Q. Did Jesus have a last name?

A. No. Although many people refer to Him as Jesus Christ, the Greek word translated as "Christ" is cristos (Greek: Χριστός , Strong's Concordance # G5547), which means "anointed" and was commonly used to refer to the prophesied "messiah" or savior. It would be more proper grammatically to say the phrase, Jesus, the Christ.

"You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." ( Luke 1:31, NIV)

In fact, the word Jesus is a transliteration (taking the way a word is pronounced in one language and spelling it according to the way it sounds when written with the letters of the new language). "Jesus" is a transliteration (first into Latin, then to English) of the Greek word IhsouV, Strong's Concordance # G2424, pronounced "ee – ay – sooce’". That Greek word, in turn, is derived from the Hebrew or Aramaic word Yehowshuwa. That same Hebrew word in the Old Testament was transliterated as "Joshua".

It is most interesting to me that the name of the God of the Old Testament, first mentioned in Exodus 6:2 is, in the way it was written in Hebrew YHWH, since Hebrew does not print the vowels as we do in English. If you write God’s name as it was written in the Old Testament (we would pronounce it Yahweh, or Jehovah) add the Hebrew word we would pronounce yasha (which means "salvation, or "to free") and you get the word Yehowshua.

(From FRONTLINE, "From Jesus to Christ.")

From Jondude:
I think he had a last name. Everyone had a last name then. Since he was Jewish, the name was probably a common Nazareth Jewish name, such as Cohen or Rabin or Levi. It has been lost in the tumult of history. But in the times he lived, he probably would have been known as "Jesus Bar-Joseph," which means Jesus, son of Joseph. It would sound like this: "Yeshua Bar-Yoseph."

As for his occupation? He had an occupation. He was considered a Rabbi, or 'Rebbe.' He studied in the local Yeshiva, the Jewish Schule, or school. He was up to par with Jewish Law. Look at the fit he threw when his parents took him to the Jerusalem Temple as a youngster. He got angry and overturned a couple "moneychangers'" tables in the Temple forecourt. Moneychangers were loan sharks, and Jesus knew the Law prohibited charging interest on loaned money. The Law of Moses prohibits usury. Wherever he went and preached people called him a Rabbi, so he studied to become one.

His paternal parent was a carpenter, but Jesus was not. If he had studied to become one, Jesus would have not gone out to preach. He would have been required to stay in the shop and learn his way through an apprenticeship.

Good thing he didn't want to make furniture!

............

Was Jesus born on December 25? There is no evidence for this date. So then, who decided that Jesus' birth would be celebrated on that date? The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus' birth. It wasn't until A.D. 440 that the church officially proclaimed December 25 as the birth of Christ. This was not based on any religious evidence but on a pagan feast. Saturnalia was a tradition inherited by the Roman pagans from an earlier Babylonian priesthood. December 25 was used as a celebration of the birthday of the sun god. It was observed near the winter solstice.

The apostles in the Bible predicted that some Christians would adopt pagan beliefs to enable them to make their religion more palatable to the pagans around them. Therefore, some scholars think the church chose the date of this pagan celebration to interest them in Christianity. The pagans were already used to celebrating on this date.

The Bible itself tells us that December 25 is an unlikely date for His birth. Palestine is very cold in December. It was much too cold to ask everyone to travel to the city of their fathers to register for taxes. Also the shepherds were in the fields (Luke 2:8-12). Shepherds were not in the fields in the winter time. They are in the fields early in March until early October. This would place Jesus' birth in the spring or early fall. It is also known that Jesus lived for 33.5 years and died at the feast of the Passover, which is at Easter time. He must therefore have been born six months the other side of Easter - making the date around the September/October time frames.

Other evidence that December 25 is the wrong date for the birth of Jesus comes from early writings. Iranaeus, born about a century after Jesus, notes that Jesus was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus. Since Augustus began his reign in the autumn of 43 B.C., this appears to substantiate the birth of Jesus as the autumn of 2 B.C. Eusebius (A.D. 264-340), the "Father of Church History," ascribes it to the 42nd year of the reign of Augustus and the 28th from the subjection of Egypt on the death of Anthony and Cleopatra. The 42nd year of Augustus ran from the autumn of 2 B.C. to the autumn of 1 B.C. The subjugation of Egypt into the Roman Empire occurred in the autumn of 30 B.C. The 28th year extended from the autumn of 3 B.C. to the autumn of 2 B.C. The only date that would meet both of these constraints would be the autumn of 2 B.C.

John the Baptist also helps us determine that December 25 is not the birth of Jesus. Elizabeth, John's mother, was a cousin of Mary. John began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. The minimum age for the ministry was 30. As Augustus died on August 19, A.D. 14, that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 B.C., his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, A.D. 29, or the 15th year of Tiberius. This seems to confirm the 2 B.C. date, and, since John was 5 months older, this also confirms an autumn birth date for Jesus.

Another interesting fact comes from Elizabeth herself. She hid herself for 5 months and then the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary both Elizabeth's condition and that Mary would also bear a son who would be called Jesus. Mary went "with haste" to visit Elizabeth, who was then in the first week of her 6th month, or the 4th week of Dec., 3 B.C. If Jesus was born 280 days later it would place his birth on Sept. 29, 2 B.C. Some scholars interpret the 6 months to be in line with the Hebrew calendar or the August-September time frame. Since Mary's pregnancy commenced a little before the sixth month around July, Jesus would be born somewhere around March-June. But does it matter if Jesus was born on the spring, the fall, or on December 25? Does it matter, theologically, when Jesus was born? What do you think, does it matter what day we celebrate His birth?

.............

From Aviram Oshri, Israeli Archeologist:

The town of Bethlehem in the West Bank, some six miles south of Jerusalem, is revered by millions as the birthplace of Jesus. According to the New Testament account of the apostle Matthew, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem in the southern region of Judea at the time of Jesus' birth and later moved to Nazareth in the northern Galilee region. In the more popular account of the apostle Luke, Joseph and a very pregnant Mary traveled more than 90 miles from their residence in Nazareth to Joseph's Judean hometown of Bethlehem to be counted in a Roman census. Regardless of the variation, both apostles agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, the city where King David had been born a thousand years earlier. The Christian Messiah could thereby be considered a descendant of the House of David--a requirement for followers of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But while Luke and Matthew describe Bethlehem in Judea as the birthplace of Jesus, "Menorah," the vast database of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), describes Bethlehem as an "ancient site" with Iron Age material and the fourth-century Church of the Nativity and associated Byzantine and medieval buildings. But there is a complete absence of information for antiquities from the Herodian period--that is, from the time around the birth of Jesus.

I had never before questioned the assumption that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea. But in the early 1990s, as an archaeologist working for the IAA, I was contracted to perform some salvage excavations around building and infrastructure projects in a small rural community in the Galilee. When I started work, some of the people who lived around the site told me how Jesus was really born there, not in the south. Intrigued, I researched the archaeological evidence for Bethlehem in Judea at the time of Jesus and found nothing. This was very surprising, as Herodian remains should be the first thing one should find. What was even more surprising is what archaeologists had already uncovered and what I was to discover over the next 11 years of excavation at the small rural site--Bethlehem of Galilee.

Aviram Oshri is a senior archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority

.............

The Bible does not affix a definite date to the birth of Christ. It does, however, leave the clues that point to the truth. Since no mention of the birth is made until two hundred years after his death, the early churches set the dates and places of his birth. Many of the dates of celebrations in the early church were made to coincide with pagan traditions and the holy days of Mithraism that were widespread at the time. During their prohibition, early Christians celebrated their feasts and holidays at the same time as the pagan rites, to disguise them so they would avoid persecution.

It doesn't really matter what dates we celebrate. What matters is THAT we celebrate Him.

Merry Christmas, folks.

-jon adams