For centuries, Jesus Christ has been at the centre of Christianity.
His name has become tied with faith and salvation – becoming one of the most influential figures in human history.
However, experts are now saying that ‘Jesus Christ’ might not be the correct name after all.
Scholars believe that the man known as Jesus would have gone by a name in His native language of Aramaic – which sounds nothing like the modern version.
The name ‘Jesus’ didn’t exist in its current form during His lifetime. In fact, it contains letters that didn’t even appear in written language until 1,500 years after His death.
Hulton Archive / Stringer / Getty
Over the years, Jesus’ name went through a process of translation and transliteration, moving from Aramaic to Hebrew, then Greek, Latin, and finally English in the 16th century.
According to Professor Dineke Houtman of the Protestant Theological University in the Netherlands, Jesus’ name would most likely have been Yeshua – or its shorter form, Yeshu.
Jesus, as we would pronounce it with a hard ‘J’, wasn’t a name that existed at the time of Jesus’ life.
Not to mention, Jesus wouldn’t have spoken English so the English-sounding version of His name doesn’t make sense either.
The most obvious reason that Jesus’ name wouldn’t have sounded like the English version of ‘Jesus’ is that He wouldn’t have spoken English.
Professor Houtman said: “His name would probably have been in Aramaic: Yeshua.
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“It is likely that this is also how He introduced himself. Another possibility is the shorter form Yeshu which is the form used in later rabbinic literature.”
Additionally, experts claim Jesus’ last name was not ‘Christ’ – it’s actually a title derived from the Greek word Christos, meaning ‘anointed one.’
Instead, Jesus’ surname would have been more connected to His hometown.
Therefore, Jesus’ likely name would have been Yeshu Nazareen.
The Prince of Peace and His disciples lived in a region of the Roman empire called Judea, which is now modern-day Palestine and Israel. But many scholars believe that Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth, a small town in Galilee.
Prof Houtman, an expert on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity from the Protestant Theological University in the Netherlands, explained: “We cannot know for sure which languages Jesus spoke. However, given His family background in Nazareth, we can assume His day-to-day language was Aramaic.”
Aramaic was the region’s primary language, and evidence from ancient texts shows it was widely spoken among the Jewish population. The language spread over much of the Middle East during the time of Jesus’ life.
Even the early Greek versions of the Gospels preserve certain sayings of Jesus in their original Aramaic.
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Scientist reveals what the ‘H’ in ‘Jesus H. Christ’ actually means
The mysterious middle name has finally been revealed
There’s near endless mystery surrounding the ‘H’ in Jesus Christ’s supposed full name, and one scientist has revealed what is likely the truth behind this mysterious moniker.
Christianity has many mysterious that continue to illuminate both the religious and non-believers alike, but new discoveries can often reveal unlikely revelations, like the understanding that Adam and Eve might just have existed at the same time.
Language, like science, often has unknown origins, and as time develops certain turns of phrase become entrenched in society to the point where nobody really questions it anymore.
That’s certainly the case when people shout out ‘Jesus H. Christ’ like he’s a naughty child that you’re summoning through his full name – but what exactly does the ‘H’ stand for?
Thankfully Dan McClellan, honary fellow at the University of Birmingham and scholar of all things religion and the Bible, might just have the ‘truth’ for us on TikTok, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Unfortunately, as always these things do have a bit of a disappointing answer, as the ‘H’ likely doesn’t actually stand for anything and instead represents a misinterpretation of language formats over time, but the history behind it all certainly makes up for the lack of a reveal.
McClellan reveals that it’s been almost two centuries that people have been referring to Jesus Christ with a ‘H’ slapped in the middle, and it’s likely sourced from the misunderstanding of what’s called a ‘christogram’.
Christograms are monograms or combinations of letters that are meant as abbreviations for Jesus Christ – and one of the most popular that’s still used today is the ‘X’ in xmas, which represents a Latin transliteration of the Greek letter ‘chi’, meaning Jesus, or the cross.
How we get to ‘H’ is a long story though, and it begins with the Latin transliteration ‘IHS’, which represents the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek: Iota, Eta, and Sigma.
The IHS christogram soon turned into JHC with shifts in language over time (AnonMoos)
You can also write ‘Sigma’ with the ‘lunate Sigma’ which looks very close to a C, and alongside this the letter ‘J’ was developed in the 17th Century, allowing ‘Jesus’ to be pronounced in the way we do so now.
What this allowed as a consequence then was the shift from IHS to JHC, and many interpreted the latter as an initialism of Jesus’ full name with the first and last letters obviously relating to Jesus and Christ.
It’s only natural then that ‘H’ stuck around as a somewhat bizarre middle name that isn’t a name at all, but with nearly 200 years of continued use it’s rather hard to convince people that this wasn’t actually meant to be the case in the first place.
Thankfully due to the work of scholars like McClellan you’ll be able to whip this out as a fun fact or party trick next time someone shouts the supposed ‘full’ name, only don’t blame us if you’re accused of ruining the atmosphere.
Featured Image Credit: Dan Mclellan/TikTok / Pascal Deloche/Getty
Joe Rogan left in shock after being shown ‘evidence that Jesus was real’
This isn’t the first time the popular podcaster has discussed religion on his show
Joe Rogan was left stunned on a recent episode of his podcast featuring Wesley Huff.
As one of the loudest podcasters around, Joe Rogan has never been known as the shy and retiring type. With that, he tends to make his feelings clear on everything from the American election to drone theories, the LA wildfires to drugs – he even famously featured Elon Musk smoking cannabis during a 2018 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Rogan has also spoken about religion, and now the self-described agnostic might be having a change of heart.
Discussing all things religion with Christian apologist Wesley Huff, episode #2252 of The Joe Rogan Experience saw the host presented with a replica of Papyrus 52. Christians maintain that it’s one of the oldest manuscripts from the Bible, with it thought to be the oldest excerpt from the Bible’s Gospel of John.
Christian apologist Wesley Huff gave Rogan the gift on The Joe Rogan Experience (Instagram / Wesley Huff)
The passage is said to be an eyewitness testimony from Jesus’ trials in the run-up to his eventual crucifixion.
The front of the replica reads: “Jesus says, everyone who follows the truth, who is following the truth, follows me.”
On the back, there are the words of Pontius Pilate saying, “What is truth?”
Pilate was famously the governor of Rome who sentenced Jesus to death.
Despite only being a small fragment of the larger book, Huff says the full version ‘would have been essentially like a pocket copy of the Gospel of John’ that was carried from Turkey to Egypt. With the original being found in Egypt in the 1940s, historians have determined it’s a Christian manuscript because there’s writing on both sides.
Even though this small piece is only a replica, it clearly affected Rogan, who said: “Wow. That’s unbelievable. Wow. That’s so fascinating.”
Rogan also grilled Huff on whether there are accounts of Jesus not dying on the cross, with the guest explaining: “No, the only ones from the ancient world that deny his resurrection are groups that come on afterwards that sometimes are — sometimes are described as Gnostics, and they’re not necessarily just denying it for the reasons we might think they were.
“They’re denying it because they have incorporated ideas of pagan philosophy, where they believe that the spiritual is good and the physical is bad.”
Rogan has previously described himself as an atheist but has become more spiritual since the death of his grandfather.
As well as subscribing to Christianity’s mantra of loving your enemies and practicing forgiveness, Rogan has said he’s interested in a faith that’s ‘challenging’ instead of easy. He’s talked about religion several times on The Joe Rogan Experience, and in a 2023 episode with journalist Michael Shellenberger, the latter referred to ‘wokeism’ as a religion.
More recently, Rogan spoke to NFL star Aaron Rodgers in a February 2024 episode and said about Christianity’s role in a ‘chaotic’ society. Here, Rogan mused: “I think as time rolls on, people are going to understand the need to have some sort of divine structure to things, some sort of belief in the sanctity of love and of truth, and a lot of that comes from a religion.”
While we don’t think Rogan being gifted Papyrus 52 is suddenly going to have him running to the church every Sunday, it’s seemingly opened his eyes further to the idea that maybe there’s more to this whole religion thing.
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/Wesley Huff / PowerfulJRE/YouTube
Scientists say they might have just proven one of Jesus’ greatest miracles actually happened
They have evidence to back the miracle event up
One of Jesus Christ’s most famous miracles could actually be true, according to scientists.
The Bible tells us about two occasions when Jesus helped fishermen turn their luck around, from unsuccessful fishing attempts to huge catches that fed their communities for weeks.
This miracle was known as the ‘miraculous catch of fish’ and was said to have been performed in Israel’s Lake Kinneret where Jesus preached.
In both accounts of the stories, Jesus and his apostles are struggling to catch anything on the Sea of Galilee and are about to give up when he encourages them to try once more.
After casting their nets, they suddenly haul in a massive load of fish. However, there’s a bit of inconsistency as to when this happened.
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Luke (of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) wrote that this happened early on in Christ’s ministry. Meanwhile, according to John, it happened after He came back from the dead pointing out that specifically 153 fish were caught.
Anyhow, scientists may have found proof of this actually happening.
Researchers from Kinneret Limnological Laboratory have been studying the Sea of Galilee and discovered a layer of colder, oxygen-depleted water.
This is due to an increase in phytoplankton blooms which block out the oxygen and eventually cause the fish to suffocate to death.
When this occurs, you can quickly end up with a lot of dead fish. And of course, it’s then pretty easy to scoop them all up into one massive net.
The researchers found that these ‘fish-kill events’ happen around the same spot on the Sea of Galilee miracle event and their results support the idea that Jesus and his miracles of pulling over a hundred fish from the sea were real.
GraphicaArtis/Contributor / Getty
The researchers wrote in their study published in the journal Water Resources Research: “[Our study] may explain the appearance of large numbers of easy-to-collect fish close to the shore described in the biblical narratives.”
They added that the conditions in the lake at that time might have been similar to what we see today and ‘2,000 years ago (when the biblical miracles took place), Lake Kinneret watershed was densely inhabited by agriculturalists numbering about 200,000, which is similar to the present population in the region.’
However, the findings have raised questions about whether Jesus’ actions were genuine miracles or simply coincided with natural events in the lake, putting the worlds of science and religion back in direct conflict.
Featured Image Credit: Heritage Images/Contributor / GraphicaArtis/Contributor / Getty
Scientists reveal first ever lab-grown eel which looks and tastes like the real thing
It could provide a more sustainable alternative to traditional fish stocks.
Space scientists are busy experimenting with ways to grow vegetables in space, whilst here on Earth, researchers are looking for new ways to replace current food sources.
To add to the collection of meat grown in a lab, scientists have now found a way to grow Japanese eel – or unagi – artificially.
The Japanese delicacy is grown from embryonic cells. In contrast to other lab-grown meat which combines separately produced protein and fat cells into a ‘scaffold’, this particular lab-grown eel can be created without one.
Forsea Foods has successfully grown eel in a lab / Forsea
Israeli start-up Forsea Foods uses pluripotent stem cells to generate ‘organoids’, which are essentially tiny miniaturised 3D tissue structures containing both fat and protein.
The organoids are then left to self-organise into tissues, eliminating the need for a scaffold.
The company recently partnered up with executive chef Katsumi Kusomoto to create two traditional Japanese dishes using lab-grown meat.
With the lab-grown eel, Kusomoto prepared unagi kabayaki (marinated grilled eel over rice) and unagi nigiri (eel sushi).
Roee Nir, CEO and co-founder of Forsea, said that this will ‘provide the consumer with a genuine seafood experience without putting further strain on aquatic life.’
Nir added: ‘Forsea is pioneering the fusion of traditional, high-quality Asian cuisine with groundbreaking technology to create the world’s first cultured unagi.’
Unagi kabayaki and unagi nigiri / Forsea
This is the first time that fish has been created in a lab but sheds light on the potential substitute of the expensive meat within the Japanese market.
Chef Kusomoto said: ‘Unagi is an enduring favourite in Japan, its timeless appeal, however, is impacted by a growing awareness among the Japanese population of the need to take a more sustainable approach.’
The cause for such innovation comes from Japan’s high consumption of eels. In 2000, Japan consumed 160,000 tonnes of eel, however this has since fallen by 80%.
Other factors such as overfishing and habitat destruction have detrimentally impacted the population of wild eels. As of 2018, freshwater eels have been listed as an endangered species by the IUCN Red List.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market, the market prices for a kilo of eel have more than doubled from £12.30 (¥2,300) to £29.68 (¥5,553) between 2010 and 2023.
Restaurant prices meanwhile can reach up to £250 per kilo.
While the eel meet from Forsea Foods is currently a prototype, the company claims its ready to scale its process and could be ready for commercial launch by 2025.
