they find it hard to visualise what's actually happening: I found it hard to visualise at first. Everybody is where they are and I will always default to GRACE (undeserved loving kindness) and not judgment and condemnation...which is what I would hope others would do for me too, since we're all learning.

As soon as I learned 'Jesus Christ' was the result of a long process of transliteration of Yah'shua the Messiah - involving (as you correctly pointed out) at least three languages (I would say four) - that is what I started calling Him. Actually I started with Yah'shua haMashiach, the whole Hebrew way, until I realised translating haMashiach into English was better for communication and really just showing off. Moreover, I was still the same saved person before and after I learned to vibrate my larynx, purse my lips, shape my mouth, and waggle my tongue correctly. More important than that was, and is, what the Name Yah'shua means. I was saved before I started using the Divine Name correctly and so are those who still don't know it but use 'Jesus Christ' or some other transliteration in a different language (e.g. 'Isa' in many Middle Eastern languages like Arabic and Turkish, Dêsu in Vietnamese).

The transliterated Name 'Jesus Christ' in all its variants (about a hundred of them - it's the most universally known name on planet earth) has been transforming souls into the IMAGE OF ELOHIM for centuries, long before modern messianics were invented and tried to exclude by human fiat the millions of souls who genuinely know or have known Him in a saving relationship, and you can see that transformation in their character and behaviour. To refuse to see or acknowledge takes a particular kind of stubbornness and willful blindness not unlike the King James Onlyers who, in their blind zeal, claim you can't be saved without using the KJV! Such foolishness.

I know many messianics whose pronunciation of words...including the Divine Names...using the limited understanding of what we know about ancient Hebrew)... is immaculate - but they are the still the same unsaved wretches they were before they learned some Hebrew. And so I have no personal problem acknowledging that many followers of Jesus Christ, the Name by which they know Him, are more holy and spiritual than I am because I can see that holiness and sanctification plainly in the kinds of lives they lead and the kind of love they radiate. We will, in any case, one day be communicating telepathically as disembodied spirits where words will not be heard, just meanings and intentions, where there is no possibility of miscommunication, because that kind of communion is error-free with no possibility of misunderstandings. Spoken and written language is but an inferior, however necessary, manifestation of a deeper reality and is limited in what it can achieve. But for now we exist in physical bodies and are obliged to communicate using this medium, however imperfectly, as best we can. There is no perfect spoken and written language, not even Hebrew, because even that language has never stood still and has moved on. We see it in the way letters have changed and the way they are used. It's why we have so many different translations on the Bible and why the Hebrew of Genesis isn't quite the same as the Hebrew of Malachi. In Heaven, there is but one form of communication, and when we're resurrected, I believe we will retain that.

Does that mean the Bible isn't the Davar Elohim (Word of God)? By no means! There is an underlying spiritual level beneath the words, and it is the gift of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) that gives us ever more penetrating access the closer we draw to Yahweh. That's my perspective on this important question which you have raised - a perspective which I hope has been helpful.