The following list shows how the Name of the Messiah, the Anointed One, was pronounced by different communities in different places over the years:
- Hebrew — Yeshua or Yehoshua (Joshua)
- Greek — Iesou (Iesous for masculine nominative case)
- Latin — Iesus
- Geneva Bible 1557 — Jesus. (In Switzerland, "J" sounds like "Y", pronounced Yesus)
- King James Version in 1611 — Iesus
- By 1769, the Geneva spelling Jesus was adopted by English translations, but not the "Y" sound.
It is the failure of the English translations to adopt the Y sound from the Geneva Bible that has led to mispronounciation of the Lord's Name today.
Instead of calling upon "Yesou" or even "Yesus", most Christians are calling upon "Jesus".
Thankfully, such a departure from the original Y sound did not happen in the Chinese and Tamil translations of the New Testament. The Chinese transliteration for the Lord's Name is "Ye su" in Mandarin, or "Yeh Sow" in Cantonese dialect, while the Tamil transliteration is "Yeso". Both maintain strong resemblance to the Greek Iesou, for Yeshua.
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