Douglas Hamp, MA
August 2005
It has been
suggested that the reason the Jewish leaders were so upset with Pilate regarding
the sign on the cross of Jesus was due to the acrostic that the words spelled in
Hebrew. That is the first letter of
each word “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19) actually
spelled YHWH, which, if
true, would obviously be an affront to the pious leaders of the day.
For the above claim
to be true, the Hebrew would have needed to be: Yeshua Hanotzri W-melech
Hayehudim (Jesus of Nazareth and King of the Jews).
I have capitalized what the transliterated letters would have
needed to be to get YHWH. The
problem is that the letter Vav (represented by the W) is not
reflected in the Greek texts of the Gospels.
Hence the above reconstruction is unsound and doubtful and is nothing
more than a reconstruction. If we
had the Hebrew original, this would be a moot point, but unfortunately, it is
not extant.
Below is the complete list of scriptural passages regarding
the sign on the cross. If the
letters YHWH truly did appear on the cross as the reconstruction
indicates, then we should clearly see this in the Greek text.
The Hebrew affix W (Vav), which means and,
corresponds to the Greek word kai. For
the claim to be true, we should definitely see the word kai between the
word Nazareth and the words the king.
If we don’t see this word, then the theory falls apart.
·
John 19:19 “…JESUS OF
NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
…᾿Ιησοῦς
ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ
βασιλεὺς τῶν
᾿Ιουδαίων.
While the text of John is the
most promising of the four, the underlying Hebrew would most naturally be
rendered as: Yeshua
HaNotzri Melech Hayehudim,
thus becoming an acrostic YHMH,
which means absolutely nothing. As
a note, we would not see the definite article in front of melech (king)
in the Hebrew even though it is there in Greek due to the difference in Hebrew
grammar. In the Hebrew the definite
article on yehudim (the ha)
is adequate to make melech definite as well.
It should not be overlooked, however, that in the Bible and Jewish
literature, a common way to write YHWH was to abbreviate it by just
writing יה
YH. So, seemingly, perhaps
the Jewish leaders were not so much seeing YHWH but just YH .
This theory could work if it were not for their very complaint a few
verses later. “Then the chief
priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write, The King of the Jews, but, He
said, I am King of the Jews.” (John 19:21)
Notice, they didn’t ask Pilate to change the YH (Yeshua HaNotzri)
but specifically asked that the claim of kingship be removed and so the first
two letters of the supposed acrostic were in no way an issue.
·
Matthew 27:37 “…THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
…οὗτός
ἐστιν ᾿Ιησοῦς
ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν
᾿Ιουδαίων.
Matthew provides little information, yielding a translation of Ze
Yeshua Melech Hayehudim or ZYMH, meaning
nothing.
·
Luke 23:38 “…THIS IS
THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
…
οὗτός
ἐστιν ὁ
βασιλεὺς τῶν
᾿Ιουδαίων.
Luke gives less information than
a little less than Matthew: Ze Melech Hayehudim
or ZMH, again meaning nothing.
·
Mark 15:26 “…THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
…
ὁ
βασιλεὺς τῶν
᾿Ιουδαίων.
And Mark records the most truncated of the four: Melech
Hayehudim or MH, meaning nothing.
Conclusion:
In none of the texts above do we
see the word kai, which,
if the acrostic YHWH had been written in Hebrew, would have appeared in
the Greek. If it appeared in at
least one of the texts, then we might conclude that it really was there.
However, since we don’t see it in any of the texts, which are our only
records of what was (or was not) on that sign, we must conclude that the
acrostic YHWH was not on the cross.
It is best to be silent where the Bible is silent.
Regardless, however, of what it spelled out, the reason that the Jewish
leaders were angry was not because the writing somehow spelled out YHWH,
but because it said he was the king of the Jews, an obvious declaration of
Messiahship, which they plainly rejected.
The letter vav before the letter M is pronounced as a long “u”.
This article is
taken from the book:
"Discovering
the Language of Jesus"
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